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I felt my stomach fall.
“I was told that the lightning zapped all my eggs. Hell, I don’t even have periods like normal people,” I told him.
Zee squeezed my waist as Liner shrugged. “You’re with the wrong man, then. We’d have been perfect together.”
Zee bared his teeth at Liner. “Who have you been texting all day every day?”
Liner’s eyes went distant. “A man that’s good at finding people.”
My eyes narrowed. “Who are you wanting to find?”
I had a feeling I knew who, and I wasn’t sure that it was a good idea.
“I’ll let you know when I find her,” he said.
I hoped that he didn’t. If it was the woman I was thinking about, she only brought pain and heartache with her.
I’d heard stories of her through Zee.
And Liner, though he may seem like a hard ass on the outside, definitely had a soft middle.
Which was why he was with Rome in the first place, because he knew that Rome might need support when it came to getting a tattoo that memorialized his dead son. As for why he was with us and not riding back with Rome, I had no clue. But I planned to ask Zee the first chance I got.
“They’re taking pictures,” Liner said suddenly.
I looked up to see my mother taking pictures, stretched clear across the diner table with her phone pressed up against the glass.
“I don’t even know what to say to that,” I admitted. “I think we should turn around and head home, though. That seems the best course of action.”
As if my mother sensed my thoughts, though, she pointed at me with one beautifully manicured finger and mouthed, “Get in here!”
Zee chuckled and pushed me forward by bumping my hips with his. “Go, before she comes out here and really makes a scene.”
I did, dragging my feet the whole way.
“The last time we were here together was with Eitan and Annmarie,” I told him as we finally got to the entrance. “They’re sitting at the booth that has our pictures on it.”
“Maybe they remodeled since we were here last,” Zee said, sounding hopeful.
They hadn’t. I could tell that the moment we walked into Lucian’s Diner.
It was the same wood-paneled wall. The same black and white checkered tile floor. The same weird wooden booths that were made more for one and a half people rather than two.
Oh, and the walls were still decorated exactly how we’d left them.
Lucian was one of the Dixie Wardens Arkansas Chapter. He’d allowed the club kids to decorate, and Annmarie and I had decorated the booth that my mother and Carrie were sitting in.
Annmarie and I had been fourteen at the time, and you could tell based on how we’d decorated.
But, admittedly, it was one of the better ones and could be worse.
My mother squealed and peeled herself out of the booth, barely waiting for Carrie to get out before she followed suit.
The moment I got close enough, Zee let my hip go and skirted around my mother for his.
My mom hit me like a freight train, her arms going around me and squeezing me so hard that all the breath left my lungs.
Over my mother’s shoulder, I watched as Zee pulled his own mother in and wrapped her up in his muscular arms.
“Your dad called and told me about you and Zee, but I wouldn’t believe him until I saw him start to steady you before you fell on your cute little butt,” she whispered frantically. “When did this happen?”
I thought about lying but decided better of it. What would be the point?
My mother had always known when I was lying, and the outcome of my choices always ended up biting me in the ass.
“A few weeks,” I shrugged. “Since the night.”
Understanding dawned on her face. “Oh.”
She knew the night I was talking about. She also smirked her ass off.
“So how drunk were y’all?”
I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t so drunk that I wasn’t able to remember some stuff, but Zee heard the question and said, “Drunk enough for us to do shit that we never would’ve done sober.”
That was the truth.
Hell.
He was so right.
I never would’ve gone near him that first time had I been in my right mind.
Carrie let her son go and walked toward me, wrapping me up in her arms just as my mom had done only moments before.
“It’s so good to see you, baby,” she whispered.
My mother and Carrie had been best friends since before time. They’d actually been the ones to introduce Gordon and my father.
Now they were all best friends, married, and had kids that’d been together, too.
But I was sure that they hadn’t seen Zee and me coming.
Hell, I hadn’t either.
“Let’s sit.” Carrie squeezed my hand. “I’m starving.”
“When I called earlier, you’d just eaten,” Zee said, gesturing for his mother to sit down in her previous spot.
