Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"
Автор книги: Kristen Ashley
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“And what happens when you get another final enemy?” she asked.
“Had years no issues until Valenzuela underestimated Tack,” he told her. “Like I said, you don’t underestimate Tack. He’ll surprise you and not in good ways. And his daughter is married to Shy, his lieutenant. And his son, Rush, is in the Club and Rush wants to clean up the rest of it.”
He slid his fingers through her hair and finished it.
“Watched it happen, Millie. God’s honest truth, even when we were on opposite sides, marveled at it. Took Tack decades. Longer even than when you and me met. But Tack built Chaos strong and tough in the only way any man should be strong and tough. Brotherhood. Loyalty. Family. Nothin’ else matters. It’s why a soldier puts his ass on the line for his country. It’s why a man walks through his house to make sure it’s safe before he goes to bed. It’s the measure of a real man. It’s Chaos.”
“Did you know that was Chaos all along?” she asked.
“What do you think?” he asked back.
“But Tack wasn’t the leader then,” she pointed out.
“Something drew him to the Club, just like me. Greed infested it. Politics tarnished it. Power plays shook it. But the foundation of the Club stayed strong and it wasn’t just Tack who kept it that way.”
She said nothing.
So he did.
“Millie, I know this is a surprise but I also know, you dig deep, it also isn’t.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” she told him.
“It’s history.”
Another head jerk as she took the bottom-line truth of that in.
And High felt relief when her body relaxed slightly on top of his.
“I can’t believe Black’s gone,” she whispered.
“Walk into the Compound, look to the bar, think I’ll see him sittin’ there. To this day. So I can’t believe it either. And givin’ it all to you, I know it’s a lot, I’m still gonna say, like every brother that was there, I hope like fuck it was my bullet who ended Crank.”
She stared at him, right into his eyes, hers again bright, and she replied, “I kinda hope that too.”
She’d loved Black.
She’d also loved Keely.
And she wore designer threads and lived in a fancy-ass pad.
But Millie Cross was born an old lady.
Fuck, she was born to be his old lady.
So she got it.
High loosened his hold on her and started to stroke her back.
“Keely’s gonna be glad to have you back,” he told her quietly.
“She still hang with the Club?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, baby. She gets her cut of Club income every month like Black was still alive. Boz’s ex, Bev, who he married then divorced after you were gone, was tight with Keely. Bev sticks close. Brothers take turns doin’ shit for the boys when they need a man. We stay as close as she lets us. But Black ended and when he did, Keely ended too.”
“I know that feeling.”
He knew she did.
“Makes the fact we got a second chance one we gotta be sure we don’t fuck up,” he returned.
She relaxed into him more. “Yeah.”
“You had enough?” he asked, and she tensed again.
“There’s more?” she asked.
He stopped stroking, slid his fingers out of her hair, and wrapped her up in both his arms.
“No, beautiful,” he answered.
“Thank God,” she mumbled.
He grinned because that was cute.
But mostly he did it because she took it. She didn’t freak out, burst into tears, break down, have a drama.
It was ugly.
She took it all.
She stuck close.
That was done.
The tough part over.
Now their only obstacle was Zadie, and his baby girl would come around.
He drew in a deep breath and let it out.
Millie focused on him and returned her hand to his neck, curling it around.
“That was hard on you,” she noted.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“I’m out of practice being an old lady,” she told him, and he felt his lips curl up again.
“You’ll get it back.”
“What I mean is...” She looked to the TV and back to him. “I did hook up with an outlaw. I fell in love immediately with a man who did the same with me, didn’t hide it, let it shine, showed he was proud of it, and I had that. It was mine. He gave it to me. And I knew it was precious. So I didn’t care. I didn’t care what made you. I didn’t care what you did when you were away from me. I only cared what you did when I had you and the feeling you left when you weren’t with me. And I did it knowingly. Part of that was knowing it might be wrong. But I loved you so much, all of me didn’t care if it was.”
Oh yeah.
Fuck yeah.
Millie Cross was made to be his old lady.
