Page 29 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

“We really should,” Sophia agrees immediately.

She looks at me across the table. “Maddox.”

“I know.”

“Don’t let her get into anything too wild.”

“I’ll take good care of her.”

Harper makes a sound beside me. “I’m right here.”

“We know,” Sophia and I say at the same time.

Harper looks between us like she’s deciding if it’s worth the energy. She decides it isn’t.

The three of them get up. Sophia hugs Harper across the table and says something in her ear that makes Harper close her eyes briefly like she’s asking for patience. Lorenzo shakes my hand. Raphael stands and looks at Harper.

“I can walk you back,” he offers.

“I’m going to stay for a bit.” No hesitation. No apology in it.

Raphael nods and takes it clean and says goodnight and follows Lorenzo and Sophia toward the door. Sophia turns back once and points at me with two fingers, both eyes. I raise my glass. She leaves.

The booth goes quiet.

“Raphael looked devastated,” I say.

“Raphael looked fine.”

“Harper.”

She laughs low and tips the last of the bottle into her glass. “Okay. Maybe a little devastated.”

Asher comes through from the kitchen about twenty minutes later, chef coat sleeves rolled up, the particular energy of a man who has been on his feet since six a.m. and just reached the finish line. He spots us and crosses over and drops into the seat across from us.

“Good celebration?” he asks Harper.

“Very. Sophia outdid herself.”

“She always does.” He pours from the bottle, finds it empty, signals the bar for another. “How are you finding the event side of things?”

“Good. Mallory is incredible. I’ve been making notes on where I think there’s room to expand the programming.”

“You tightened the service path on the Saturday run-of-show.”

“The bottleneck was going to cause problems during the board changeover.”

“I know. I’ve been looking at it for two weeks.” A beat. “You caught it on day one.”

Harper shrugs, but she’s pleased.

A new bottle arrives. The restaurant has gone mostly quiet around us, tables emptying, staff moving slow toward close.

“I met Evelyn today,” Harper says.

I exhale through my nose. “And you survived. You’re tougher than you look.”

“She’s not that bad,” Asher says.