Epilogue
“Not While I’m Around”
Lottie
I stood in my bathroom wearing some pink satin sleep
pants with a cream, brown and pink striped waistband that made them look like
girlie boxer shorts.
I wore nothing else.
I was staring at my breasts.
I’d had the surgery.
I’d also had the drama before the surgery.
It was same-day, even if I also got a lift to repair some of
the stretch. And I was out of commission for only five days, though that was
about not trying to do too much or lift anything too heavy.
The bummer was, I couldn’t dance for six weeks.
That said, the whole thing wasn’t that big of a deal.
However, I learned it was when I was going under the knife
with Rock Chicks, Morrison Sisters, Hot Bunch and Commando Boys at my back.
But the worst was Mo.
You would think I’d had heart surgery.
There had been a standoff the day before I was scheduled to
go to the hospital.
Although everyone agreed Mo would drive me and take me home,
the around-the-clock care I did not need after all was said and done
was hotly contested.
As they discussed the schedule of who would make me chicken
soup, change my dressings, grocery shop and clean my house, somehow, the
conversation took a turn for the worse with Morrison Sisters wanting to prove
to Rock Chicks that I was one of them and Hot Bunch and Commando Boys jockeying
for position as the favored brothers-not-of-the-blood in my life.
Though, for me, I would have paid to see any of those men
bringing me chicken soup or running my vacuum.
That said, I would be perfectly capable of doing the first
on my own, and my vacuum could hold off for long enough I could wield it
myself.
By the by, through this, Mom and Ingrid sat at my dining
room table, drinking coffees Tex had sent over from Fortnum’s Used Books, where
he was their premier barista, and chatting calmly like it wasn’t happening.
It ended with Mo shouting (shouting! until that moment I’d
never heard him shout), “None of you are gettin’
anywhere near my woman’s breasts! And I can and will
feed and take care of Lottie. I got this. Back the fuck off!”
I learned then that when a big guy like Mo who was usually
quiet and not easily ruffled bellowed, people listened.
I also learned then that there was family of a lot of
different varieties.
But with that, Mo was claiming him and me (mostly me,
obviously) as just ours.
I was sure he appreciated the love and support they were
showing.
But in the end, it was just him and me.
They could bring flowers.
They could not bring me chicken soup.
In the ensuing days after the surgery, he took care of my
incisions, changed my dressings, brought me food, ran the vacuum, got the mail,
did the grocery shopping, wouldn’t hear of me doing any of this for myself,
even if I could, and didn’t let me take that first peek at my breasts. Not
until the volume had returned and the bruising had faded.
I’d had implants for a while, switching them out to freshen
them up, because I looked great with big tits.
But now…
“Put a shirt on.”
I turned at these words to see my man hulking into the
bathroom.
“Mo—”
He walked to me, tagged the lacy pink bralette I’d laid out
on the counter and held it my way.
“Put this on,” he ordered.
My stomach plummeted, and I stared up at his gorgeous face.
“Do you like them?” I asked quietly.
He also stared down at my face.
“Of course I like ’em.”
“You’re not even looking at them,” I pointed out.
His eyes dropped to them then came back to my face.
“You look beautiful, Lottie,” he said. “You always look
beautiful. It’s impossible for you not to look beautiful.”
I knew my strengths.
I knew my weaknesses.
I was pretty.
I was not beautiful.
Except to Mo.
That was sweet, incredibly sweet, and he could say that, but
after my days of rest, it wasn’t like we hadn’t had sex in the five weeks since
surgery. We did. A lot. Gentle at first. Then not so much.
From what I could see, I was fully healed.
I felt great.
And I was due to go back to work the Tuesday after next.
I was ready.
I was also not.
And the not part was mostly the fact that Mo and I made
love, but he never touched my tits.
He barely even looked at them.
“Mo, when we have sex, you don’t—” I began.
That was as far as I got because he cut off my words by
tossing the bralette to the side, putting two big hands on my waist, lifting me
up, planting my ass on the counter and then he put those two big hands to my
breasts.
He lifted one up.
He bent to it.
Then he sucked my nipple deep into his mouth.
Oh…
Nice.
My head fell back and my hands went to his scalp, gliding
over, fingers linking at the back.
His head and my hands moved to the other nipple while he
rolled the one he’d left gently with his thumb.
I was breathing heavy when his mouth went away, his hands
covered my breasts, and his lips came to mine.
“You were healing,” he whispered, looking into my eyes.
“I’m fine now,” I whispered back.
“Okay,” he said.
That was it.
Mo said it was okay.
And it was okay.
He ran his thumbs hard over my nipples before he slid his
hands to my back, slanted his head and took my mouth.
