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That’s why we’d chosen today of all days to finally go see them.
We were only dealing with half of them at a time, and hopefully that wouldn’t completely overwhelm her.
In the six months that we’d been putting this plan into place, only one thing was certain, we’d need Keene’s help.
Val and Zip weren’t coming to the wedding. But since Keene was invited—along with Tony—we’d decided to meet up first and go over what tonight was going to look like.
Originally, even Zip and Val weren’t supposed to be here.
But Val had overheard Keene discussing him being gone for the night with the others, and they’d hijacked our visit.
At first, Hades had been hesitant.
But then she’d seemed to grow a backbone when it came to her family and chosen to go anyway.
Which led us to now.
Here.
“Ready?” I asked, leaning over to capture her hand and bring her fingers to my mouth.
She nodded, licking her lips nervously.
I hated seeing her this freaked out.
The only time that I did was when she was showing her work off, already anticipating people to hate it before they’d even seen it.
Needless to say, they always fuckin’ loved it, and she was an overreactor.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tiny little silver fabric bag.
I uncurled her fingers, then placed the bag into her hand.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Open it,” I suggested.
She did, and a black diamond on a matte black platinum band greeted her.
Her breath hitched, and she looked at me in surprise.
“Put it on,” I ordered. “Try it. See if you like it.”
Her hands were shaking as she dumped the band into her hand and studied it.
“It’s gorgeous,” she murmured quietly.
So quietly that I could barely hear her.
“Try it on,” I urged again.
She did, slipping it right onto her left ring finger.
It fit like a glove.
Exactly like I’d expected it to.
I’d stolen her mood ring one night after her shower, and had kept it even though she’d looked frantically for it all day long.
“My mood ring,” she murmured. “You are the one who took it, aren’t you?”
I flashed her a grin as I said, “I had to make sure it would fit.”
“It does.” She gazed at it with adoring eyes.
A knock on our window had me turning to find Keene standing there looking annoyed.
I dismissed him and went back to looking at Hades.
The knock sounded again, and she curled her hand into a fist and said, “Let’s get this over with.”
I got out of the truck and rounded it so I could get to her side of the car where she waited for me like always.
We’d learned a lot about each other the last six months.
Such as neither one of us liked doing laundry.
She didn’t like doing the dishes, and I didn’t like emptying the trash. She loved mowing the lawn and I could care less if it was mowed on time every week.
She loved sleeping in, and I was up at the crack of dawn.
She couldn’t stand pizza unless it was thin crust, yet that was my favorite type to splurge on.
Most of all, I knew that she was overly nervous, and it was time to get this half of a family reunion done so she could stop fretting over seeing her family again.
Keene stepped back when I rounded the hood, watching silently.
I helped her out of the vehicle, and together we turned to Keene.
Keene took one look at me, then at Hades, and frowned.
“I told you to stay away from her,” he mumbled.
I narrowed my eyes. “I didn’t listen.”
His gaze moved to our closeness, and he sighed. “I guess maybe I convinced myself that this was going to go back to normal, but I’m thinkin’ it never will, will it?”
Hades shook her head.
“You’re never coming back?” he asked.
She shook her head again.
“We miss you,” he said. “We miss you a lot.”
Hades’ shoulders slumped slightly.
I wrapped my hand around her waist and pulled her into me.
“She’s happier with me,” I pointed out.
He nodded. “Can I at least get a hug?”
Hades moved right into his arms, hugging him tight.
Keene closed his eyes and whispered something into her ear.
Something that had her smiling, so I didn’t have any problem with it.
“Val and Zip are practicing,” he said. “I told them to stay away for a bit while we discussed the plan for tonight.”
“Actually,” Zip said, “we’re right here.”
Hades stiffened in Keene’s arms, and he whispered something else to her that had her relaxing slightly.
“Can we get in on that action?” Val asked quietly.
Hades, with her puppy dog eyes, surprised everyone but me when she said, “I would be offended if you didn’t.”
It all went well, despite the awkwardness in the beginning.
An hour later we were sitting at the picnic table discussing our plans for the night.
“Benji is a frou-frou person, so you have to dress up,” Val said. “I’ll bet we can fit all this hair under one of those big hats that those women wear to those horse polo shows.”
