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g beside me and angling herself toward the woman.
She covered my hand with one of hers and put on a smile. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Grueller. I’m going to leave my number with you, and I want you to call me once you know how much it will be to either dry-clean or replace your blouse. We’ll be more than happy to take care of it. I’ve got a jacket out in my truck that I’ll run and get so you can wear that if you like. We’re close to the same size, I’m sure.”
The woman’s face softened in the space of a few words from Josie, ending up almost peaceful by the end of her apology. Josie was just standing when Mrs. Grueller shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, hon. I’ve got six kids under ten years old. I wouldn’t know what to do if I made it through a meal without winding up with a stain or two on my shirt.” She smiled at Josie before patting her hand. “Say hi to your mom for me, would you?”
“Of course. And make sure you swing by soon before all the raspberries are gone. Lord only knows how many PB & J sandwiches you go through with this brood.” Josie waved at a few of the kids.
“I’ll do that. Raspberry jam does, after all, make quite the impressive stain.” After sharing a laugh, Josie and Mrs. Grueller said good-bye. She even said a friendly enough good-bye to me as I passed by.
“See the benefits of having more friends than enemies?” Josie whispered in my ear with, from the sound of it, a victorious smile.
“People who freeload off your raspberry bushes to feed their gaggle of offspring?”
She was in the middle of a sigh when I threw my arm around her neck and drew her face close to mine. Whatever anger had sprung up back in the parking lot seemed to be gone, and she was back to her usual feisty, fun self. One of the great things about Joze was her ability to rip through emotions like a kid on Christmas morning. She let herself feel what she needed to then moved on.
“I’m sorry about what happened in the parking lot,” I said as we headed to our table. It had only taken me twenty minutes . . . “Do you forgive me?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Smiling at me, a glint of mischief lit up her eyes right before she all but leapt into my lap.
A rush of air burst from my lungs at the impact, but I recovered quickly. She wound her arms around my neck and situated herself in my lap so she was perpendicular to me. I wrapped one arm around her waist and used the other to push us to the table.
The restaurant might have been staring at me before, but now they were really staring. As if me being paralyzed weren’t bad enough, it was unequivocally worse that a beautiful, healthy, fully-functioning woman would want to sit on my lap and look at me with almost worshipful eyes. From how I gauged most people’s stares, Josie’s faithfulness to me was the most tragic part of the whole thing.
They made me want to raise both middle fingers at the entire restaurant, but I’d given the spectators enough attention already. They didn’t deserve my attention—Josie did. I was giving her the rest of it for the night.
“Do you guys, like, get off on making some big public scene or something?” Rowen’s nose was curled as we wheeled up to the table.
A chair had been removed from one of the spots, which I guessed was designated for me.
Josie blinked across the table at her. “Don’t you guys?” Then, without any warning or indication, she twisted in my lap, straddling me as she had in the truck, and dropped her mouth to mine while she slid off my hat and tangled her fingers in my hair.
“Fuck, Joze,” I breathed, nipping at her lower lip as she continued to kiss me in a way that wasn’t exactly PG-family-rated.
When her tongue slipped past my teeth, tying with mine, a chorus of groans and comments circled around the table . . . and, from the sounds of it, the restaurant too. From the Masons’ table behind us, someone hollered something about getting a room, followed by a comment about getting her pregnant kissing like that. From the other side of the room, where I guessed Jesse’s table of friends was, hoots and cheers broke out, the clink of beer bottles interspersed.
From across the table, another trademark sign of the disgruntled sort came from Rowen. “Enough with your overactive libidos already. Don’t make me anymore nauseous than I already am.”
When Josie’s and my mouths stayed connected, her tongue still doing things to mine that made me wish I’d taken her up on her offer out in the truck, something smacked me on the side of the forehead.
“Down, boy,” Rowen said, reaching for another piece of bread to lob at me in the event Josie and I either couldn’t or wouldn’t separate. Beside her, Jesse shifted in his seat as if he’d just witnessed his grandmother naked on a freezing cold day. “I came here to eat and catch up with you guys, not be brought dangerously close to emptying the contents of my stomach in my lap.”
Josie settled a final kiss on my mouth before replacing my hat and sliding off of my lap. “Whatever, don’t deny that just got you all hot and bothered and practically panting for Jesse to take you to bed tonight.” As Josie slid into her chair beside me, she winked at Jess. “You can thank me later.”
Jesse turned an impressive shade of red and buried himself farther in his menu.
“You’re right. I cannot wait to crawl into bed tonight,” Rowen replied. “To sleep or hibernate or slip into a coma or whatever it takes so I can make it through a day without feeling like I’ve got mono.” With a yawn, she settled her head against Jesse’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her.
Josie bounced her eyebrows at them. “Stop keeping her up all night, Jesse. We women might seem invincible, but even we need the reprieve of sleep every once in a while.”
Jesse motioned at Rowen halfway asleep on him, her eyes more drifted close than open. “This isn’t my fault. We haven’t even—”
“Oh yes, it’s your fault,” Rowen interjected, giving him a pointed look but keeping her head on his shoulder. “Nice try there, cowboy.”
Jesse’s face was still a little red, but it went a shade redder after that. I leaned forward, inspecting the two of them carefully. Josie mirrored me.
“What the hell is going on with you two?” I asked, summing up all the questions rolling around in my head.
Rowen shook her head and tried to stifle the next yawn. “Uh-uh. We’re here to talk about how you’re doing and how your life’s been, not talk about us.”
