“Elvis isn’t alive anymore, honey, but he was a famous singer who dressed kind of crazy, and there are people who dress up like him and put on shows or sometimes marry people.”
“Like Halloween?” she asks, looking confused.
“Exactly like Halloween,” I confirm.
“I want to be a pirate for Halloween.” She shrugs, swinging her legs back and forth while biting off the head of one of her gummy worms.
“You don’t want to be a princess?” June asks, and Hope scrunches up her face and shakes her head.
“No, I want to be a pirate. They live on ships and look for treasure. Pirates are cool! I want to be a pirate when I grow up.”
“Pirates are definitely cool,” June agrees, not letting Hope know that pirates, or at least the kind she wants to be, don’t exist anymore. By the time we leave the yogurt place, Hope is on a sugar high talking a million miles an hour—about what, I have no fucking clue—but it’s cute listening to her babble from the backseat as we head home.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have let her get a large cup,” June mutters with a laugh, as we watch Hope dance around the living room, singing one of the songs from Frozen, which she insisted we watch as soon as we walked into the house.
“She’s gonna crash soon,” I bet, sliding my arm around her shoulders and pulling her deeper into me.
“Are you sure you still want kids now?” she asks quietly, and I turn my eyes from the TV and look at Hope, who has moved across the room to where Ninja is laying, and has her little hands holding his face while she sings to him.
Dipping my face back down toward June, I rumble, “Yes.”
“Me too.” She smiles softly then lays her head against my chest while draping her arm over my abs. And that’s how we spend the rest of the night. June and I cuddled up, watching a movie with Hope, who eventually climbed up on the couch next to us and fell asleep, and as simple as the night was, it was one of the best I’ve ever had.
*
“It’s so quiet,” June mutters, coming to stand next to me at the sink in the kitchen, where I’m washing out our breakfast dishes. It’s the weekend after we watched Hope. The week flew by between work, dealing with the Jordan situation, and November coming over every evening to talk about the wedding. The wedding I somehow got roped into planning with them. If I have to spend one more minute sitting at the table with them looking at wedding shit, talking venues, dresses, flowers, and cakes, I will lose my fucking mind.
“Yep,” I agree, even though after this last week, I’m enjoying it just being us in the house, since I have no idea when someone will show up.
“Do you want to watch Frozen with me?” she asks, leaning into my side and pressing her tits to my arm.
Shaking my head, I laugh. “No.”
“Do you think Ellie and Jax would notice if I kidnapped Hope?”
“Probably.” I grin, watching her pout out her bottom lip.
“Darn.” She sighs, hopping up on the counter next to the sink. “I’m bored, and Mom said she won’t be here for a few hours.”
Shutting off the faucet, I move between her legs, wrap my hands around the back of her knees, and drag her flush against me. “I’m gonna head out when she gets here, but until then, I’ll entertain you.” I run my wet hands up her thighs, watching her eyes heat before her brows draw together.
“You’re leaving when she gets here?”
Moving my mouth to her exposed shoulder, I nip her skin and mutter,
“Yep.”
Her hands move up the skin of my back and her nails dig in as my mouth moves up her neck, licking and biting along the way to her ear. “We’re planning a wedding,” she breathes, as my hands glide up to cup her breasts, which are bare under her tank, allowing me to feel her nipples harden.
“No, you’re planning a wedding with your mom.” I nip her ear.
Pushing me back, her eyes search my face. “I thought you said you didn’t mind having a big wedding.”
“I don’t, but I don’t need to be here when you’re planning it.”
She frowns. “You don’t want to be involved in planning your own wedding?”
“Nope,” I confess, skimming my hands down her sides then her hips, stopping there before moving my hands in and up the loose material of her shorts, finding her bare. My fingers slide deeper, skimming over her clit, making her hips jerk.
“This isn’t fair.” Her head falls back and her legs spread wider, while her eyes slide to half-mast.
“All’s fair in love and war, beautiful.”
“This isn’t war. It’s planning a wedding. Our wedding,” she gets out through a moan.