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“Now congratulate us.”
Up and out of their seats, the whole room jumped into motion, their hoots and hollers surely heard all the way down the hall.
Quinn scooped Lexi out of the way of the advancing men and settled her on his shoulders as the weight of the team converged around me and her mother.
Wrapped in the arms of everything I’d created on my own, I pulled Winnie close and kissed her lips as I pictured everything we’d be able to do together.
My thigh tingled as Wes kneaded the flesh underneath my freshly placed napkin, and I studied the green lean of tonight’s perfect hazel eyes. They favored blue when he wore white, black, and steely blue-grays, but tonight’s light plumy purple made each green note scream. I smiled as the completely ridiculous notion that his changing eyes meant I had the next best thing to a vampire a woman could get whispered through my mind.
He certainly has the suction going for him.
“Awww, look at all of the happy couples,” Dean greeted as he walked toward our table, pulling all of our moony eyes away from our significant others. At least, I assumed the others were deeply ensconced in the depths of PDA too. They sure as hell hadn’t been trying to talk to us, anyway.
All six of us were dressed up and sitting together at the fine dining restaurant inside Atlantis for a group dinner—without kids—to celebrate our last night in the Bahamas. A good-bye dinner of sorts.
Dean’s arms were locked with two extremely tall and attractive men who seemed oddly content at just being at his side. Given the heavy starch content in his freshly pressed dress shirt and the blind devotion of his two random minions, I was starting to wonder if Dean delved into some Dom/sub kind of scenarios on the down low.
“Oh, look who it is,” Georgia singsonged with a smile. “I completely forgot that you were even on this trip with us. I’m guessing you’ve been pretty busy with things?”
She took the words right from my mind like some kind of brain-sucking zombie. I could literally count on two fingers the number of times I’d seen Dean on this trip, and the first time was on the plane ride down.
“He looks like he’s been more than busy,” Cassie chimed in. “I’d say he’s been stuffed full of activities since he stepped off the plane.”
“Oh no, honey,” Dean declared. “I do the stuffing.”
“You’re a top?”
Dean winked. “Something like that.”
“I knew that already,” Georgia gloated coquettishly, and Kline shook his head.
Cassie let out a low whistle. “Well, hot damn—”
“You want to join us for dinner tonight?” I interrupted in hopes that we’d veer the topic of discussion before it got out of hand. I could tell by the look in Cassie’s eyes that she was ready to take us straight to the dirty stuff.
Dean grinned. “See? I knew you would eventually take Georgia’s place as my favorite girl.”
“Hey!” Georgia exclaimed. “I take offense to that.”
“Good.”
“You should feel really bad, you know,” Georgia added. “Being mean to a pregnant lady like that. I’m in a delicate state. You should be—”
“Hold the phone.” Dean held up a hand. “Pregnant?” He looked at Kline. “You fertilized her egg? Found her a roommate? Put a bun in her oven?”
“I did,” Kline answered with a proud smile as the rest of us laughed. He wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and tucked her close to his side, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her forehead.
Dean’s eyes found Georgia’s, and his voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. “My little girl is all knocked up?”
Georgia’s face lit up. “I am.”
“Oh my God!” Dean exclaimed and quickly left his two friends to walk around the table and pull Georgia away from her husband and into his arms. “I’m so happy for you, sweetie,” he said quietly as he hugged her tight. “So fucking happy for you. Congratulations.”
Georgia’s face beamed. “Thank you.”
He let her go and helped her back into her seat. “When we get back to New York, we are going baby crazy. I demand it. But, fucking hell, it better be a girl. I need crimson lips and plastic kitten heels. Not goddamn hooded sweatshirts.”
“Deal,” she agreed as Thatch objected to even a hint of derision toward the sex of his child.
“Hey!” he contested. “Boys are just as good as girls.”
Cassie put a hand to his lips and told it like it was. “Sorry, honey. He’s right. Boy clothes are shit.”
Dean inclined his head as if to say, “See?” I laughed deep in my throat, and Dean’s eyes came back to me. “Okay, never mind, Win. Georgia is still my best girl.”
