Chapter 28 #2
“You’re so annoying,” I replied.
“Girls,” Mom broke in for the eighty-nine thousand, six-hundred and first time in our lives.
“I’m totally in for you to keep my fund until my wedding,” I declared, returning to the matter at hand. “Especially after what I went through yesterday. And today. That was a chunk of change day. One word. Scary. More words. I want an awesome wedding gown like Alexis’s.”
My goal: Make Knox lose it.
A man being moved to tears by the sight of his woman?
Forget about it.
“All right, love,” Dad murmured. Then, “Dream?”
“I don’t know,” Dream said.
Mom, Dad and I exchanged looks because…
Dream didn’t know if she wanted Mom and Dad to save her wedding money?
Wedding money?
Holy shit, Byron was so totally in there.
His fingers must be really strong.
“I…I think…it would be foolish…it’s very early…
” she stammered, and I felt for her. She didn’t have a lot of practice talking shit out with people.
She finally got a handle on it. “I think I need to prioritize my babies. We need somewhere bigger. Nicer. And I need to feel settled so they’ll feel settled.
Not to mention, landlords are greedy, they’re contributing to the housing crisis by demanding outlandish rents, and I don’t want to feed into that system. ”
There was a long pause and then she homed in on Dad.
“Do you think that’s the right choice?” she asked.
Dad’s throat bobbed. Twice.
Then he pushed out, “Yes, sweetheart. Family is always priority.”
They had a moment.
Mom and I let them have a moment.
Dad broke the moment.
“Will you…allow your mother and me…?”
Damn, now Dad was stammering.
He cleared his throat and went on, “It would mean a lot to us if you’d allow us to help you find a house. And if you need more for the down payment, we can offer a no-interest loan.”
Gaze on Dad, Dream was sniffling and at a loss for words.
“In case you don’t know this, that means yes,” I spoke for her.
She squinted her eyes at me.
Again.
“Don’t speak for me.”
“Am I wrong?” I asked.
“No. But I still don’t want you speaking for me.”
“I’m multi-tasking because you being in my face means you won’t burst into tears at the dining room table.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I need another piece of cake,” Mom decreed.
I could use one too.
Gluten-free and vegan aside, it was still freaking good.
“One more piece of cake and you and Knox can head home and rest,” Mom said and turned to Dream. “And my grandbabies are coming home so you have to get back too.”
With that, she got up to make cake happen.
“Is Byron going to meet the kids?” I asked Dream.
“I think it’s too soon. But he’s really excited to meet them. So I don’t know,” Dream answered.
“Why wait?” I queried.
“I don’t know about that either. But Luna, it’s only been a week.”
“So? Knox is moving in. We already have a wedding scrapbook. Like Mom said, when you know, you know.”
“Hmm,” Dream hummed.
“I am a very happy man today,” Dad, who had been watching this byplay, said, and after saying it, he got up and walked out of the room.
Dream and I sat across from each other and didn’t move or speak.
She broke it.
“They’re so extra.”
I grinned at her. “They totally are.”
“Raincheck on that sister date this week?” she asked.
“Is that code for, ‘come over and help me with my Etsy packages while I have my kids’?”
“Yes,” she copped to it.
“Pick the day and I’m there.”
We got up and returned to our guys.
Knox gave me a penetrating look when I showed.
I smiled.
He relaxed.
We ate cake.
Those that didn’t live there anymore left.
After Knox and me (and Jacques) got home, he and I had sex because we had to report for cleanup duty at eight o’clock sharp that morning, and I’d had a mild hangover when I reported for said duty, so we missed morning sex.
Then we pulled on clothes, collapsed on the couch, and I passed out with my head in my man’s lap with my puppers curled in the curve of mine while my guy watched a game.
And I found I could do sports this way, totally.
Unconscious was the way to go.
* * *
It was Tuesday, about two hours from when my shift would end, when my phone vibrated in my apron.
I was about to do a round of my tables to see if anyone needed anything, but I stopped, took the phone out, and seeing it was a call from Knox, I connected.
“Hey.”
“Can you take a quick break so we can talk?”
I didn’t like his tone.
“Totally,” I said, catching Shanti’s eyes.
She gave me a nod that said she’d look after my tables, and I headed to the staff room.
“What’s up?” I asked when I got there.
“Brody has been keeping an eye on things. Dad boarded a plane to Cuba about an hour ago.”
“Well…that’s a choice,” I said for lack of anything else to say.
“They don’t extradite.”
“Oh.”
“Am I fucked in the head that I’m relieved all my family is safe?” And since his mother and siblings were involved with a drug cartel, he tacked on, “For now.”
