Page 306 of Romeo

Mama finally released my face and smoothed both palms over my cheeks as though she hadn’t just tried to remove them. The irritation in her expression softened when she looked at me properly.

“You’re sure?”

There it was.

Under the garment bags and flowers and priest she had apparently kidnapped from his daily routine, she was still my mama.

I glanced toward the stairs.

“Been sure since the first time I saw her.”

Mama’s eyes closed briefly.

When they opened again, there was something shining in them that made me wish she’d go back to pinching me.

“That damn curse.”

“I know.”

“You laughed at it your whole life.”

“I know.”

“Your daddy used to tell me you’d eat every one of those jokes when your turn came.”

That sounded exactly like him.

I smiled despite the ache that came with remembering. “He would’ve enjoyed this.”

“He would’ve adored her.” Mama’s voice caught just enough to make my chest tighten before she straightened and became Glorianna La Croix DuBois again. “Now, where is my girl?”

My girl.

Not who is she? Not where is this Fiona you dragged down here? Mama had spent the entire year listening to me talk about her even when I pretended I wasn’t talking about her. She knew about the texts, prom, graduation, and every fucking excuse I’d invented to get myself back to Virginia without admitting how badly I wanted to stay once I got there.

“Upstairs.”

Mama looked at the ceiling.

Then at me.

“You left my future daughter-in-law sitting upstairs while you stood down here drinking coffee?”

“I thought I was safer down here.”

“You were wrong.”

Devlyn appeared at the top of the stairs before Mama could begin listing my deficiencies as a son. Fiona came down behind her, and everything else in the bar stopped mattering.

She’d changed since I left her upstairs. Nothing fancy. Jeans and a soft shirt, hair loose around her shoulders, no makeup beyond whatever she normally wore. She looked rested compared to when we arrived, though I could still see traces of the last twenty-four hours in the careful way she moved.

Then she saw the bar.

Her steps slowed.

I followed her gaze and understood why.

In the time Mama and Aunt Marabella had been inside, the Bourbon Bar had begun transforming around us. Flowers had appeared on tables. The windows were being cleaned despite Gator loudly informing his mother they had been cleaned yesterday. A length of white fabric was being argued over near the back wall. The priest stood beside the bar drinking coffee while Worm looked like he wanted to ask whether putting bourbon in it counted as a mortal sin.