Page 129 of Making Choices

Old timers, old ladies, and their kids.

My family is here.

All the ones that count…

Bar Zeke.

“I want this haircut.” Hunter hands me the picture of a bleach-blond Andy Black that he showed me months ago. “Not goin’ to freak out. Not goin’ to blame you if I hate it. But I need a change and you’re not gonna talk me outta it.”

“All right, kiddo.” I lightly squeeze his bicep as I repeat Slash’s favourite motto, “Your wish, my command.”

As I cut Hunter’s hair short, my attention flits from the man in front of me to all the people milling around us. Time after time, someone drops close to tease me and Hunter. Slash brings me a coffee. He pats my butt when I give him a one-armed side hug. The happiness in his expression at having everyone at his house dims when he sees the haircut that I’ve given his brother.

“Sometimes change is good,” I murmur.

“Sometimes it’s a silent rebuke.”

“Doubt that’s what’s going on here.”

Slash shoots me a mournful look, then dashes away from us to stop Delia’s eldest daughter from pushing a chair up to the pool fence. Toker beats him there, scooping up the four-year-old and swinging her around. She squeals, then bursts into laughter when he blows a raspberry on her belly. The domesticity of the scene hits me, straight in the gut, then in the heart. Where the Shamrocks compound was once our gathering place, my father’s disloyalty has destroyed that safe space. The house I shared with Zeke was usually our back-up hangout, but that’s been ruined as well.

Yet, as I look around Slash’s house, my temporary home, I can’t help but smile wider.

As much as I miss Zeke and the life we built on the foundation of our love, the new existence everyone’s helping me create in his absence isn’t all bad.

In fact, I’d venture as far as to say that it’s damn good.

A rainbow after the storm.

Of course, as quickly as that happy thought dawns, it’s darkened by a raincloud.

Bebe steps out of the house and onto the patio.

The look on her face tells me that she’s not quite as excited by the crowd as I am. If she was a hedgehog, her spines would be visibly bristled. Clad in one of her designer outfits, she sets herself apart from the casually dressed Shamrocks. Her greeting in response to Crystal’s is stilted, and she seems to deliberately ignore Slash when he tries to coax her inside.

But it’s the narrow-eyed glare she shoots my way that really dulls my fleeting happiness.

Her green-eyed gaze drops from my face to my bare legs.

Since Slash is a giant, and I slept in my bra and panties, I never bothered to change when everyone arrived. I’m more covered now than I was in the clothes I wore to the club last night, and the smell of Slash’s cologne on his t-shirt is comforting. With Nadia running around in a string bikini, Delia wearing a one-piece swimsuit, and the other old ladies dressed somewhere in between, I figured I was fine like I was. Only now, seeing the look on Bebe’s face, I can’t help but worry that I’ve done something inappropriate.

In her eyes, at least.

No one else has batted an eyelid.

As much as she was a Godsend during the miscarriage, and again when I needed the D&C, Bebe’s always been rather hot and cold with me. I don’t want to wreck Slash’s second chance at love, however, I’d be lying if I said that I thought Bebe was good enough for him.

Beatrice Du Bois seems vaguely judgemental of our way of life.

Slash deserves someone steadfast.

Someone who accepts him just as he is.

Someone who loves him as much as I do…

My stomach does the weird squirmy thing again.

Nausea slams into me.

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