Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Romeo
For most of my life, I’d believed there were two kinds of men in this world. Men smart enough to fear their mothers, and poor stupid bastards who hadn’t learned yet.
Watching Glorianna La Croix DuBois sweep into the Bourbon Bar with Aunt Marabella beside her confirmed I had been right all along.
Mama didn’t come through the door carrying a purse.
She came through carrying enough shit to suggest she’d prepared for a small wedding, a christening, and possibly somebody’s funeral if I irritated her before lunch.
Garment bags hung over one arm. A large white box rested against her hip.
Flowers filled another bag, and behind her walked an elderly priest I recognized from half a lifetime of Sunday mornings, looking considerably less concerned about being dragged into a biker bar than any man of God reasonably should have been.
Aunt Marabella followed with more bags, two bakery boxes, and the expression of a woman who had already decided the Bourbon Bar belonged to her until further notice.
Gator took one look at them and muttered, “We’re fucked.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Mama’s gaze found me from across the room.
I reconsidered.
“We’re fucked.”
Gator snorted beside me, but neither of us moved quickly enough to escape. Not that there was anywhere to go. Mama had been hunting me since I learned how to walk, and she’d caught me every damn time.
“Jasper Francis Alexander DuBois.”
There was nothing good about hearing every damn name you owned come out of your mama’s mouth at once.
Especially in that tone.
The Bourbon Kings went suspiciously quiet around us.
Worm suddenly found something fascinating behind the bar.
Thore turned his back, which did absolutely nothing to hide the shaking of his shoulders, and somebody farther down had the poor judgment to laugh before another brother apparently convinced him he valued his life.
I put on the smile that had gotten me out of trouble with women for more than thirty years.
Mama remained unmoved.
“Evenin’, Mama.”
She handed the flower bag to Marabella without looking away from me, crossed the remaining distance, and caught my face between both hands. For one confusing second, I thought she was going to kiss me.
Then her fingers pinched my cheeks.
Hard.
“Do you have any idea what your aunt and I have been through today?”
“Ow.”
“Do not ow me. One phone call. That is not what decent sons give their mothers before deciding to turn an ordinary Tuesday into an event.”
“It’s not Tuesday.”
Her fingers tightened.
Apparently, the calendar wasn’t the point.
Behind her, Aunt Marabella was already ordering Bourbon Kings around like she’d been elected president sometime between the parking lot and the front door.
Tables were being moved. Bar stools disappeared against walls.
Someone was told to find clean linens. Thore made the mistake of asking why they needed linens in a bar and received a look that sent him moving before she answered.
Mama finally released my face and smoothed both palms over my cheeks as though she hadn’t just tried to remove them. The irritation in her expression softened when she looked at me properly.
“You’re sure?”
There it was.
Under the garment bags and flowers and priest she had apparently kidnapped from his daily routine, she was still my mama.
I glanced toward the stairs.
“Been sure since the first time I saw her.”
Mama’s eyes closed briefly.
When they opened again, there was something shining in them that made me wish she’d go back to pinching me.
“That damn curse.”
“I know.”
“You laughed at it your whole life.”
“I know.”
“Your daddy used to tell me you’d eat every one of those jokes when your turn came.”
That sounded exactly like him.
I smiled despite the ache that came with remembering. “He would’ve enjoyed this.”
“He would’ve adored her.” Mama’s voice caught just enough to make my chest tighten before she straightened and became Glorianna La Croix DuBois again. “Now, where is my girl?”
My girl.
Not who is she? Not where is this Fiona you dragged down here?
Mama had spent the entire year listening to me talk about her even when I pretended I wasn’t talking about her.
She knew about the texts, prom, graduation, and every fucking excuse I’d invented to get myself back to Virginia without admitting how badly I wanted to stay once I got there.
“Upstairs.”
Mama looked at the ceiling.
Then at me.
“You left my future daughter-in-law sitting upstairs while you stood down here drinking coffee?”
“I thought I was safer down here.”
“You were wrong.”
Devlyn appeared at the top of the stairs before Mama could begin listing my deficiencies as a son. Fiona came down behind her, and everything else in the bar stopped mattering.
