This meant no.
Total Rock Chick in the making, even at three.
Roxie loved it. She thought it was a hoot.
Hank was screwed. And he knew it.
But he secretly loved it, too. I knew that.
Then again, he just adored his little girl.
May, a close friend we met during Jules’s Rock Chick Ride, sidled up to me with Harry, Jules and Vance’s youngest at her hip.
“Are we allowed to eat yet?” she asked out of the side of her mouth.
“They’re almost here,” I answered out of the side of mine. “But if you’re about to expire, a few cashews probably won’t be missed.”
She didn’t reply. She went for some cashews, took a handful, then disappeared in the crowd.
I was going to go back to the kitchen to help Indy but Daisy, snuggling a sleepy Tallulah, Stella and Mace’s first (and only, so far), caught me.
By the way, Stella and Mace did get married on a beach in Hawaii. As Tod called it, she also wore a white crochet bikini, a sarong, a lei and a band of flowers around her forehead (Mace wore jeans and a white shirt). She looked awesome. Mace looked hot. The entire wedding was the bomb, even if, at the reception, there was a helicopter circling.
Furthering the coolness of their nuptials, it was in Us magazine.
Ren and I, if you’re curious, had the Pope’s blessing (I hoped) because I’d converted.
But I still got my red and black wedding. Tod did it up sah-weet. It was awesome.
I also got a three week honeymoon that started in Vegas and ended in the Bahamas.
Everything I ever wanted.
Especially the husband.
“You wanted to talk, sugar?” she asked, reaching for some cashews and not bothering to do it stealthily.
“A little later, they’re almost here,” I told her.
She looked up at me. “Is everything good?”
I smiled at her. “Yeah, totally.”
She screwed up her face and studied me for two seconds before her eyes went wide, her face got bright and she opened her mouth.
She figured it out.
I moved fast and covered her mouth with my hand. Not to be left out, Leah leaned over and covered my hand on Daisy’s mouth. Tallulah, thinking it was a game, did the same, but she did it slapping and giggling.
“Don’t say anything,” I whispered. “Indy doesn’t know.”
A drowned-out tinkly bell giggle escaped the three hands (two of them tiny, but still) and Daisy, eyes now dancing, nodded.
I took away my hand, taking the girls’ with me.
“After the big thing, we’ll share Ren and my big thing, but quietly,” I told her.
Daisy, through more tinkling giggles, nodded.
I tipped my head, studied her and guessed, “You can’t talk because if you open your mouth, you’ll shriek. Right?”
She nodded again.
I shook my head, but did it grinning and bumping into her with my shoulder.
Tallulah put her hand over Daisy’s mouth again.
Daisy gave it a raspberry.
I spied a runaway toddler, followed by another one, both females. These two were followed by a lumbering black man nearly bent double.
He caught up, scooped both up with arms at their bellies, and straightened
Smithie with Suki in one arm, Lola, Sadie and Hector’s firstborn, in the other.
The girls were giggling and squirming.
Smithie was scowling.
