Chapter Fifteen
“Hey, we’re having a sister get-together after lunch,” Tori announced, staring at Naomi as if she thought Naomi would say no. She was guessing that somehow the gossip train at Bluff Creek had let her sisters know she was outside kissing Stone last night.
“Where?” Naomi challenged.
“We reserved the Broken Hearts Brewing smash room,” Chloe chimed in.
“And the girls?” Naomi asked, since it seemed her sisters were ganging up on her and had it all figured out.
“Regina is doing a baking class today for any of the kids who want to learn. The girls said they wanted to attend,” AJ explained.
“Well, it seems like you all just have everything planned, bless your heart. Lilah, what did you add to the get-together?” Naomi demanded, barely holding her temper in check.
She was finally on her own and didn’t have someone constantly telling her what she was going to do, and now her sisters hadn’t asked if they could all get together.
Instead, they arranged everything and decided she’d go along with it.
Everyone had been getting ready to sit down at lunch when her sisters brought it up. The chatting in the room had quieted when she called out Lilah.
“I have the list of questions we’re going to ask you,” Lilah admitted flatly.
“Lilah, seriously,” Tori scolded.
“What? She asked. I’m not going to lie to her just because AJ and you thought she needed an intervention,” Lilah retorted, rolling her eyes.
Naomi stared at her sisters, whom she deeply loved, but she wasn’t giving up her newfound independence because her sisters decided she needed a lecture.
Sure, Tori and AJ were a couple years older, but she was the only one of the five who had been married and had children.
How could they dream that they needed to guide her in what she did?
“Well, we don’t want to hold up lunch. Regina, is it time to go through the buffet line?” Naomi asked, smoothly changing the subject.
“Yes. If you’ll all gather ‘round, I’d like to give thanks,” Regina announced.
Naomi stood by her girls because she wasn’t sure if she could keep her mouth shut if she stood by her sisters.
“Thank you for bringing us all together today and for this food prepared by many hands. Please be with all of us this week and have us show kindness to those we meet. Amen. Let’s eat,” Regina prayed, motioning toward the line.
Most of the men hung back unless they were helping the younger kids get food. The kids went through, then the women and men. Naomi looked around the tables to decide where to sit. There was a seat between Stone and Beck. She laid her plate on the table.
“Mind if I sit here?” she checked.
“Of course not. Beck and I saved it for you,” Stone reassured her.
He had a strange look in his eyes. She wasn’t sure what it was. Once she sat down, he patted her knee.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Stone said softly, his low voice private and comforting.
Hmm, she’d guess that look was Stone being protective.
He didn’t seem to appreciate how her sisters had acted.
Neither did she. She was thirty-nine, almost forty, and for the first time in her life, she was making decisions for herself and her girls.
Now, if her sisters wanted to talk trash about Jared, she’d be happy to join in, but they weren’t going to be questioning her regarding Stone.
She’d been enjoying lunch, listening to her girls chat with all their new friends.
She and Stone had talked, but he was discussing something with Dex, who was on the other side of him.
She stared at her plate, not believing she’d eaten so much.
She was pleasantly full and thinking about how great it was that they’d come to Bluff Creek. Her girls were blossoming.
“Naomi, it’s time to head out,” Tori ordered, standing up with her plate.
She loved Tori, especially the sacrifices she’d made so Naomi could attend college, but Naomi wasn’t a child.
“You know, I think I’ll let you all spend some time together. Maybe I’ll stay for the cookie baking lesson,” she countered.
“It’s a sister get-together,” AJ insisted.
“We have questions,” Lilah added.
Naomi stared at her sisters, wondering why they were so adamant about meeting. If they’d involved her in the planning, then she might have been more willing, but they’d irritated her.
“Oh, well, why don’t you go ahead and ask them now?” Naomi challenged.
Snickering from Winnie and Jesse had Tori frowning.
“I, well, um, we wanted privacy,” AJ stuttered.
“Why do you need privacy?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah, Aunt AJ, why can’t you just ask Mom now?” Regan pressed.
Naomi didn’t fill the silence or bail her sisters out. If they wanted to know about anything, they could have asked. Instead, they’d made plans and then informed her what was happening. Screw that.
“Because we want to ask your mom some questions,” Chloe said.
“Aunt Chloe, Mom’s been smiling more than I’ve ever seen her smile. Dad isn’t hurting her, and we like it here. Papa Locks said even though he’s our great uncle, we could call him the same thing the other kids do. I love it here, and so do my sisters,” Regan defended.
“Well, Regan, sometimes adults need to discuss if someone is making the right decision for their life,” AJ explained.
“Did you have this discussion with Aunt Chloe before she started her secret business, or are you singling out our mom?” Taylor asked.
Naomi kept quiet because it seemed her girls had something to say. Since Jared had a stranglehold on who could talk, Naomi was thrilled her girls felt comfortable enough to challenge their aunts.
“What secret business?” Tori demanded.
“We’re not singling out your mom,” AJ protested weakly.
Naomi waited to see if Chloe would say anything, but the deer-in-headlights look she was sporting had Naomi smiling.
Stone leaned close. “I have council after lunch. It usually lasts an hour or under. Do you want to go for a motorcycle ride, or we could take the girls to the park in town?”
She turned toward him and nodded. “Either sounds good.”
“It seems we have a lot more to talk about than I thought,” Tori mused.
