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My heart warms and my cock twitches at how vehemently she defends me. No one has ever stood up for me before unless they were being paid to.
“He volunteered.”
Juniper gazes up at me. “Still sure you want to hang around with my family?”
“Your family?” Her mom scoffs. “He’s our family now, too. Speaking of which, where’s your family, Rickie?”
My attempt to not fidget isn’t a complete success as Juniper notices and narrows her eyes on her mom. “Mom.”
“What?” Mrs. West is all big doe eyes of innocence. I nearly snort at the act. If there’s one thing I know about Juniper’s mom, it’s that she’s not innocent. “I need to know if I have to prepare everyone to chase his relatives out of town.”
Lyric groans. “Can you not talk about conspiring with the rest of the town when I’m here?”
Aspen sighs. “How many times do I have to explain? When you’re in this house, you are not the Chief of Police.”
“I’m always the Chief of Police,” he claims before leaning close to whisper, “and you enjoy it when I’m in charge.”
Ashlyn slams her hands over her ears. “Na na na na. I can’t hear you.”
“Good. If you can’t hear them, then you can’t hear me when I say all the money is going to the community center,” Juniper declares.
“But I already know what I want to buy,” Ashlyn pouts.
“Dream girl, you don’t need the money. I’ll buy you whatever you want.” Rowan pulls her close and kisses her hair.
“I don’t want you to think I’m using you for your money.”
This conversation sounds familiar.
Rowan winks at her. “Don’t worry. I know you’re using me for the sex.”
Mrs. West clears her throat. “Speaking of which, I know Ashlyn and Rowan don’t need any condoms—
“’Cuz I’m knocked up,” Ashlyn interjects.
Mrs. West ignores her and points to the front door. “I’ve put a few boxes of condoms for you near the door.” When I don’t have an immediate response to her statement – I’m certainly not going to remind her of our earlier discussion about contraception, it was embarrassing enough the first time around – she backtracks. “Unless you want to give me another grandchild. All good things come in threes.”
Juniper holds up her hands. “Mav and I aren’t ready to have children.”
Ellery snorts. “As if being ready to have children is a requirement to getting pregnant.”
“Ellie girl,” Cole warns.
“What? It’s true. I sure as hell wasn’t ready.”
“I am!” Ashlyn shouts and wakes up Willow who was sleeping in Cole’s arm. The tiny bundle lets out a scream that could wake the dead.
Ellery takes the baby from Cole before stomping out of the room while glaring at Ashlyn.
“Sorry,” Ashlyn hollers after her.
Cole rubs a hand down his face. “It took two hours of screaming to put her down.”
“Have you tried—” Lilac’s question is cut off when her phone rings. She purses her lips at the object before walking off to answer it.
Juniper grasps my hand and tugs me along so we can follow her. She places a finger over her lips to shush me and I roll my eyes.
Lilac paces the back deck as she answers the phone. “It’s Sunday. I am not coming into work.” She inhales through her nostrils in an attempt to calm herself. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not on a date. I’m at Sunday dinner with my family.” She pulls the phone away from her ear and stares at it. “I swear if he weren’t my boss, I’d complain to HR about him.”