“You’re not fucked in the head,” I replied. “You’re Knox. That’s who you are. You’re a good guy. And that’s how good guys think.”
It took a second before he said, “Yeah. A beautiful, together woman like you wouldn’t sit on a wrapped Christmas present for over a year if I wasn’t that guy.”
He was getting it.
“One thousand and one percent,” I confirmed. Then, so he wouldn’t forget, “Or sleep with his tee all that time too.”
“I fuckin’ love you.”
His voice was gruff.
“I fuckin’ love you too. And not only because you share morning dog bathroom duties. Or that you’re a master of the kiss mix.”
“The kiss mix?
“Dueler, dancer, and plunderer.”
Another second before he burst out laughing.
Excellent.
My job was done.
“See you in a couple hours,” he said, still laughing.
“You will,” I replied.
We hung up.
And I got back to work.
* * *
“Knox, I know we’re a thing,” I said.
“Yeah,” he bit off. “We’re a thing.”
“A lasting thing.”
He turned toward the Container Store bags piled in the corner that were the preliminaries to Harlow’s organization project, returned to me and scowled.
Mm-hmm.
Those bags pretty much cemented the word “lasting” in my statement.
It was now Saturday.
Jacob and Alexis were still on their honeymoon.
Raye and Jessie got inspired by their wedding and had shifted full bore into planning their own.
Byron had met the kids, and he’d been over twice that week to have dinner with Dream and her brood.
Dream had reported that these were her favorite nights, “Not to be selfish or anything, but it’s a lot easier putting them to bed when someone helps. But mostly, it’s super nice to have someone to talk to after they’re down, and that someone being an adult.”
I had no kids, but I could totally see that.
Onward with the update…
Brady had not made a move on Gemma.
Lan had also not made a move on Joey.
Liam further had made no moves on Shanti.
But Javi and Harlow and Willow and Gabe had moved onto the next phase of their relationships.
Not engagements.
Javi and Harlow got two kittens, and Willow and Gabe adopted a dog.
And I was discovering Knox’s and my own honeymoon was over, because we were fighting.
Get this.
About a vacation.
“I might as well go now, when I’m fine and I can enjoy it,” he stated.
“But at work, I have to spend most of my time writing reports, sitting on my ass staring at screens and confirming intel on a fucking phone. If we leave when Jacob and Alexis get back, stay gone two weeks, I’ll be back to full duty when we return. ”
“So this is your way to kill time while you completely recover?” I asked.
“Luna,” he said low.
Yeah, I knew that wasn’t his gig.
He wanted to go somewhere with a beach, drink rum punch and fuck listening to the waves crashing on a beach.
I wanted that too.
I just couldn’t afford it.
And thus, our fight.
“Knox, give me some time while you move in, then get a renter so your mortgage will be covered, we’ll be sharing expenses, and I can save up,” I suggested.
“Luna, there may be a time you make more than me. But in this time, I make more than you. I have the money to cover this. So what are you saying right now? That throughout our future, we’ll be going halves on everything? The house we buy. The kids we raise. The college funds we start.”
Damn.
He had a point.
“Are you ready to be in that spot now?” I asked.
“In the end, will I get nothing but you, a beach, a bed, and unadulterated time to get to know one another better in a variety of ways? Two weeks of nothing pressing on us but when we’re gonna rouse ourselves to eat? Yes. We’re in that spot now.”
Well…
“Okay, I gotta say, this feels weird,” I admitted.
And it did. I’d been depending on me and only me since I moved out of Mom and Dad’s house at nineteen.
He drew in a breath, came to me and pulled me in his arms.
“You’ve been on your own for a while,” he began.
“So have you,” I cut in.
“Can I talk?”
I shut up.
He fought smiling.
I decided it best to stay shutting up while he did.
Finally, he said, “We both have a lot of getting used to shit. We lost a year in between. We both just went through it with my family. Mace thinks this vacation is a great idea because he doesn’t really need a man at a desk or in the control room.
He needs men in the field. This is the perfect time…
for me…for a vacation. I want you with me.
You can’t afford it. I can. I don’t give a fuck I’m paying for you. So I don’t know why you would.”
Another good point.
“If I’m gone two whole weeks, Raye will have that stupid Tiffany’s collar on Jacques and he might get used to it, so I might have to put up with it,” I said.
He smiled instead of rubbing it in he won (or maybe his smile was rubbing it in, but since I liked it, I didn’t care) before he bent in to touch his lips to mine.
When he pulled away, he asked, “Can we start planning our vacation now?”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
“Caribbean?” he asked.
I’d love to go to the Caribbean.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
He smiled again. “All-inclusive?”
Okay, now he was rubbing it in.
“Knox—”