AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What are you having, Harrison?” Sera asked her husband.
“Steak,” Harrison said without much looking through the menu.
“I’m going to have the pot roast. What about you, Lucy?” Sera turned to her stepdaughter.
“The special,” Lucy said, not looking at the menu at all.
“Lucy always gets the special,” Harrison said to Leo. It seemed odd that as her fiancé, he didn’t know that, but sadly, he hadn’t taken her out very much, and never as anything but an employee. But she had ordered the special then also.
“Not always, Harrison,” Lucy argued with him.
“Harrison, leave Lucy alone. So, the wedding’s in two days. Are you nervous, Leo?” Sera turned to him.
“Not at all. Maybe when the time is closer,” Leo admitted. He had no second thoughts about marrying Lucy. It was still exactly what he wanted, and it was getting better all the time.
“Lucy, how about you?” Sera turned to her.
“I don’t know, maybe. I’ve never been married before, so it is all new to me.” She was spinning her ring on her finger.
“Isn’t the first one always the practice one?” Harrison laughed at his own joke, but the women did not. They just glared at him. “Hey, except Lucy, we have all been married before.”
“Not funny, Harrison Dean.” Sera frowned.
“I’m betting Harrison’s second marriage is about over.” Lucy was unable to hide her smirk as she said it.
“This one is not over, Lucy Maud!” Sera was the one who took offense at her words.
Just then, the waiter came up to take their orders, but the women could only glare at each other. Without looking, Leo ordered the special as well. As the waiter walked away, Leo assumed the argument would continue.
He tried to defuse the fight. “So, what’s the craziest thing Lucy has done?”
“Lucy?” Sera looked at him and laughed. “Lucy’s done it all.”
“Thank you, Mom,” Lucy said sarcastically, taking a drink of her water.
“But you have, Lucy! The first time I met her, she had Buzz by the ankles and was dangling her from the railing at the house. Buzz was ten, and Lucy was fourteen, and they were, of course, fighting over something.”
“That was Mabel. We just told you the wrong names that day. I was the one who was going to catch her if she fell.” Lucy grinned. “Or not.”
“Within a week, Lucy had been suspended from school for showing all the third-graders how to sneak onto the roof of the school and handing out cigarettes. And I was nineteen, dealing with that.” Sera laughed.
“That did not happen! It was a few sixth-graders, and they were already smoking by then. I was just showing them a place to do it,” Lucy defended herself with a smirk.
“You used to smoke in the house all the time like I wouldn’t notice! It took years to get that smell out of your room. That’s why Maby moved out of the room you shared.”
“Ha! Maby smoked too. She moved out because I kept bringing Kyle Reed home after school,” Lucy said, laughing. Then her face turned red as she stopped suddenly and looked at him. “To do homework.”
Watching her finally relax, Leo leaned back in his chair and was surprised she was still nervously tapping her fingers on the table, even when she was relaxed and talking to her mom.
“Homework. I wish you had done homework. All of you little heathens. Fourteen!” Sera ignored her daughter’s embarrassment.
“Don’t go all innocent on me, Seraphina! You were knocked up when you married Dad,” Lucy said with a smirk at Harrison.
Sera folded her arms. “I was not fourteen.”
“Nor was I,” Lucy said and laughed at her mother’s mouth dropping.
“At least it didn’t happen on my watch.” Sera rubbed her eyes, probably seeing the preteen Lucy had once been.
