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“The dinner. The wedding. The whole damn thing.”
A low laugh rumbled from him. “Don’t tell me you suddenly hate Harlow again?”
I slid my gaze over to him and narrowed my eyes. “No. But her older sister sure as hell hates me, and I have to be paired with her.”
We’d just finished the rehearsal for Knox and Harlow’s wedding, and it was the second time I’d ever seen her sisters. I was also hoping it could be the last. But seeing as Graham was walking her younger sister down the aisle, and I was walking with the older one, and we were about to head over to the rehearsal dinner, I knew I still had at least another day with them.
Graham’s face went blank for a second before he smacked my arm. “You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Dude, she’s married and has kids!”
My face pinched. “No. Hell no. I’m not about to have some guy coming after me for trying to sleep with his wife, and no way in hell would I touch a chick with kids. But I flinched away from one of her kids when they came running over to her, and she got pissed.”
Graham smirked. “Yeah . . . what’d you say to make her get pissed, though?”
He knew me too well.
I turned on my car and pulled out of the parking spot before I gave a slow shrug. “I don’t know, something about kids and Satan and maybe connecting the two.”
Another laugh, this one louder. “I’m putting money on it right now. Hundred bucks you’ll be the first of us to have kids.”
A sickening feeling filled my stomach, causing it to churn. “Fuck that. The day I get married is the day I see the doctor about making sure that shit isn’t possible.”
“A thousand,” Graham amended. “Thousand dollars.”
“Done. I will enjoy taking your money when Harlow pops one out.”
It wasn’t as though I had an aversion to humans under the age of ten, I just . . . okay, I had an aversion to them. A strong one.
They had imaginary friends, which weirded the shit out of me. They never shut up. Constant babble about any- and everything, as long as it didn’t make sense. They smelled. They were always covered in food. They sneezed on you. And they pooped on themselves and other people . . . including unsuspecting teenage mechanics holding them while their mom searched for her wallet.
No baby should be able to produce so much shit that it comes out of their clothes. It isn’t natural. Almost a decade later, and I still had nightmares about it.
Anyone who wanted kids was out of their damn mind.
We pulled up to Jagger and Grey’s warehouse—since it had a big-en
ough space for all of us—just after Harlow’s older sister and her family did. The glare she sent toward my car was enough to make me want to ditch the dinner.
“Do you think we could ask Harlow if we could switch sisters?”
Graham sighed as he opened the door to step out of my car. “If it makes you more comfortable . . . then no.”
“Asshole,” I mumbled under my breath as I stepped out, and pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the lock screen.
Something like disappointment settled in my stomach when there was nothing new, and I sighed through my nose as I put my phone away. My mind was already away from Harlow’s terrifying sister, and back at Mama’s Café. My thoughts on nothing but a journal full of words people just didn’t say out loud . . .
My next step faltered when I looked up and caught Graham watching me.
“What are you doing?”
I let my eyes dart around us, then said in an unsure tone, “Walking . . .”
“You checked your phone every three minutes during the rehearsal, and twice while we were driving. I know what phone that is, Deac. Can’t you keep it in your pants for a couple nights, for Knox?”
A disbelieving huff burst from my chest. “A couple nights? I haven’t gotten laid in—” I cut off quickly, and tried to think back to when the last time had been. “It’s been almost a week.”
