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“Eww!” Josephine shakes her head. “Brass, will you please take me back to the party and away from this sausage competition?”
Brass throws his head back laughing, giving Josephine his arm, and escorting her back to the front yard.
Reaper and I follow behind laughing. “It was a joke, Jo,” Reaper tries to defend, grabbing at his side, in stitches.
I run up behind Josephine and grab her by the waist, flipping her over my shoulder. I waltz back out to the group with her giggling. “Let’s get this party started!” I roar.
“HOOYAH!” everyone shouts.
* * *
Monday morning would have been awful if Josephine hadn’t cut me off as early as she did. I always used to grimace at any man whose woman told him enough was enough, but with Josephine, I get it. She’s like my little hangover preventer.
Needing to touch her, I roll over in our shared twin mattress and pull her against me. Suddenly, I’m being licked aggressively in the face.
“Aw, Hades!” I sputter, pushing him away and sitting up in bed. I run a hand through my wild hair and find Josephine standing in her bra and panties, pulling her work clothes out for the day.
The thing about Josephine that’s refreshing is she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty. She doesn’t go in suits to the build site. No, she puts on the same clothes as all the rest of the construction workers, regardless of the fact she’s the engineer and boss.
When push comes to shove, she will throw on the hard hat and safety glasses and jump in to help out. She would never ask one of her workers to do a job she herself wouldn’t do, like I would never ask one of my men to take a job I wouldn’t do. It’s one of many things I admire about her—another thing we have in common.
“Mmm. Bring your sexy ass over here,” I whisper to her, not wanting to wake the others.
Her megawatt smile takes over her lovely face. “Not a chance in hell. I love your brothers but not enough to give them a show. Plus, I need to get to the site. I have a crap load of deliveries coming in today and I want to be there early to oversee everything. I want to run later this evening when it’s cooler, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all.” Seeing as she’s in a decent mood, I decide to ask her about last night. “How are you feeling after talking with your dad yesterday?”
Josephine grimaces. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”
My jaw ticks. I don’t want to push her before she’s ready to talk, but I also get the feeling she won’t talk about it if I don’t bring it up—she internalizes too much.
“I understand. It’s still fresh. But I’m here if you want to talk about your parents. You have every right to be upset with them, but I feel like they’re only reacting this way because they’re only hearing one half of the conversation. Maybe if you tried talking to them again—”
“Maceo, please, I know you mean well, but I can’t deal with them right now. Last night was about us, and my dad put a huge damper on it with that bullshit about Jacob. I’m not shutting you out, I’m not trying to bury it, I just want to focus on the positives in our lives,” Josephine says, tears brewing in her costal eyes.
Wanting to comfort her, I get up and wrap her up in my arms, kissing her head. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m only trying to help.”
She leans into my chest. “I know, thank you. You could help me with something else. Do you have a chain?” She backs away to finish dressing.
“What kinda chain?” I ask, confused as I let my eyes continue to roam over her gorgeous goods.
My pixie pulls off her engagement band. “I can’t work with this on my finger. One, it’s a safety hazard. And two, I don’t want to damage or lose it. I want a chain to wear it around my neck,” she explains.
Ah! I get it now.I walk to my dresser where I keep a spare chain for my dog tags and hand it to her. She slips the ring on it and pulls the chain over her neck. It’s long and nestles between her delectable cleavage, next to her heart.
I scratch my head, not happy she’s not wearing her band. I understand her reasoning, but I want people to fucking see she’s mine when I’m not around. Her engagement band was one way to show others she’s taken. I look down at my ring tattoo and can see why Josephine wanted the same thing, but I don’t want her skin stained.
Grinding my teeth, an idea comes to me and I grab my phone. I look up silicone ring bands for women and order a multicolored pack of them for her. My womanwillwear a ring to represent me.
Satisfied, I quickly throw on some clothes and join Josephine in the bathroom to brush my teeth and comb back my hair. I watch in the mirror as Josephine makes quick work with a loose braid. I like how she knows many different hairdos. If we have a little girl someday, Josephine will be able to help her do her hair all cute.
I’ve been thinking about kids a lot. Well, maybe it’s not a lot, I don’t know. I do know it’s a shit ton more than I thought before.
I’m thirty years old and I’m not getting any younger. Now that I finally have the woman of my dreams I never knew I wanted, I want to add kids into the mix and I don’t want to be an old man when I have them.
Josephine is twenty-seven. I know she will want to be married first before we start a family. But after Opal told me planning a wedding could take up to a year, I started doing the calculations in my head.
A year from now, I’ll be thirty-one. If we get pregnant right off the bat, it’s another forty weeks till the baby comes, meaning I may as well round up to thirty-two. Josephine is not going to want back-to-back pregnancies, and two in diapers will be rough, which means we wait another year and another forty weeks.
