Page 64 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

She’d just rounded the corner that would lead her to me when one girl reached for her.

Almost on autopilot, I reached down and plucked Merriam right off the floor, over the barrier, and into my arms.

She gasped, threw her arms around my shoulders, and buried her face into my neck.

I had a hundred and twenty pounds of sexy, sweaty woman in my arms.

Literally, that’s all she weighed.

And she was about to get clobbered by Eliska.

“Control yourself, darling sister,” Bryson drawled.

I chuckled. “Yeah, Eliska. Control yourself.”

“Put her back down here,” she urged, voice strained.

“Please don’t,” Merriam begged. “Just hold on to me forever, ’kay?”

As if I would ever let her go.

She’d have to beg me to before I scrounged up the nerve to loosen a single finger.

“Nope,” I denied. “She’s mine now.”

“Listen, Dixon,” she growled. “This is a game. Just put her down here and we’ll be all friendly.”

“I don’t believe you,” I countered. “Kind of like when we were in eighth grade, and you told me to try your chips. When I did, you had put one of those world hottest pepper chips in there. And I started to cry in the middle of lunch, and you told me that I was being a pussy.”

“You were,” she defended herself.

“I was allergic to habanero!” I countered.

“I didn’t know that at the time.” She shrugged.

“You knew that he was allergic to peppers,” Bryson disagreed.

“This is an old argument,” she grumbled. “Put her down.”

“I quit!” the wild-haired girl declared. “I’m a weak little weenie, and I want nothing to do with roller derby. You can have my best friend, though.”

“I think that’s okay.” Gisela skated up. “I like skating, but I don’t like being chased after with the intent of being pushed down. My knees are delicate. I only get down on them for a man that I really like.”

Bryson’s attention focused solely on her. “Yeah?”

Gisela turned her attention to Bryson. “How do you feel about dinner?”

“What kind of dinner?” Bryson wondered.

“The kind that involves wings of some sort. They’re…”

“Mia’s favorite,” Bryson finished at the same time the best friend said, “Merriam’s favorite.”

“Oh, boy.” Eliska rolled her eyes. “Now we’d done it.”

I looked down at the woman in my arms and said, “You like wings?”

“Love them,” she admitted. “But only the really sweet ones. I can’t do heat at all.”

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