It was getting serious. I was enjoying the feel of that
serious. Mo had moved one hand back to a breast and was kneading it, his other
hand shoving in at my back so I was arched into him, when a pounding came at
the door.
Mo lifted his head up.
“Mac, open this goddamned door!”
Oh man.
Smithie.
What now?
“I love my job. You love your job. I got a great family. You
got a great family. We both got kickass friends,” Mo growled. “And we’re still
moving to Hawaii.”
On that, he turned on his bare foot and stalked out.
I moved to snatch up my bralette and pull it on. I then
grabbed the cream cotton camisole that matched the cream in the waistband of my
shorts and was skintight, even if in the chest area there was less to be tight
against, and tugged that on.
Then I went flying from the bathroom just as I heard, “You
are not horning in on my action!”
That wasn’t Smithie.
That was Tex.
Oh shit.
I kicked up my pace and rounded the corner at the bottom of
the stairs only to slam into Mo’s immovable back.
He twisted to catch me with an arm and pull me to the side
just as Tex caught sight of me, jabbed a finger Smithie’s way, and boomed, “Tell
him! He’s not hornin’ in on my action!”
“Tex, honey, what are you talking about?” I asked in what I
hoped was a calming voice.
“You asked Tex to give you away?” Smithie demanded to
know…from me.
Yeah.
Oh shit.
“Tex?” he bit out. “Not me?”
Shit.
“Smithie—” I started.
“I’m her stepfather,” Tex mini-boomed to Smithie.
“I don’t give a shit,” Smithie returned to Tex.
Tex’s face started getting red.
Ah, hell.
“You got other daughters, ones you made,” Tex shot
back. “Give them away.”
“I will,” Smithie rejoined. “The ones of my blood and
the ones who want me to who dance for me.”
“Dance for you? Dance for you?” Tex was winding
himself up and I knew he’d finished that endeavor when he put both hands to his
head and then jerked them straight up, bellowing, “That’s entirely loco!”
“What’s loco about it?” Smithie retorted. “No one gets to
say what family is.”
He had a point there.
Tex stabbed a finger my way with his gaze still locked on
Smithie. “I sleep beside her mother.”
“I introduced her to her man,” Smithie fired back.
He kinda did that too, just not
for the reason that brought us to now.
Tex gave up on Smithie and looked at me.
“He is not hornin’ in on
my action.”
I had to find a compromise.
Immediately.
“Are you gonna dance with me at
the reception?” I asked, thinking Tex would balk at that for sure and I could
give the walk-down-the-aisle part to Tex and the father-daughter dance to
Smithie.
“Yes,” Tex answered immediately.
I blinked.
“You are?” I queried.
“Fuck yes. The father dances with his girl after the
wedding. Right?” Tex replied.
“Yes,” I whispered, and did it feeling Mo’s arm get tighter
around me.
Tex nodded sharply and stated, “I’ve already picked the
song. ‘Not While I’m Around.’”
Oh boy.
I knew that song.
Uh-oh.
I was going to cry.
While I fought that urge, I felt the room and knew Smithie
knew that song too and Tex just won the argument.
“What’s Ray gonna do in all this?”
Smithie asked me quietly, giving in without saying the words.
Ray was my biological dad. Since he began his ongoing
gambling recovery, our relationship had been somewhat repaired. Like Mo’s
oldest sister, for the sake of family, and because she had a generous heart,
Jet had asked our dad to give her away at her wedding.
Then again, that hadn’t worked out all that well and not
because Dad was a dick. Because Eddie had taken one look at Jet in her wedding
dress and broke ranks at the altar to prowl down the aisle and claim her before
Dad got the shot to give her away.
It was hilarious.
It was super sweet.
It was totally romantic.
And it was hot as fuck.
Sadly, the scars my father left me would never go away, so
he wasn’t going to get that honor from me mostly because I was grown up, and
Tex still lived the words of the song he’d picked for our dance. On the other
hand, Dad played a role in making me, and throughout my life, he’d never lived
those words.
“He’ll be invited,” I told Smithie. “But I think he’ll get
why he won’t play a bigger part.”
“Right then,” Smithie muttered, lifting a hand and rubbing
it over the top of his head. He dropped his hand and went on, “So, guess I’ll
see you Tuesday next.”
Current drama over.
It was good to be loved.
I just wished being that loved wasn’t so loud and didn’t
interrupt bathroom-counter sex with my man.
I mean seriously, if this shit didn’t stop, my neighbors
were going to come over and complain to me.
“Yeah, Smithie,” I replied.
Smithie studied my face, couldn’t process the love I knew
was shining there in company, so he turned his attention up to Mo.
“Hey, Mo.”
“Yo,” Mo grunted.