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Rhys swung back into his seat. “All good here?”
Barrett offered him a small smile. “I’d like to ask you to be my best man on Saturday when I surprise Willa with a wedding.”
Rhys sat momentarily stunned, then shot to his feet. Barrett met him halfway and wrapped his big arms around his big brother who was laughing and clapping him on the back.
“Of course, yeah, I’m honored, bear.”
More than one woman’s eyes strayed to their table. All three of them drew attention on a good day, and although this was a good day, it was also intense, and that intensity rolled off them in waves. None of them noticed, or if they did, they paid it no mind.
They sat back down, and Barrett turned to Zale.
“Just to confirm, you’ll be walking her down the aisle?”
Zale nodded, struck silent by that aspect that hadn’t occurred to him.
“I’ll be there,” he pledged, “for both of you.”
Barrett sat back, his big chest filling with air that he slowly expelled.
Rhys laughed. “How long have you been planning for this?”
Barrett glanced at Zale, then met his brother’s eyes. “Since this morning.”
Rhys and Zale looked at each other. Meeting each other’s shocked faces, they grinned, then laughed.
“We don’t have dresses,” Zale commented.
“We need dresses?” Barrett’s face creased in confused lines.
Zale shook his head, smirking.
“Wedding dresses, wedding guest dresses, bridesmaid’s dresses, we don’t have a dress for Willa, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spring this on Mara without giving her a chance to shop,” Zale answered.
Rhys leaned his forearms on the table. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. We need to call in the troops.”
Barrett agreed. “I’m going to talk to mom tonight about the wedding, but not the pregnancy, that’s a secret until Willa is ready. I’m fairly sure she told Mara and Bex, but I’m not sure if they’ve been sworn to secrecy or not.”
Rhys’s grin turned wicked. Zale looked down momentarily, then met Rhys’s eyes and grinned. “This is going to be fun.”
Rhys
Rhys walked into the regular cacophony of late afternoon noise. The sound of Lilliput and Moony’s tiny paws clicking across the floor, Bex in the kitchen banging pots around, both kids in there with her. He could easily pick out their individual voices as they talked animatedly about something or other. He stood for a moment, letting the sounds wash over him, overwhelmed with gratitude.
He walked into the kitchen and was immediately met with two smiling faces. Just two. Bex kept her face turned away from him. He greeted his children with hugs for both and kisses for Amelie, then he turned to his wife.
He walked over and leaned his lean hip against the counter where she worked, his big arms crossed over his chest.
“Sweetness.”
Bex glanced up at him, her eyes skittering across his face as she smiled vaguely in his direction.
“Hi, handsome. Did you have a good day?”
He took his time answering, watching her with his head cocked to the side, barely repressing his smile.
“It was an interesting day. How was yours?”
She glanced at him again as she busily chopped more lettuce for the salad. She shrugged.
