28
Lila
Jackson had kept his word, which was unfortunate for my peace of mind.
He came back the next day exactly as promised and kept coming back.
I told myself it was good. Jade deserved this, and whatever still existed between Jackson and me belonged somewhere locked away while they figured out how to be father and daughter.
That remained true, even if Jackson Hayes had never met a boundary he couldn’t lean on with a grin.
He never came in loud enough to give me something easy to fight.
He showed up for Jade, patient with her, then somehow ended up in my kitchen doorway while I made coffee or reaching past me for a glass close enough that his chest brushed my shoulder.
He could make Jade roll her eyes, catch me watching, and answer with that maddening smirk.
I kept dragging my attention back where it belonged: Jade getting to know the man who should have been there all along.
That had to matter more than a kiss against my front door that my body remembered with humiliating clarity.
Naturally, I was cutting fruit and trying not to think about that kiss when someone knocked. I barely had the door open before Evan swept inside, sunglasses in his hair and a bag of bread in one hand like tribute.
“Before you say anything,” he said as he passed me, “I would just like it noted that I showed heroic restraint and did not immediately begin this visit by asking how many times Jackson Hayes has shown up in the last week looking sinful and determined.”
I shut the door harder than necessary. Evan knew me too well to mistake irritation for anything else, but I warned him anyway. “Then keep restraining yourself.”
He gasped, offended on principle. “Lila. Be serious. Jade told me enough to ruin my sleep.”
Of course she had. My daughter and best friend were far too efficient at discussing my life without me. I headed back toward the kitchen. “Jade needs to learn boundaries.”
“No, Jade knows quality when she sees it, and I am an exceptional audience.” Evan followed me in and put the bread on the counter, already far too comfortable with the subject.
“The man has been coming over repeatedly. Repeatedly. Quietly inserting himself into your domestic space like some sort of emotionally damaged panther, and you think I’m not supposed to have questions? ”
I slid the cutting board toward him in a silent suggestion that he make himself useful. “I think you’re supposed to make sandwiches.”
“I can do both.” He opened cabinets with the familiarity of someone who had belonged in my kitchens for years while I returned to the strawberries. His attention stayed on me long enough to make the knife feel like a useful warning. “That kiss really did a number on you, didn’t it?”
I pointed the knife at him. He raised both hands, delighted rather than threatened. “And there she is.”
“I am not discussing this with you.” I lowered the knife because threatening Evan only encouraged him.
“You are, unfortunately, discussing it with your entire face.” His smile sharpened; he knew how much I hated being readable.
“My face is minding its own business.” Mine might have been. His certainly wasn’t.
“Your face looks like it wants to file a restraining order and climb that man at the same time.”
The accuracy of it hit far too close to home. A choking sound escaped me. “Evan.”
“What?” He reached for the turkey and started assembling sandwich ingredients with infuriating calm. “I’m not judging. I’m fascinated. There’s a difference.”
I went back to cutting fruit because murdering my best friend would complicate lunch. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet I am the one in here helping you make lunch while you aggressively mutilate produce because your baby daddy is hot and persistent.”
I closed my eyes for one second. When I opened them, he was grinning like a menace. “Do you feel better?” I asked.
“Immensely.” His grin widened with the satisfaction of a man whose work here was apparently done.
“I’m glad one of us does.” The joke landed differently that time, enough for Evan to hear what sat underneath it.
He reached for plates instead of another insult and set them on the counter. “Alright. Truce. I’ll behave. Probably.”
I snorted. The promise was worth exactly what both of us knew it was. “You’ve never behaved a day in your life.”
“That is slander, and also true.” He went back to the sandwiches, mercifully letting the subject die.
Another knock interrupted lunch prep, the kitchen already smelling like toasted bread and cut fruit instead of my spiraling thoughts. Blue stood outside with Little Jax in her arms and a diaper bag over one shoulder.
“Hey,” I said, smiling as I opened the door wider.
“Hey.” Blue stepped inside, already shifting Jax toward me because she knew I would reach for him.
I took Jax without thinking, settling his warm little weight against me. He tucked himself closer with a sleepy baby sound, all soft cheek and milk-warm heaviness, and I was still enjoying it when Evan came around the corner with a dish towel over his shoulder and stopped dead.