She’d changed since I left her upstairs. Nothing fancy. Jeans and a soft shirt, hair loose around her shoulders, no makeup beyond whatever she normally wore. She looked rested compared to when we arrived, though I could still see traces of the last twenty-four hours in the careful way she moved.
Then she saw the bar.
Her steps slowed.
I followed her gaze and understood why.
In the time Mama and Aunt Marabella had been inside, the Bourbon Bar had begun transforming around us.
Flowers had appeared on tables. The windows were being cleaned despite Gator loudly informing his mother they had been cleaned yesterday.
A length of white fabric was being argued over near the back wall.
The priest stood beside the bar drinking coffee while Worm looked like he wanted to ask whether putting bourbon in it counted as a mortal sin.
Fiona’s eyes widened.
Then she found me.
I smiled.
The uncertainty in her face eased.
Mama saw that too.
She crossed the room before Fiona reached the bottom step, and for the first time all morning, I wondered if I should intervene.
Mama could overwhelm a grown man with years of experience avoiding her.
Fiona had known she was coming, but knowing Glorianna DuBois existed and experiencing her were two entirely different things.
I should have known better than to worry.
Mama stopped in front of Fiona and looked at her for a long moment. Fiona straightened slightly beneath the inspection, and I saw her glance toward me before Mama reached out and took both of her hands.
“So, you’re Fiona.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mama’s mouth softened. “Oh, sugar, none of that ma’am nonsense unless I’m angry with you. You call me Glorianna until you’re ready for something else.”
Fiona glanced at me again.
I knew that look.
She liked her.
God help us all.
“I’m sorry this is so sudden,” Fiona said.
Mama’s brows rose. “Sudden for you, maybe. I’ve been waiting damn near a year for my hardheaded son to quit circling you and do something useful.”
“Mama,” I groaned
“What?” She looked over her shoulder at me. “You think I didn’t know?”
Fiona laughed.
That was worth every bit of shit I was going to take today.
Mama turned back to her, squeezing her hands. “Now I’m going to ask you something once, and I need you to answer me truthfully. My son can be persuasive when he gets an idea into that thick skull of his. Are you standing here because this is what you want?”
The laughter disappeared from Fiona’s face, but there was no fear behind it. Her eyes came to me again and held mine before she answered.
“Yes.”
Mama watched her another second, then nodded as though something had been settled.
“Good. Then we have work to do.”
Fiona barely had time to blink before Mama kissed her cheek and passed her directly to Aunt Marabella.
“Upstairs,” Marabella ordered. “We’ve got a dress to get you into.”
Fiona looked down at herself. “A dress?”
“Of course a dress.”
“How did you...?”
Mama waved away the question. “Southern women don’t arrive unprepared to important occasions, honey.”
Devlyn laughed so hard she had to grab the railing.
Fiona looked overwhelmed, but the smile spreading across her face told me she wasn’t unhappy about any of it.
Aunt Marabella tucked Fiona’s arm through hers and started upstairs while explaining that she’d brought several things because trusting men to provide accurate sizing information was how women ended up wearing tablecloths.
Devlyn followed them willingly.
I caught the look she gave me before disappearing upstairs.
She was enjoying this way too fucking much.
The moment the women were gone, Mama turned on me.
I braced myself.
Instead of another lecture, she reached into her purse and pulled out a small velvet box.
Everything inside me went still.
I knew the box.
Had seen it in Mama’s dresser when I was a kid, tucked beneath scarves and old photographs, one of those things C.C. and I had been threatened with death if we touched.
Mama held it out.
“Your father wore this.”
My throat tightened.
I took the box carefully.
Inside was the Dubois ring, heavy gold worn smooth in places by generations of men before me.
My father had worn it every day I remembered him.
I could still picture his hand wrapped around a coffee cup in our kitchen, the ring catching the morning light while he laughed at something Mama said. After he died, she’d put it away.
I hadn’t seen it since.
“It belonged to his father before him,” Mama said quietly. “And his grandfather before that. Your daddy always said it would be yours when you found the woman you were meant to give your name to.”
For once in my fucking life, I had nothing smart to say.
I lifted my eyes to hers.
Mama’s own were wet.
“Don’t make me cry in a biker bar, Jasper.”
That almost got me.
“You started it.”
“I gave birth to you. I get to start whatever I please.”
Fair.
I closed my fingers around the ring and pulled her into my arms.