His voice was gruff when he asked, “That change at all?”
She shot his question of earlier back at him.
“What do you think?”
She was on him, touching him, looking right into his eyes.
It hadn’t changed at all.
He turned, rolling her to her back, declaring, “Gonna fuck you now.”
She slid her hand back down to his chest and pushed. “Then let’s go to bed.”
“Gonna fuck you here.”
Her brows shot up. “And maybe leave a wet spot on the couch?” she asked in horrified disbelief.
He put his mouth to hers. “Baby, it happens, it’ll clean.”
“Eww,” she replied.
Fuck, back in the day, his girl swallowed.
He was looking forward to finding out if she was still down with that.
But if she takes him down her throat, she could not have an issue with cleaning him off the couch.
He wasn’t going to get into that. He was done talking about that shit. It’d take about ten seconds to make her forget about it.
So he went about doing that and took her mouth.
Though, he found out he was wrong.
It only took five seconds.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Back at Ya
Millie
MY ALARM WENT off and I started to untangle myself from Logan to hit snooze.
I didn’t move fast enough.
Logan leaned into me and yanked the alarm out of the wall, causing the noise of the lamp shaking and the nightstand jolting to be heard. Then I felt my body and the bed shift alarmingly as he forcefully hurled it across the room.
I heard it smash against the wall in a way I knew it was broken and suddenly I was wide awake.
“Logan!” I snapped.
He rolled on top of me, muttering, “Don’t live an alarm clock life.”
I kept snapping. “Well, I do!”
He kissed me.
And then I didn’t.
* * *
I walked into the kitchen with the empty mug that had been filled with coffee that Logan had brought to me while I was getting ready. I was in a wool herringbone skirt, a winter white, soft wool boatneck sweater, and black spike-heeled boots.
The minute I walked in, Logan, ass to the counter, mug to his lips, dropped his eyes to my skirt.
Then the boots.
I watched his lips curl up even as he continued to take a sip.
He approved.
That felt nice.
Regardless.
“We need a chat about the alarm clock,” I announced. “Primarily you replacing the one you busted.”
He sipped and his gaze went from my boots to my eyes.
“Don’t make any appointments before ten, you got a human one.”
I went to the coffeepot and started pouring more as I explained, “Sometimes I can’t make that decision. I have to meet my clients when they can meet as well as when I can.”
“Now you can’t. Until after ten.”
I shoved the pot back into the coffeemaker and looked to him.
“Logan—”
“Millie, not asking a lot.”
I stared at him.
Then I shared, “I offered Justine a job yesterday.”
His head tipped to the side. “Say again?”
“I’m always booked,” I began to explain. “I sometimes turn down clients. I can stop doing that and use the extra income to take on a part-time worker. I can also shift some of Claire’s responsibilities to Justine. I can then shift some of mine to Claire. I ran the numbers and it works. I take a minimal hit to my personal income that I’ll barely feel. And I’ll have more time.”
I stopped talking and Logan just stared at me.
So I kept talking.
“I called her last night before you got home and Justine was ecstatic. I could afford to give her a raise in salary to what she’s making now, not much but everything counts, and working with me, she’ll rarely have to put her son in day care. Same with Claire, who’ll take on more responsibility. I talked to her too. She’s on board. It’s all fixed. Justine is putting in notice today. She’ll be on payroll by Thanksgiving, which is my busiest time. Bonus to that, the two Christmas clients I had to turn down I could pick up. I called them yesterday and did that too. They were almost more ecstatic than Justine.”
I again stopped talking.
Logan again just stared at me.
So I called, “Logan?”
“My girl,” he whispered, and I felt warmth flow through me at his tone.
“Logan,” I whispered back.
“She wants somethin’, she doesn’t fuck around.”
He was right. I didn’t.
I wanted to graduate early so we could start a family; I did it.
I wanted to contribute, even minimally, to our life financially; I worked my ass off and accomplished that.
I wanted to be a success at my own business, completely renovate a fixer-upper house so it was inch by inch all mine; I did that too.
