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“Yes, but what if she doesn’t want to go? What if she thinks I really am just a lying, creepy dude who can’t be trusted? I don’t have a good track record, and she doesn’t know me. I’ve played with her trust and broken it once already. She asked me if that was it, and I told her that’s all there was.”
“I’ll explain,” Granny says, saving the day like the hero she is. “And at the end of it all, if she doesn’t want to keep dating you or doesn’t want to be a member of this family, I have to say, it’s her loss.”
“Granny! She’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before. It would be my loss too!”
Lennox and Cass share a look with each other that is all lovey-dovey, as gagworthy as that pizza, and right then, I realize the way they look at each other and the way I’ve seen Ransom look at Ayana and Alden look at Azalea is the way I look at Victoria. I mean, I’m sure that’s the way I look at her. It’s like I couldn’t ever see myself with another woman because, from the second I saw her, she was it. Even if that defies logic and breaks all the rules of physics and the known universe, it’s true.
Granny claps her hands together, and I’m pretty sure that’s our signal to spring into action. “Then,” she says with a wink in my direction. “We had best talk you up big time, talk her down big time, offer to bring all those books with us as we move around, and sweeten the deal somehow. In short, we had better come up with one hell of a plan.”
“Can it start with pizza? Because I’m starving over here!” Orion pleads.
“Here come the anchovies, baby!” Lennox cheers.
Cass, being Cass, just nods, then pulls a face behind Lennox’s back at the thought of his nasty pizza choice. I swear, he learned the whole anchovies thing from one of Alden’s men back when we had to employ some bodyguards for a certain kidnapping operation of the woman of Alden’s dreams, even if she wasn’t the woman of his dreams back then.
“It can and it will.” Granny sniffs the air while everyone but Lennox dies a little inside at the stench. “First food, then brainstorming. Is everyone up for it? Saving Atlas’ bacon is our new mission.”
“Thanks, Granny.” My voice is dry. Sarcastic humor is the way we deal with most things in this family, and Granny gets that.
She gets that what I really mean to say can’t be put into words, and that’s okay because, generally, the best things in life can’t.
CHAPTER 18
Victoria
Atlas texted me two nights ago and asked if I’d have dinner with him and his granny. I thought it was super sweet, and I chose to take the high road and not think of it as him trying to make amends for lying to me by filling me in on the more realistic details of his life. I mean, he let me meet his granny before, so having dinner with them isn’t a meet-my-family, take-the-next-step kind of deal. It’s not him trying to roll out all the details of his life for me to see, to prove that they’re real and he can be trusted.
That’s not how I want this to work.
I forgive him for lying to me, and I want to get past that and not be suspicious about everything. Because, one, that’s gross. And two, it’s completely exhausting to think like that.
I showed up at five-thirty when Atlas said six, but I was nervous about being late. I debate the merits of sitting in my car like a second-rate creeper for half an hour, or at least twenty-five minutes, since being five minutes early is a respectable amount of time, but after ten minutes of sitting there, so up in my own head that I make myself nervous enough to start shaking, I tumble out of the car and just go for it.
Atlas pulls open the door, and for some reason, I breathe a sigh of relief that it’s not his granny there to chew me out about not being able to tell the time. Not that she would. I’m just nervous, and it’s doing funny things to my brain. Kind of like how the spicy manly scent of Atlas scrambles me the second he opens the door. He’s wearing a black long-sleeved shirt that is tight enough to display the impressive array of his muscles and jeans that aren’t tight but pretty much do the same. I honestly think he could wear nothing or everything and still be freaking attractive. Emphasis on the nothing part.
Wow, nothing like popping a lady boner right before you have to go in and have dinner with the guy’s granny.