My waning laugh waxed again as I waved my hand in the air. My left hand. “Whatever, diva. I see how it is.”
He tilted his head to the side, eyes alert and zooming in farther and farther by the second.
Playful to high-pitched, his voice transformed in an instant. “What is that?”
“What is what?” I feigned confusion, but I pulled my hand to my chest rather than concealing it in my lap.
He put a hand to his hip and tapped a Prada toe. “That giant glittery pretty rock sitting on your left ring finger is what, Wedded Deceiver.”
I held my hand in the air again and wiggled my fingers. “Oh, you mean this?”
He laughed. “Um…Fuck yes, I mean that.”
“Well…” I looked at Wes and smiled, but I was no match for my husband’s excitement.
“We got married,” the thunder stealer remarked easily.
“Wait a minute…I was thinking fucking engaged. You’re already married?”
“Yeah,” Wes responded, but his eyes were still on mine.
“Jesus Christ, you heteros move motherfucking fast.”
Wes chuckled and winked right at me. “The second she said yes I didn’t want to give her any time to rethink her decision.”
“Planning on fucking up soon?” Dean teased. “Trapping her into marriage beforehand?”
I grinned, and my husband pulled my left hand into both of his and lifted it toward his mouth to softly kiss the finger that held the symbol of our forever commitment.
“God, there is almost too much love occurring at this table right now,” Dean grumbled and pretended to gag. “Hurry up, Cass. Do something crazy before this starts to go to my head. At this rate, I might wake up tomorrow morning pregnant with Elton John’s baby or something.”
“Pretty sure you’d need a pussy to accomplish that,” Cassie retorted. “And Elton John.”
“He’s in the room,” Dean retorted immediately.
When we all stared, he burst out laughing.
“Not really. Jesus. Look at all of you.”
“He’s your ultimate?”
“Um…of course, he’s my ultimate,” Dean responded with attitude. “Have you heard ‘Tiny Dancer’? ‘Your Song’? Believe me, that man is my dreamboat. He’ll know it one day too.”
Wes pretended to cough. “I hear Thatch gives lessons on stalking.”
Thatch flipped him off.
“What about them?” Georgia asked, pointing to the two men Dean had strolled up with, who were now just waiting patiently for him outside the restaurant.
“Oh, them? They’re just my fuck buddies. Current fuck buddies. They’re working at about seventy-five percent, compared to what I’m calling the Love Boat Rendezvous,” he answered without a second thought. “You don’t marry those kind of men. You fuck them. You let them suck—”
Georgia held up a hand. “Yeah. Okay. We get it.”
Dean smirked. “Speaking of sucking, I’m going to leave you guys to enjoy your last dinner in the Bahamas and your lovey-dovey bubble of marriage and babies and dreamy sighs and swoony eyes.”
“And what are you going to do?” Georgia asked naïvely, and Cassie snorted in laughter.
“What do you think he’s going to do, Wheorgie?”
Georgia’s eyes went wide. “Oh, never mind. Keep the details to yourself and wear a condom.”
“Or condoms,” Cassie added kindly.
Dean pointed to her and winked. “I like where your head’s at, crazy girl.”
“Are you flying home with us tomorrow morning?” Kline asked, always on top of the logistics. The rest of us could be blind from pornographic exposure, and Kline would still have the awareness to make sure the actors were getting paid enough.
“Yep,” Dean answered. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow morning, bright and early.” He moved around the table giving everyone hugs—and probably lingering a little too long with Thatch and Wes. Although, Thatch just grinned and took it all in his normal stride, wrapping his arms around Dean and hugging him so tightly his feet left the floor.
“I love you too, sweetheart,” Thatch whispered. Cassie laughed and Dean swooned, popping up on his toes to put his lips to Thatch’s bearded cheek.
I watched him weave through the crowd and out the door, winking and waving at other patrons as he went, even though they clearly had not one fucking clue who he was. Once he was out of sight, we gave the waitress our drink orders and relaxed into comfortable conversation about the trip and Georgia’s pregnancy and the fact that Cassie thought Wes and I should have a wedding reception when we got back to New York.