I wanted to make a statement that Logan was important and I intended to show him that by making time for him; I absolutely did not fuck around.
The only thing I’d wanted that I didn’t get was to make babies with my man. And it hit me right then that finding out I couldn’t when I knocked myself out to make everything so I could was something I couldn’t cope with.
As huge as that was at the time, and how deep it still burned, I realized, in the end, I hadn’t done half bad.
“Come here, beautiful, give your man some love so you can get to work.”
Voiced tender and sweet, that was an order I would obey. So I set my coffee mug aside and moved into his arms.
I wrapped mine around him, rolled up on my toes, and touched my mouth to his.
When I rolled back, we both kept hold.
“Got the girls this weekend,” he told me.
A sliver of cold fear pierced the warmth in me but I ignored it and asked, “Yeah?”
“You got a problem with them stayin’ here?”
I went back to staring.
When he said no more, like taking back that crazy question, I asked, “Here? With me? And you?”
“Here. With me. And you,” he confirmed.
I moved an inch away, still within his arms, and stated, “Low, that’s too much too soon for both of them.”
I meant that.
I also meant for all of us.
Namely me.
“I start the night on the couch, go to you when we know they’re out. They sleep for as long as they can on the weekends. We’ll be up before them. They won’t notice.”
“Low, that’s too much too soon for both of them,” I repeated, then included, “And it isn’t just about the sleeping arrangements.”
“I live in my RV outside Boz’s house,” he declared.
My chin jerked sideways at this insane news. “You do?”
“Since the split, been lookin’ at houses—seems I looked at hundreds of ’em. Wanna move and do it permanent. So it’s gotta be perfect for me and my girls,” he explained.
Oh man.
I had a feeling I knew what he was saying, that he intended to move in with me.
I had more than a feeling that it was way too soon too.
I wanted it to happen. I wanted forever with Logan.
But we had a lot of catching up to do, so I wasn’t sure about that starting now.
“You... I... ,” I stammered, not certain what to say.
“Now, havin’ you back, I’m not layin’ down a load of cake on a pad only for us to consolidate. And I’m guessin’, the way you are about your house, you’re not gonna wanna leave it.”
“No,” I said hesitantly, because I didn’t.
But it was mine. All mine. Inch by inch.
And it was a woman’s home.
Inch by inch.
And Logan was very much a man.
“Right,” he said. “So it’s big enough for all of us for a while. We’ll need to add on later. Another bedroom. Dining room ’cause can’t have decent Thanksgivings and birthdays sittin’ at a bar in a kitchen.”
My heart started beating fast and not in a good way at the thought of changing my space after I’d gotten it just how I wanted it.
I mean, I wanted Logan more than anything.
But living in a house under renovation sucked. I knew this all too well.
“Girls share a room,” he went on. “But Deb and me promised ’em, when they got to be teenagers, they’d get their own rooms. So we’ll need another one because I figure you’ll wanna have one for guests.”
“I... well, I think we need to discuss this at a time when I don’t have to get to work,” I evaded.
He nodded. “We can discuss this at a time when you don’t have to work and I don’t have to get on the road. But you meet the girls Friday. We have dinner together Friday. We go sleep at Boz’s Friday night. We spend the day together Saturday and Sunday. They sleep here Saturday and Sunday.”
I miraculously kept the panic out of my voice when I noted, “That’s like throwing them in a pool to learn how to swim.”
“You gonna be in my life?” he asked.
“Of course,” I answered.
“Then you’re gonna be in theirs. They gotta get used to it.”
I moved closer to him and gave him a squeeze. “That’s agreed. But I’m gonna be in your life, Logan, and theirs. So we have time.”
“Babe—”
I interrupted him. “Friday, dinner. Saturday doing something during the day. Saturday night, if you don’t want them to camp out in your RV anymore, I can go stay at Dot’s; you guys can stay here. Sunday, lunch or something. When do they go back to their mom?”
“Take them to school on Monday. They go back to her after school.”
