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Um…
Larinda reaches over and squeezes my arm. “Make her day and say yes. She’s been waiting twenty-six years to impress her daughter’s boyfriend with her chocolate mousse. Trust me, none of the other guys I brought home would let a grain of sugar near their face.”
I mean… I guess I could handle that much.
I love chocolate mousse, I type out. Thank you, Mrs. Scott.
Larinda’s eyes are glistening when they rest on me. My own chest is heavy with a new kind of ache. Happy tears? Is that a thing?
Our phones buzz again, and we glance at the displays.
Unknown: Fantastic! Please come visit as soon as you can. We’re dying to show you Larinda’s 8th-grade yearbook photo and we need to pick out your Christmas stocking design so there’s time to embroider it before Christmas. Oh! And the chickens! We have to talk about the chickens. So much to do!
Unknown: Also, call us Randall and Ruby, son. We’re family now.
I swat at my eyes as I stare at words I never thought I’d see.
Yup.
Happy tears.
Who knew?
EPILOGUE (THE SCOTT BACKYARD)
LARINDA
“Shh! He’s coming!” I hiss.
“Val is going to hate this,” Nash mumbles. I fire a sharp look at him, and he shrugs. “He will. He told you not to make a big deal about his birthday.”
“And I didn’t.”
“A surprise party, by definition, is a big deal.”
“Who invited you anyway?”
Nash’s lips tip up in a grin.
“Welcome to my world,” Paige mutters.
Whatever. I’m not letting my broody friend ruin this moment. I learned two horrifying facts just over a month ago when the subject of Val’s twenty-fourth birthday came up:
He didn’t care and had no intention of celebrating it.
He’d never had a surprise party.
Neither were acceptable, so here we are. For his sake, I kept it small to just over a hundred close family and friends. Alright, so maybe that’s a tad more than small, but once I started listing the people who really cared about him, well… Hey, I was able to narrow it down to one-fifty. And then only a hundred could actually make it, so there.
I can’t stop a grin when I think about his adorable expression this morning when I surprised him with breakfast in bed and birthday sex. The breakfast in bed was a huge hit. The birthday sex needed some very aggressive coaxing, though, since he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of—and I quote—“F-wording their daughter with your parents just down the hall.”
