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“Speak for yourself.” Luke points a ginormous foam finger at his brother before flinging his cardboard Bieber aside and sitting down right in Mindy’s lap.
“Hey!” she squawks, trying to push him off her.
“Did you have fun, at least?” I ask, keeping my attention on Liam. He seems to be buzzing with some kind of nervous energy. He shrugs. Waits a moment. Then, he nods. “It wasn’t so bad.”
Legs’s ears perk up. “Really? So you’ll take me to see Harry Styles—the real one—when he comes to play in Atlanta?”
“Don’t push it, kid.” He smiles at his niece, then turns to me. “I’m beat. You ready to head out?”
“Sure thing.” I delicately scoot Harry Styles—the cat—off my lap and get to my feet. Lean down to give Lana Mae and Legs an awkward group hug. “Thanks for having me.”
Lana Mae looks at me over Legs’s bedazzled Bieber baseball cap and smiles. “Thanks for coming over this evening.”
“Dude, I’m always up for a Channing Tatum movie marathon,” I say in return. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Lana Mae and Mindy over the past few months, and having good girlfriends here in Atlanta has filled at least part of the huge gap in my life now that I live so far from Prisha—who’s still my bestie, and still sends me ridiculous texts daily, don’t worry.
Mindy climbs to her feet and stretches her arms above her head before picking up her empty La Croix can. “We gonna head out too, Lukey?” She gives a little shimmy in his direction. “Ain’t too late for some you know what, dontcha think?”
“I think I’d rather not hear you say anything of the sort again,” Liam responds at the same time as Luke says, “it’s never too late forthat, babe” with some terrifying wiggly eyebrows to accompany the sentiment.
“People, there is a child present,” Lana Mae pipes up with a glare. But she’s smiling. She’s always smiling, and though I know she’s blessed with the most wonderful brothers and daughter in the world, I can’t help but hope that she finds her own romantic happy ending someday soon.
“Hopefully we can add to the child count after tonight,” Luke replies, totally unabashed, with a slightly jarring hip thrust to accompany his almost equally jarring sentence.
“Wait, you’re trying?” Lana Mae shrieks, as I clap my hands together in delight.
Mindy nods. “Yup. Early days still, but yes. We’re officially trying.”
“Congrats, guys. Crossing my fingers for you.” I beam happily as Liam gives his brother one of those bro handshakes—a deliberately masculine gesture that does nothing to disguise my boyfriend’s misty eyes.
He’s a sensitive one underneath it all, my big old cinnamon roll.
Legs looks up eagerly. Right at Liam. “What does ‘trying’ mean, Uncle Liam? Trying what?”
Liam snorts out a laugh. “I’m very happy to be able to say ‘ask your mother’ to that one. And on that note, I’m tapping out. Goodnight, family.”
It takes a full five more minutes of hugs and congratulations and goodnights before we actually end up by the front door.
Warmth fills me as we leave Lana Mae’s place, and we do so hand in hand.
* * *
Once we’re in the car, Liam immediately yanks his space boppers off his head, and I jab him in the ribs playfully. “Okay, fess up—on a scale of one to ten, how much did you hate it?”
He groans and shifts out of my stabbing range, before he lolls his head back against his seat. His fingers tense on the steering wheel. “Was it that obvious?”
“Yes.” I grin.
“Fine. I’d give it an eleven.”
I snort. “That bad, huh?”
“I loathed every moment of it. It was 70,000 tweenage girls screaming for three hours. All the songs sounded the same. And the decibel level in there was surely breaking all kinds of regulations.”
I can’t help the huge smile that spreads across my face. “There’s the grumpy man I know and love.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He smirks. “I’m a delight.”
“Yeah, you are.” I reach across and put my hand on his bare, muscular, tattooed forearm. It’s the sexiest forearm I’ve ever seen. And it’s all mine. The new tattoo on my own wrist—the one that reads “No mistakes, just happy accidents”—is just visible from this angle.