They went to her after school on Monday?
He must get them back sometime during the week.
“Then Sunday night I’ll stay at Dot’s again,” I offered. “Or Justine’s. Or Kellie’s or something.”
“Not puttin’ you out of your own house and, Millie, the point still is they gotta get used to you.”
“Sleepover their third visit,” I haggled.
“Babe, that weekend will be a month away.”
That shocked me.
“A weekend?”
“Deb’s got near full custody,” he shared. “Girls are still young, but shit’s gonna start happenin’ soon with them that they’ll need their mom. Our deal was, two years of this, then we go half and half and nearly a year of that is done.”
“You only have weekends,” I stated, but it was a question.
“Every other weekend.”
He only had every other weekend?
Did courts decree that kind of thing anymore with dads?
And if they did, why didn’t he fight it?
However, it didn’t sound like there was a fight.
He said his “deal” with Deb was two years.
Had he agreed to this?
“Logan, that’s... I...”
I trailed off speaking because this wasn’t my place. They were his kids. It was his deal with his ex. He talked dispassionately about her and it seemed there was no acrimony.
I didn’t need to wade in and make any.
“You got somethin’ to say,” he remarked.
“No. I—”
I stopped talking when his arms gave me a squeeze.
“Millie, you got somethin’ to say, say it. Don’t hold back.”
I studied him.
Then I asked, “Are you... good with this arrangement?”
“Fuck no,” he answered. “But Deb never refuses when I ask for extra time but I still gotta do that shit, ask for extra time because I don’t have my girls.”
“Did she push this deal? Deb, I mean,” I asked.
“My idea,” he replied.
His?
“Logan,” I began cautiously, “I don’t get that, especially if you’re missing them and missing out in being with them.”
His arms tightened. “Babe, I’m a guy, so I never turned into a woman. Don’t know shit about cramps and...” his expression changed to one that it took a lot for me not to burst out laughing, “. . . other stuff. Deb obviously does. We get Clee-Clee through that and shit happens when they’re with me, she can help her sister through it until they get back to Deb.”
“You’re telling me you’ve given near full custody to your ex so you don’t have to deal in case your daughters start their periods with you?” I asked incredulously.
The expression came back. I made a noise this time while choking back laughter, the expression left and thunder started clouding his face.
“You got your period, you run to your dad to help you pick tampons?” he growled.
He had a point there.
He was still being funny.
“No,” I told him.
“Help get your moods? Which shit you should buy to deal, you get cramps?” he pushed.
“Deb is but a phone call away,” I reminded him, deciding not to note just yet that I was right at his side.
“That’s precious,” he stated in a way that made all amusement flee. “That happenin’, it’s precious. A girl becomin’ a woman. That’s a time of life to share with your mom. It’s not a memory you should have with your dad not knowin’ fuck all about it. How to guide you. How to help you. How to teach you how to experience something that’s only gonna have its start once but it’s gonna mean changes for years. Important ones. I don’t want that for my girls. I want them to have the precious. I want them to remember that happening and it to be a good memory. I don’t wanna fuck that up for them. Other shit comes with that. Realizin’ boys exist and why. How to deal with that. How to do their makeup. How to find the clothes they like to wear. I don’t want any of that shit to happen, Millie. I want them to stay my babies forever. But I got no choice. They’re growin’ up. And I got no clue how to guide them with any of that. Their mom does. So they need their mom.”
“You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met,” I blurted, the feeling behind those words making them husky.
But I found, to my surprise, they were not bittersweet, the loss of all that he could have given a daughter we made.
They were just sweet, knowing he had it to give to his girls.
And I made it so he could.
His arms around me convulsed and then stayed tight.
But I had a feeling he misunderstood the emotion behind my words when he asked, “You okay?”
I snuggled into him. “Yeah. Actually, I think I’m more okay than I’ve been for a long time.”
“How’s that?”
“I have you back,” I told him. “And you have the babies you have to give what you have to give. It wasn’t ours to have. It was yours. And now, not only do you have it, I have you. So it sucked how we got here. But I’m beginning to understand it was worth it.”
