Page 114 of Nave
That title never failed to make my stomach flip.
I’d had months to wrap my mind around it, but it still felt strange and wonderful.
“I have been practicing,” I agreed, thinking of all the trips to ‘hang out’ at club brothers’ houses who had small kids and babies, so I could get some more experience with them in a practical way, since there was only so much you could learn from books or through the classes Lolly and I had taken together.
“Someday,” Gracie said, giving Lolly a wistful smile as she sat down on the small stage that was overflowing with flowers, “that is going to be me.”
“Absolutely will. But can you imagine how hard the girls will have to work to keep it a secret from your mastermind self?”
“I know, right?” she asked, beaming. “Okay. I’m going to go check on the food. Have fun, Dad.”
There it was again.
The flip.
The feeling ofrightness.
As if sensing the thought, Lolly’s head lifted and her gaze found mine.
Her awe-filled smile had my heart feeling like it was gonna break free of my chest.
“Want a lunchmeat skewer?” Dezi asked, moving in at my side with a plate full of them.
“Did you leave some for anyone else?”
“Got these outta the kitchen. They’re extras. You should see the desserts: cake, cupcakes, macarons, cookies, turnovers, little individual pies. Oh, and donuts. There’s a whole cake made outta donuts.”
“Gracie went all out.”
“I’m gonna hire her.”
“For what? A birthday party?”
“Yeah, that. Or, you know, a random Tuesday night…”
“You’re gonna go broke.”
“Broke? I got me a sugar mama,” he said, proudly. You’d think a rough-and-tough guy like Dezi would be too alpha to be a kept man. But he fucking loved it. “Kinda crazy, huh?”
“Your food spending habits? Yeah.”
“Nah. This. Her. The two of you. Lot of little things had to go an exact way to bring us all here today.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding.
“Guess it was good you were an ingrate who walked away from his old man’s banging cooking to go live on the road and eat shitty gas station food for years, huh?”
“How do you know my dad’s food is banging?”
“Laz? Me and Laz have a dinner date every month.”
“You’re fucking unbelievable,” I said with a laugh.
“My wife is a lucky woman,” he agreed.
“She goes too?”
“Well, I bring her leftovers.”
