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“Whew, buddy. I don’t know if we would have made it out of there without you.”
He nodded seriously. “Good thing I’m Darf Vaber.”
“Yeah, good thing. If you would’ve woken up as Magneto, we might still be trapped.”
Keith gasped wildly, and my chest shook with my restrained laughter. “Mandeeto! Mommy! Ladybugs control metal! Mandeeto is a ladybug!”
I drew in a shocked breath and let my face fall as I glanced warily at the table. “Oh no,” I breathed, and slowly reached toward the spoon that lay forgotten next to his bowl of soupy ice cream. Lifting the spoon, I looked into Keith’s worried eyes, and whispered, “We need to leave before the ladybugs come after us.”
He nodded vigorously, and I hurried to grab cash out of my wallet. As soon as I had it placed within the billfold, I took Keith’s hand and helped him slide out of the booth, then pretended to run out of the restaurant with him.
I didn’t care about the strange looks or laughs from the people inside—this was the best day of my life.
I slowed Keith down when we got into the parking lot, then helped him get into my new car so we could head for Jagger’s.
Yeah, I’d done that too.
After Deacon and his dad had done everything they could to get my car to run for more than a few minutes at a time, I’d let Deacon take me to look at cars earlier that week.
It was a mid-size SUV that had great gas mileage and didn’t make me want to die when I looked at the price. And most of all, Keith loved it and my mechanic had approved.
The only thing that had helped ease my fears through buying it was the knowledge that I didn’t have Jagger or Grey’s cars to rely on anymore. And now that my car was working less and less often, I needed something that was reliable for Keith, and figured the judge would probably have made it a requirement anyway.
He hadn’t asked.
I pulled Keith’s sleeping form out of the car once we got to the warehouse and carried him inside. But I froze when I was unexpectedly bombarded with screams as soon as I set foot in the door.
“Congratulations!”
Keith jerked awake from the unexpected noise, and scrambled out of my arms and toward the group of people standing in the main room of the warehouse.
Heat crept up my neck and into my cheeks as I looked from my brother and his wife to Grey’s parents, and to Knox and Harlow.
The only person not watching me was Jagger, but that didn’t surprise me. With the exception of a few clipped sentences during and after the court hearing, he hadn’t spoken to me once that week. He and Grey had somehow already known about Deacon before they’d gotten back from Seattle, and every time I’d seen them that week, that calm silence that meant Jagger was well and truly pissed off had radiated from him.
“Uh,” I said on a breath, and let my head drop slightly.
Grey walked up to me, and pulled me into a hug. “I didn’t think you’d be here yet.”
“I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be here,” I whispered, then moved so Grey was blocking me from view. The way everyone was still staring at me made me feel lightheaded.
“You are, crazy. I just thought you’d be another twenty minutes or so. Graham and Deacon are still on their way.” Her eyes narrowed on me when she realized what I was doing. “You’d think after working at Mama’s, you’d be a little bit better with attention.”
“That’s different. They look at me for a few seconds, then go back to talking to each other.”
She sighed slowly. “Well, just breathe. After they all tell you they’re happy for you, they’ll talk to each other. Okay?” She stepped away from me, then turned to push me forward.
I accepted hugs from Harlow and Knox, and tried not to show how uncomfortable I was with everyone else in the room still watching me as we talked.
Mrs. LaRue stepped up to hug me from behind, and said, “This is such a special day, honey. We’re so happy for you. It’s been a long time coming.”
I looked over my shoulder and sent her a shaky smile, and opened my mouth to thank her, but was cut off by Jagger.
“Probably would’ve been even longer if the judge had asked about your current relationship.”
My gaze snapped over to him in time to see him take a long swig of his beer. My brow furrowed. “What?”
“Jagger,” Grey hissed.