A scratchy rumble rolled up his throat right before he bent his head and took my mouth.
We made out and there was a lot of feeling to that too.
None of it bittersweet.
All of it just sweet.
He lifted his head and said softly, “Give you this weekend. Friday dinner. Saturday time with you. Sunday time with you. We’ll go sleep at the RV. But next time I got ’em, all that time’s with you.”
I could make that compromise, so I nodded.
“Today, gonna sit down with Deb and explain that.”
Oh man.
“Got nothin’ to worry about,” he assured. “Already told her I was with someone and that someone is important. She doesn’t care. Just want her to know how I’m movin’ it along with the girls. She won’t care about that either. She trusts me to do right by the girls and she isn’t wrong in that trust.”
That made me feel better, so I nodded again.
“As for me, I’m moving in.”
My lips parted.
“I know we’re just back but I don’t give a fuck. I’m not takin’ that slow. Lost too much. Not gonna dick around gettin’ it all back. Leave the RV at Boz’s until I can get that garage out back torn down. Once that’s out, there’ll be room to store the RV here and do it not fuckin’ up the look of your courtyard.”
Before I could say a word, he finished.
“And you can have your alarm clock until Justine gets her teeth into shit and you can sort it so you don’t need one.”
“You’re moving in?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“You’re tearing down my garage?”
“You use it?”
“No.”
“Then yeah.”
“You... uh... Low, my house is girlie,” I pointed out.
“Furniture’s comfortable. Place is tight. Looks nice. Great kitchen. It works,” he stated.
“But it’s girlie,” I repeated.
“What do I care as long as the furniture’s comfortable and your ass sleeps beside mine?”
That was very sweet.
But it wasn’t the relief I expected it to be.
“I... um... this is a big decision,” I noted.
“Not anymore since it’s made.”
He hadn’t been a steamroller before when making decisions.
Then again, he had me then; he never thought he’d lose me, so he didn’t need to steamroll anything.
Cautiously, I shared, “We should get to know each other again, Low.”
“Came to you yesterday pissed as all shit. I know ’cause I saw you lose it, freaked at how pissed I was. But you lost that and got in my face. Told you all there was to know about the bad of the last twenty years with the Club. You took it in, let me fuck you on your couch and, when I got you to bed, you were out in five seconds tellin’ me none of that shit was fuckin’ with your brain. Millie, you’re an old lady. Doesn’t matter what you wear or where you live; it’s just in you. That shit happens when you fall for a biker and you got what it takes. You fell for a biker and never dug yourself out to find somethin’ else. There’s nothin’ more I need to know.”
“You seem to have an answer for everything,” I remarked, and his lips twitched.
“That’s ’cause I have an answer for everything.”
I frowned and replied, “You’re also egotistical.”
He started chuckling but asked through it, “Babe, you wanna sleep alone?”
I absolutely did not.
I decided not to answer.
He knew my answer.
“Right,” he stated. Then, “You work. I got my thing I do. We eat together. We fuck. We go to bed together. We get up. We fuck. You do your thing. I do mine. And repeat. Why would we do any of that without my clothes in your closet?”
I looked to his throat, muttering, “Apparently he does have an answer for everything.”
At that, he didn’t speak.
He just laughed.
I found that annoying but only annoying in the way any man who actually had a rational answer for everything would be annoying to a woman.
So I did not laugh.
I asked, “Are we done? Because I have the plans for a sweet-sixteen party to go over and that’s not gonna happen in this kitchen.”
He was still smiling when he replied, “We’re done.
I rolled up on my toes, touched my mouth to his, rolled back, and broke from his arms to move to my coffee mug.
I retrieved it and walked to the back door, murmuring, “Have a good day, Snooks.”
“Back at ya,” he replied when I had my hand to the handle.
I looked to him.
Very faded jeans. The blue Henley.
He’d retrieved his coffee as well.
