Mavis glanced at me, offered everyone a smile, and started away.
I caught her by the belt loop before she could take two steps in the opposite direction.
“Kiss me before you walk away, baby,” I ordered. “You always have before.”
Instead of turning around, she leaned her head back, and I curved my hand around her throat before dropping a kiss to her upturned lips.
That kiss was so nice that I gave her a few more before letting my hand slide away from her throat.
When she looked back at me over her shoulder after getting halfway down the alley, I grinned at the look of lust in her eyes. “Don’t forget we have to meet my grandmother for dinner in an hour.”
I gave her a thumbs up before turning back to the men.
My gaze fell on Vlad, who was watching Mavis go.
Maybe the two men in front of me were onto something with the kid.
He definitely never allowed his eyes to stray far from his mother when she was around.
Yes, definitely something to ponder indeed.
“I wish I had a boy,” Haggard grumbled. “You’re a lucky man. Your son’s a pretty good one.”
I didn’t correct of his assumptions.
Because, for all intents and purposes, Vlad was mine.
One day he would openly carry my name, too.
• • •
Dinner that night was exactly how I would’ve expected it to be.
Awkward, time consuming, and annoying.
The Pope matriarch was just as much of a bitch now as she had been when I’d lived on her property.
And it didn’t make it any better that Fran had decided to invite my mother, a woman Grandma Pope definitely noticed and recognized.
“I thought we said this was going to be a family affair,” Pearl glared at the occupants of the room.
There was my mother and me, Vlad who was in my arms, then Mavis who was leaning against the back of my chair. She had a death grip on the chair top, and she was ‘going to be good’ as long as her grandmother didn’t ‘pile on the bullshit.’
Then there was Taos and Fran, Fran being the one to answer the door.
“What do you mean?” Fran asked with a frown. “This is our family.”
“I wanted just you and Mavis.”
Mavis snorted, drawing her grandmother’s attention, but didn’t say anything more than that.
I curled my arm around the back of the chair, cupping her calf with my large hand and squeezing lightly.
She growled under her breath, causing my lips to twitch.
“That’s not possible, seeing as we’re both in relationships now,” Fran said. “We’re sorry that you don’t know our men and Guilia, but we do.”
Pearl narrowed her eyes as she said, “What do you mean husbands? Plural?”
She looked at Mavis as if just the idea of her being married was laughable.
“Mavis and Murphy were married a couple of months ago,” Fran shrugged. “Before he got his heart transplant.”
Pearl’s lips pressed into a line of annoyance, but ultimately, she didn’t say anything to that. Which was a good thing, because I didn’t think that Mavis would’ve been able to keep her shit in check if Pearl had.
This time, it was my mother who snorted.
Pearl turned to stare at Mavis then.
“We need to talk about the young man in the hospital that is the father of this one,” Pearl pointed at Vlad.
Vlad who was nodding off despite the excitement in the room.
His head was pressed against my chest, and his mouth was open widely with drool leaking out. Every few seconds, his eyes would pop open, then close just as fast for longer and longer each time.
“Do you know his name?” I asked quietly.
Pearl’s eyes narrowed as she said, “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has to do with everything seeing as you don’t have anything to do with him. So why would we need to talk about the man that helped conceive him when you don’t know anything about the situation?” I pushed.
Pearl crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m just trying to make sure that if he decides to pull his head out of his ass when it comes to my grandson, he won’t be taken away because we ‘didn’t tell him’ about the baby. Signed away rights or not. He can still make a stink. I don’t give a flying fuck about who the man is. I give a flying fuck about the money he has, and how one day he may think he has the ability to smear the Pope name.” She frowned. “And we don’t know if, once he’s better, he’ll suddenly have a change of heart and decide to be a responsible human being.”
That was actually kind of sweet.
But…
“I took care of it already,” I told the room at large.
This was something I hadn’t even told my own wife about yet.
Pearl unfastened her frail arms from across her chest and stared. “You’re sure?”