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“Does that mean you’d let me kiss you whenever I want?”
Her breath was a gust against my lips. Her eyes took on this glassy, almost dazed quality as she looked down at my mouth. “You betcha,” she murmured dreamily.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She looked so goddamn cute. I wasn’t thinking about where we were or who we were with. When I leaned in and kissed her lips, it wasn’t for show. It was real. Every kiss I’d given her since we started this whole thing, every touch... was all real.
Hell, I didn’t even remember who we were sitting across from until my mom let out an obnoxious, “Awwww!” effectively killing the moment. “You kids are so stinking cute!” Her voice sounded watery, and I could almost picture her eyes getting all misty.
“Good God, Marcia. Keep it together, would you? No one needs to see you blubbering in public.”
Wynn snorted out a laugh, heat infusing her neck and cheeks as she giggled, pulling from the kiss and lowering her face so her forehead rested on my chest. That laugh was the most beautiful melody I’d ever heard.
“Well excuse me for being happy my boy’s finally found the love of his life,” Mom continued, doing what she and Gram did best: arguing. “Wasn’t sure this day was every going to come. I mean, he’s not exactly young, you know.”
I let out a pained groan and dropped my head back, squeezing my eyes closed, and Wynn laughed even harder. I was so lost in that sound that I didn’t hear the abrupt end to the arguing or the sharp intake of breath across the table.
It wasn’t until my grandmother all but growled, “Please tell me someone slipped something in my drink and I’m hallucinating right now. Because I cannotbe seeing who I think I’m seeing right now.”
I lifted my head and looked across at my ladies. My mom’s face had gone blood red, and she looked like she was moments from spitting fire. Both of them looked downright murderous as they glared at something over my shoulder.
“What in the world’s got you all—” The question died on my tongue when I twisted my neck and saw Vanessa had just walked into the diner. “Oh. Shit.”
“Oh shit?” My mom’s gaze whipped back to me. “That’s all you have to say?”
Gram narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at my face. “You don’t look surprised, boy. Why on earth don’t you look surprised?”
Wynn twisted back around in her seat, facing forward and putting her back to Vanessa. “Because he’s not,” she said casually before crunching into another strip of bacon. She washed it down with orange juice, not a care in the damn world, while my ladies looked on, flabbergasted. “She showed up a little while ago, casting a shadow over the town.”
Mom’s mouth fell open. “You’re kidding me.”
I drank back more of my coffee, my breakfast sitting like a rock in my stomach now that my ex had shown up. “Wish she was. Believe me.”
Multiple things happened so fast I didn’t have time to react to any of it. I heard Vanessa’s voice, that overly-cheery, fake-as-hell voice. “Francis, Marcia. Hi. It’s so good—”
Wynn moved like the tiny dynamo she was, shooting out of the booth and whipping around to face Vanessa. “No,” she chipped with so much ferocity Vanessa jolted back and the entire diner fell silent. “You don’t get to address them.” Wynn jabbed her tiny finger at her. She stood at least four inches shorter than my ex, but the fire in her raged so hot she might as well have been ten feet tall. “You especially don’t get to tell them how nice it is to see them because the feeling sure as shit isn’t mutual.”
Vanessa’s cheeks heated pink, her eyelids narrowing in a way I was all too familiar with. She wasn’t anything like Wynn. There wasn’t a scrappy bone in her body like my Bits, so when she felt threatened or insulted, she fought dirty. Downright ugly. And I’d be damned if I let that happen to Wynn.
I shoved out of the booth and stepped up behind my girl, placing a hand on her shoulders. “Wynn, baby. It’s fine. You don’t need to—”
Her head whipped around, her violet eyes spitting white hot fire. “Yes, I do. Because you’re mine and this nasty, pathetic woman has basically been stalking you.”
It took everything I had to fight my dick going hard in front of half the town and my family at Wynn’s declaration that I was hers.
“I’m not—”
She spun back around, holding her hand up only a few inches from Vanessa’s face to shut her up. “No one wants to hear a damn word you have to say. You came intomytown and have been harassingmyman. Now you have the audacity to come up to the women who are about to bemyfamily?”
Fuck, but this woman was something else. That fire burning bright in her made it impossible not to crave her.
“You need to leave. There’s nothing for you here. Unlike you, I know what I have. I know exactly how lucky I am to have the man standing behind me. I’d never do anything to lose him.” Her lips curled up in disgust. “And I’m sure as hell not stupid enough to throw him away.” To drive her message home, she lifted her left hand and placed it on the one I had resting against her shoulder, putting that ring on full display.
Given its size and the way the light hit all those precious stones, there was no way in hell Vanessa would have been able to miss it.
Her eyes flared, the color leeching from them as soon as she spotted it, and I had to duck my head, resting it on Wynn’s shoulder to hide the smirk that forced its way across my face.
“He went for badass over basic, so why don’t you just accept defeat and get the hell out of our town?”
I looked up just in time to see Vanessa about-facing on her ridiculous heels and storm out of the diner. I wasn’t surprised, really. She never did well with public confrontation, at least not when the person she was going up against wasn’t cowering in fear before her. She couldn’t handle the embarrassment, so she ran. Then she’d wait and prepare for a reengagement on her turf, where she was most comfortable.