He looked comfortable in my kitchen. Not like he belonged, say, should someone need a model to use to take a photo in order to advertise my fabulous marble countertops.
But like he belonged because those countertops and the entire kitchen were mine.
And he was too.
“Love you, Low,” I said quietly.
His face was turned away, mug to his lips, but his eyes were cast to the side and on me when I spoke.
After I said what I said, his expression softened, he dropped the mug, and replied, “Back at ya.”
I grinned at him.
Then I opened the door, walked through, and went to work.
* * *
My cell on my desk chimed. I looked from Justine, sitting across from me going over the formal offer I’d typed out, Rafferty crawling around on my office floor, and turned my eyes to my phone.
At what I saw, I snatched it up, slid my finger on the screen, and read the entire text.
“Hang on, babe,” I muttered to Justine.
“Sure,” she muttered back, then louder, “Raff, baby boy, no on the trash bin.”
Rafferty reached out from crawling position, latched on to the side of my trash bin, and pulled it to him.
Wads of paper flew out.
Raff squealed with delight.
Justine moved to deal with the trash I didn’t care that Raff was reorganizing.
I hit the buttons to make the call I needed to make and put my phone to my ear, telling Justine, “Don’t worry about it. You know I don’t care.”
“Babe,” Logan answered a beat after I said my last word.
It was my turn to squeal with delight.
“The kitties are ready to pick up!”
“Yee ha!” Justine cried.
Rafferty rolled to his diapered tush and clapped his hands, or tried. He missed a lot but it was a good effort.
Logan’s voice was filled with humor when he said in my ear, “When?”
“This evening. Any time after six.”
“You got the shit?” he asked.
“What shit?” I asked back.
“Litter box. Food. Shit like that.”
I didn’t have the shit.
I needed the shit.
I glanced at my day’s to-do list.
Then I asked, “Uh... could you pick up the shit?”
There was a moment of silence before, still with humor but also with some resignation, he gave me the answer old Logan (who was very much like new Logan) would give.
“I’ll pick up the shit.”
“Thanks, Snooks,” I murmured, liking that he was going to pick up the shit. Then I ordered, “Kitty chow, not adult food. And that clumping litter, not anything that’s cheap. I saw online they have one that attracts kittens for litter training. Find that one. If you can’t, find one that might combat odors. And cute kitty bowls. Ones that match the house. Oh! And toys. Ones with feathers and stuff like that.”
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“Got that?” I asked.
“I’ll buy what I buy and it’ll work,” he replied. “You don’t like it, you can go out and get what you want.”
“Okay,” I said. “If I don’t like it, I’ll go out this weekend and find something I do like. Maybe the girls will get into that.”
“If there’s money to be spent on somethin’, they will.”
That made me smile.
Then I told him, “Justine is here. I need to go.”
“Right. Tell her I said hey. Later, beautiful.”
“ ’Bye, Low.”
We rang off and I looked to Justine, who was staring at me.
“Geez, it’s like twenty years didn’t pass. You guys were always like that. Me and Ronnie could fight for three days about who was going to go out and buy a litter box.”
This was true.
Justine and Veronica found a lot of things to fight about mostly, from what I could tell, so they’d have a variety of reasons to make up.
“Low says hey,” I told her, and watched happy hit her face.
“Say hey back when you see him,” she replied right when the door flew open.
I hadn’t heard a car come up the drive, so my eyes shot there with surprise and I felt more surprise when I saw Kellie stomping in, Dottie following her.
I didn’t pay much mind to Dot because Kellie had her arm raised and she was pointing back and forth between Justine and me.
“You! And you! I just knew it!” she shouted.
“What the heck?” Justine asked.
Dot closed the door as Kellie crossed her arms on her chest, face set right at pissed, that pissed aimed at me.
“I knew you’d tell her first,” she accused. “I knew she’d get the lowdown on Logan before we got our LBD on. I knew it.”
“Kellie—” I began.
“Admit it!” she snapped. “She’s your bestest bestie and I’m second fiddle.”
Not this again.
This had been happening since forever.
