Page 417 of Bride of Choice

“What if that was the baby’s second name?” I haggled.

“Buu like that,” Buu agreed.

Odix beamed, happy to have a hand in naming our little one.

“Where Rek name in baby name?” King of the center of his own universe grumbled. “Where my Jojomine name in there?”

“You want to name our daughter Rek jr?” I spluttered, incredulous.

Rek made a face at me. “No, but Jojo cousin gets name in baby’s name, Rek wants Jojomine name or Rek’s name in baby’s first name.”

“Anie. Ah-knee,” Celuk rumbled out softly. Glancing between all parties, he shrugged. “Like our Jo name, Jo-knee, but baby’s own. Easy say. Anie Keh-Ro.”

“Easy say,” Jeh-kal agreed.

“Anie,” I murmured thoughtfully. “I like it.”

“Next one, Rek help name,” Rek muttered, which in Rek speak meant he liked the name too much to argue to have a say. Leaning into him, I pecked a kiss to his cheek and then laid my head on his shoulder.

“Who is Annie?” Dace blurted out of the blue, cutting in on our cute family moment.

“Baby,” Buu patiently reminded her.

“Your baby,” she said with a nod.

“Our baby Rek make with my Jojomine,” Rek grumbled as he nuzzled me right back and wrapped an arm around me.

The Huh? look on Dace’s face, utter confusion, was followed by a frown close to a scowl. Mouthing what Rek had just told her, mulling it over, she finally nodded, but she looked anything but sure of what he’d meant. “The baby is still yours?” She leaned in to ask Buu softly.

Buu nodded. “Buu bebeh, too. Rek make but bebeh Buu’s too, jes.”

Another nod from Dace, who’d started wringing her hands anxiously. “This is all so confusing,” Dace confided to Buu in an overloud whisper.

“It ‘kay.” Buu reached out and gave her back a comforting pat.

Dace looked anything but comforted as she stared down into her untouched tea.

I had a funny feeling about her I couldn’t quite shake, but what could I do? She struck me as a runner but she had to have some can’t quit in her if she’d been living in a cave all this time, right? Whatever her deal may be, we were kinda stuck with her for the indefinite future.

Celuk followed my frowning gaze, scowling along with me as he eyed Dace.

It was hard to try and picture her in a villain’s role, but I knew all too well anyone could play the villain or the hero in a scenario, and then alternately swap sides if they so choose—it was all about choices.

Not wanting her to feel like eyes were all on her and get nervous realizing it’s the head honcho of this pad glowering over at her, I quickly glanced away in the hopes Celuk did the same.

Call it a silly hunch, but I just couldn’t shake the funky juju vibes with that one. I had an odd kinda sense about Dace. My Spidey sense were-a-tinglin’.

Chapter 51

The sound of a fist pounding on the door jerked me out of the happy stupor I was in, snuggled between Buu and Gopher as they swapped stories about their big family groupings and Rek heckled Odix about the way he was putting a huge pot of stew on the fire.

Dace had taken my suggestion of making use of the bathroom, get her soak on. The woman needed more zen in her life and less squeak-panicking.

Jeh-kal couldn’t even so much as look her way and she was scrambling to hide behind something with a garbled mishmash of jibberish leaving her.

Speaking of, Big Business sat at the kitchen table with Monster Bait, sharpening and cleaning all of their sharp, pointy things, idly chattering in their native tongue over said sharp and pointy things and killing shit or whatever they were yammering on about, like two besties in the making.

Considering they both were known to keep strictly to themselves for so long in crazy stretches, I thought it was kinda fucking awesome they’d found each other. Two peas in a sharp-pointy-things-wielding pod.

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