“I love you, you idiot.”
“Close enough,” I said and kissed her brainless.
Twenty-Five
I didn’t even realize talking it out with Lucky would settle me. Then again, I wasn’t used to leaning on anyone, let alone someone outside of my family.
Ha.
Well, he was family regardless at this point. Even if the baby was the size of a kernel of corn. Which was just mind-boggling. I laid my hand on my belly again. Well, not really a belly yet. Unless I kept eating candy and salty snacks at the rate I had since finding out. Then I might start showing even before the little corn nut grew into the next fruit size, according to the book I’d downloaded on my phone.
The storm had eased, leaving a blue sky and eye-searing sun bouncing off the snow.
Lucky was singing with Christmas songs as Butch howled along. I hung the ornament he’d gotten for us on the crisscrossed lights tacked to the ceiling of the truck. It swung merrily, the colored lights refracting in each facet.
I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up with such a romantic…what? Boyfriend? That seemed lame and not even close to how I felt about him. And hoo boy, did that sneak up on me.
I glanced over at him. He’d put the antlers back on, bending them to look more like floppy ears than bone. Bonus points that it pushed his wild hair back.
His wild fistable hair that made me crazy. A good kind of crazy. Maybe a tiny bit more intense than the annoyance levels he brought out in me with the renovation.
A renovation that didn’t even need to happen.
Then again, I might not have Lucky in my life if I hadn’t had to move the project up. Maybe things happened just as they were meant to.
I pointed to the exit we needed to take to my dad’s place.
He turned down the radio. “You seem a little…thinky.”
“Astute observation.”
“And snarky with it.”
I reached across the seat and squeezed his hand. “Yeah. I’m a little nervous about talking to Co. Maybe forcing this on him wasn’t a good idea.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just what both of you need to start talking again.”
“Stop being so annoyingly smart.”
“I keep trying, but then you have a problem and I gotta help.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ass.”
His face lit up with a smile. “I just realized that every time you call me an ass, you really mean I love you.”
“If that makes you feel better, Thor,” I pinched his rock hard middle, “then you can keep your delusions.” But I was smiling just as widely as he was.
“Did you give anyone a heads up that you were coming?”
“I figure Rhett did. Though he can be a freaking coward, so maybe not.” I pulled out my phone and flipped it around in my hand, then stuffed it back in my hoodie pocket. Too late now. “Take your next left.”
My dad’s ranch-style house came into view. When my brothers had moved out, he’d turned part of the house into an extension of the garage. My dad had two full bays. One for his precious Stingray and one to tinker on whatever project car he was doing on the side.
One of the bays was open, and my dad stood up straight as we came up the drive. He wiped his hands on the red rag he always had at the ready.
“So, does your dad have a vest or anything?”
“Vest?”