And it wasn’t just me she accused of Justine being my bestest bestie, it was also the other way around with Justine.
“You’re both my bestest besties,” I said on a sigh. “We’re all bestest besties. You know that.”
“The biggest thing that happens to you since you met Logan is you gettin’ back with Logan and she gets the goods first?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I tried to stop her,” Dot put in, and I looked to my sister. “We were having lunch. I mentioned Justine was here. She lost it and there was no going back.”
I looked back to Kellie and explained, “I’ve offered Jus a job, babe.”
“Ha!” she scoffed. “Likely story. And that bullshi—” Her eyes dropped to Raff, who was staring up at her in wonder, and she finished, “. . . shtein was what Dot was spouting.”
“It isn’t bullshtein,” Justine stated. “It’s true.”
“It’s bullshtein,” Kellie spat.
“I don’t know any more than you,” Justine returned.
Kellie threw out an arm. “So you’re just talkin’ about a job and that’s it?” She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“Can I just say,” I cut in, “that I’ve been in Paris for two weeks. I came back to a variety of dramas that changed the course of my life. I’m taking on a new employee. Imminently I face Logan moving in, and by imminently, I mean tonight, but the truth of that is that he’s already pretty moved in considering he currently lives in an RV, so I’m guessing there isn’t much to move. This weekend I face meeting Logan’s two daughters. And tonight we’re picking up my new kitties. I don’t mean to be mean, Kel, but I don’t have time to have a conversation that I’ve had a thousand times since fifth grade. You have no bestest bestie, Jus or me. Jus has no bestest bestie, you or me. I have no bestest bestie. Because we’re all bestest besties.”
“Logan’s moving in?” Justine asked me.
“Like you didn’t know that,” Kellie retorted.
Justine looked to Kellie. “I didn’t,” she snapped.
“I didn’t either,” Dot put in, and grinned at me. “Wow, Mill. The mom in me is freaked. The sister in me is also freaked. The woman in me is ecstatic.”
“Roll with the woman one, Dot,” I advised, grinning back.
“Why does he live in an RV?” Kellie asked.
“He’s been looking for a house since his divorce,” I answered. “It’s been a while but he wants it to be right for his girls. He hasn’t found anything.”
“But... an RV?” Dot asked.
I did not have good memories of that RV.
I was looking forward to making better ones.
“Well, it’s an RV but it’s the kind of RV Aerosmith might decide not to buy considering the cost of the upgrades,” I explained.
“Ooo,” Kellie breathed reverently. “A Rock-Mobile. Radical!”
“Uh... Mill, you have an appointment?” Justine asked into this exchange.
I looked to Justine, then followed her eyes out the window where I saw an SUV driving up.
I didn’t know that SUV and I couldn’t see who was in it, though I could see there was more than one person. A lot more.
“No,” I answered Justine.
“Drop in,” she said, and looked to me. “More work. I hope it’s Christmas. I found these lights online, like big ornaments but with dangly bits at the bottom. They so totally have to go into someone’s scheme.”
“Email me the link, Jus. Wanna have a look,” I told her.
“On it,” she stated, and then got on it, right there and then, digging in her purse to pull out her phone.
Rafferty crawled around the desk and started teeth/gumming my boot.
I bent down and picked him up to put him in my lap just as the door opened.
I looked that way, distractedly noting Kellie and Dottie were moving aside to let the newcomers in.
I was not distracted in any way noting who the newcomers were.
Tyra, Tack’s woman. Lanie, Hop’s woman. Elvira, and I didn’t know who she belonged to. An exceptionally pretty young woman with lots of curly strawberry blonde hair.
And the amazingly beautiful, all grown up Tabitha Allen.
I stared at Tabby.
She was looking at me.
“Hey, Millie,” she said softly.
She remembered me.
I felt my eyes fill with tears.
“Holy crap, Tab?” Justine asked, straightening from her chair. “Tack’s girl?”
Tabby looked to her, not recognizing her at first. Her head tipped to the side and she asked, “Justine, right?”