“Bitch,” he said, staring at the leather on her back. “Is that a property cut?”
Only then did I really look. The leather was fitted for Blue, feminine without losing what it meant. Her smile widened as she turned to show us the back, where the patch read Property of Priest.
“Oh my God,” I said. The patch should not have surprised me, but seeing the claim made tangible still landed hard.
Evan made a strangled noise, staring at the cut with the reverence he reserved for expensive shoes and fictional men. “Turn around again. I need to appreciate the full emotional devastation.”
Blue laughed and obliged him, clearly enjoying every second of our reaction. Then she lifted her left hand, and the emerald-cut diamond caught the light between two sapphires.
“Oh my God,” I said a second time, because apparently Blue had decided one surprise was nowhere near enough.
“Exactly,” Evan whispered, his gaze fixed on the ring with the solemnity of a religious experience.
Blue bit her lip, happiness already giving away the rest. “Priest proposed.”
For a second I could only stare at her. Then I shifted Jax to one arm and pulled her into a careful hug with the other. “Blue.”
She laughed softly against me. “Yeah.” The single word carried enough happiness to make my own throat tighten.
When I drew back, there was no mistaking what love had done to her. She looked settled and happy, with a little disbelief still shining through it. “You’re engaged.”
“I am.” Blue glanced down at the ring again, and the little smile that followed belonged entirely to her.
Evan clutched the counter, apparently unable to survive another second without making the moment about his emotional welfare. “I need everyone to stop having beautiful love stories without giving me at least twenty-four hours to emotionally prepare.”
We moved to the couch because apparently an engagement required soft seating and carbohydrates. I handed Jax back long enough to help bring lunch in, then settled beside Blue while Evan claimed the chair across from us, ready to enjoy every detail.
“So,” I said, still taking in the ring, the cut, and the fact that my best friend somehow looked like the heroine of every biker romance Evan had ever shoved at us. “Tell me everything.”
Blue tucked one leg beneath herself and settled Jax comfortably in her lap. “We’re having the wedding at the compound,” she said, her smile going soft. “Behind the clubhouse. There’s a stretch of trees back there by the lake. Priest wants it set up in front of the water.”
Evan pressed a hand to his chest, already looking personally affected by a ceremony that had not happened yet. “Of course he does.”
I could picture it: trees framing the lake, evening light on the water, Priest beside her with that hard-edged intensity that softened only for Blue. It suited them.
Blue laughed at Evan’s expression. “He’s already making plans.” The fondness in her voice took any complaint out of the words.
“That man was making plans before he even put the ring on your finger,” I said. Priest had never struck me as a man who waited for life to happen.
“That is true,” she admitted, turning the ring once with her thumb as if she still needed to prove to herself it was there.
“And the cut?” Evan asked, leaning forward. “Because I need the full sequence of events. I want details. I want emotional architecture.”
Blue smiled down at Jax before looking back at us. “He gave it to me when he asked me to be his Old Lady officially.”
Evan made a sound that belonged in a theater balcony. “I hate this. I love this. Continue.”
Her cheeks pinked, but the happiness stayed easy. “Then later he showed me his tattoos.”
I blinked, caught completely off guard. “His what?”
Evan went so still it was almost alarming. Blue touched her fingers lightly to her chest, and something in her expression softened before she told us why.
“He got Blue tattooed over his heart.”
Evan inhaled sharply enough that I thought he might choke, but Blue was not finished.
“And he got Jackson on his ribcage with his birthdate under it,” she went on, her voice softening. “He said he put it there so there’d be room to add the rest of the babies we’re going to have.”
I laughed before I could stop myself as Evan collapsed back into the chair like his bones had given up. “You are ridiculous.”
“He’s insane,” Evan said to the ceiling. “That man is clinically, romantically unwell. Over the heart? Room for future babies? Blue, I need you to understand this is the kind of thing women in books throw themselves onto chaise lounges over.”
Blue was laughing now too, blushing and looking happier than I had seen her in a long time. “He was very serious about it.”
“That somehow makes it worse,” Evan said, sitting up and pointing at her like he was cross-examining a witness. “Now. Important matters. Lila better be your maid of honor.”
Blue looked at me like the answer had never been in doubt. “Of course she is.”