“I’ll be willing to talk with you here at the compound while Stone has council.
I have plans after that. But it will be all of us asking and answering questions.
If you think this will be an inquisition of me, then you can think again.
I have decided that no one, and I mean no one, will tell me what to do anymore.
If you can agree to that, I’m in,” Naomi vowed.
All her sisters nodded.
As everyone cleared, Naomi motioned Taylor over. “How do you know Aunt Chloe has a secret business?” Naomi asked.
“She had stuff out in her kitchen when she watched us one time. I read it while we were hanging out,” Taylor revealed. Naomi pulled Taylor in for a hug.
“You are so smart. Love you,” she said.
“Love you too, Mom. Now I need to go make cookies,” Taylor chirped, running off.
Stone was grinning, listening to the girls talk about cookie baking and eavesdropping on their aunts’ discussion with their mom. They were so involved in chatting with each other that he was positive they weren’t even paying attention to him and Naomi in the front seat.
“It seems like the discussion didn’t quite go as your sisters had planned,” Stone said softly.
Naomi chuckled, shaking her head.
“No, it did not. Between me standing up to them and the girls listening from the kitchen and interjecting if they didn’t approve of the questions, I’d say it didn’t go as anyone had planned,” Naomi agreed.
“I can see why they are concerned. I’ve been to prison,” he said.
Naomi reached over, holding onto his arm, “You went to prison for defending your sister and mom against a rapist and an abuser. They should have given you a medal,” Naomi insisted, her voice so earnest it warmed his heart.
A medal? Naomi saw him as a hero? He’d known with all the time to think in prison that he would do exactly what he’d done if he had to do it over again, but for her to see him as a hero gave him a different feeling.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“What are we going to do at the park?” Taylor piped up.
“Since your mom and I are in charge of the pickleball tournament, I thought we could try to play the game a little. With five of us, we’ll switch out. I also brought cornhole for us to play on teams,” Stone explained.
“We could have played cornhole at the compound. Did you want to get us away from our aunts? We love them, but they can be a lot sometimes. Kind of like the Franks cousins,” Regan said, rolling her eyes.
Stone chuckled. “Maybe,” he teased, the girls giggling.
He wanted Naomi to have everything she’d ever dreamed of. No limits—all her dreams achieved.
He parked, and the girls chattered, deciding it was pickleball first.
Beck borrowed Naomi’s phone to look up the pickleball rules.
He’d noticed that although Beck was quiet, she soaked everything in.
She did better if she knew exactly what was expected.
He was guessing that was because she could abide by the rules.
It was probably her way of dealing with Jared’s stringent household.
She explained the rules, and then everyone picked out rackets from the ones available after Stone unlocked the concession stand where the rackets were stored. The triplets all picked different colors. The more time he was around them, the more he realized how different they were.
He stood on the sidelines at first, helping with the rules, then Taylor wanted him to play. Naomi rotated out.
“I think we need some music for our game,” Naomi suggested, turning her phone up.
“Oh, I want the Moana soundtrack!” Beck cheered.
Stone had no idea what Moana was, but the girls playing pickleball and singing along to the songs were so cute. He wasn’t sure how much pickleball was being played because every time the song said You’re Welcome, the girls would pause and sing it to each other.
“Stone, sing along!” Regan yelled.
“I don’t know the songs. What are they from?” he asked.
The girls stopped dancing and walked toward the net.
“You don’t know what Moana is?” Taylor gasped, her eyes bugging out.
“Remember, prison?” he reminded her gently.
“They didn’t have movies in prison?” Beck wondered, her tone appalled, which Stone found adorable. If only no movies would have been the worst thing he’d dealt with.
“There were movies sometimes, but not Moana,” Stone explained, hoping he wouldn’t have to go into any detail about life in prison to these girls.
“Oh, we have to fix that,” Beck declared, staring at Naomi.
“We can have a movie night if Stone wants to,” Naomi said.
“Well, of course, he wants to because he doesn’t want to miss out on conversations when people make movie references. Oh, we should make a list. How often should we do movie night? School’s out, but Stone does need to work. Mom, would one an evening be too much?” Taylor chattered eagerly.
Stone wondered how taking the girls to play pickleball and cornhole had turned into movie night, but knowing these girls wanted to spend time with him made him realize he was falling for them as much as he was falling for their mom.
He wasn’t the best for father material, but surely, he was fucking better than Jared the Jerk.
They played pickleball for another hour while the girls discussed all the other movies that he needed to catch up on. By the time the girls wanted to play cornhole, they had over fifty movies they said he needed to see.
Naomi leaned close as they walked to set up cornhole under the shade of a tree, her hand in his.
“If you don’t want to do this, say so now, and I’ll get you out of it,” Naomi urged.
Stone paused, turning to Naomi, waiting for her to look up at him.
“I am thrilled that they want to be around me and watch movies. I love seeing their eyes light up and the high-fives they give each other when they think of another must-see movie. Maybe we should have the outdoor sleepover the girls all wanted when we watch Moana,” he suggested.
Naomi bit her lip, her eyes filling with tears. She threw her arms around him.
“Anybody tell you that you’re too perfect to be real?” she asked softly.
Stone patted her back, leaning his chin on her head, savoring the feeling of Naomi in his arms. “No, but I like hearing it from you,” he whispered.