My eyes took in the details of the ring. It was a simple silver ring—at least at first glance. But the more that you looked at it, the better you could see the hummingbirds flitting around the flowers among the swirls and the lines. They were so expertly hidden that unless you knew that they were there, you wouldn’t actually see them. Kind of like the bird in real life. Sometimes the only way you knew a hummingbird was there was when you stopped and watched.
“I love it, Bayou,” I whispered. “God, I love it.”
And I did. There wasn’t a single thing that I’d change. It was the perfect engagement ring.
He seemed to breathe easier at my words. “Good. Good.”
I looked up to find him staring at me, and not the ring like he had been.
There were no fancy diamonds on this ring. There were no intricately cut stones at all.
What there was, was a perfect reminder that the man in front of me was the man for me.
I threw my arms once more around his neck and crawled up into his lap.
He wrapped me up in his strong arms, and I didn’t care that we were so new that it might hurt our chances of surviving. He was right. We were different. What we had was so different that nobody but us would be able to understand.
That was when I heard my sister’s excited laugh from the doorway.
I looked up to see everyone pouring out of the house.
“You know,” Zee said as he came up to us. “You told us you were going to propose to her at the truck. You didn’t tell us that we’d need to give you fifteen minutes before you did, otherwise, we probably wouldn’t have been gathered around the windows watching.”
My face flamed. Literally burst into flames.
“Well Fancy, I see that you like your truck,” Liner teased, sounding just as tired as he looked.
I flipped him off. “Fuck you.”
He grinned, and it completely transformed his tired face. “Thatta girl.”
“Knew he could convince you,” Castiel said. “Just didn’t realize he was going to convince you by doing you in it…that’s not our president.”
Zee, who’d been on Castiel’s other side, started laughing.
If it was possible for my face to get any redder, it did in that moment.
But the funny thing was that nobody cared that we’d done it in the truck while they were all watching. They cared that I made their president happy, and that was the only thing that mattered.
“Did you know that he asked Dad for permission?” Pru whispered.
My head whipped around. “He did?”
She nodded. “I was there when he did. It was after dinner. After he got his face busted in. Dad gave him a really hard time, but ultimately said yes, as long as he promised to always put you first.”
I looked over at Bayou, who had an awful-looking bruise on his face. The stitches above his eye were still there and would be for another week. But all I saw was the most handsome man on Earth.
“Good. I’d hate to have to disown my family because they couldn’t accept him,” I teased.
Pru’s eyes went wide. “We’d never send away the one thing that makes you happier than chocolate and books, Fancy.”
I grinned wide. “Good. I’d hate to have to kill you.”
“We’re all so happy for you,” Pru expressed, slowly turning the ring around on my finger.
I smiled and turned my face to survey the room, but my gaze stalled on one face that didn’t look happy at all. “Brielle’s not.”
Pru’s gaze followed mine. “Brielle will get over it.”
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
I didn’t really care.Chapter 18I don’t have a squad, but I know about 4 or 5 people that don’t want me to die.
-Phoebe to Bayou
Bayou
“Don’t brag about how good you can cook. Men eat three-day-old pizza. Impress them with anal sex.”
The wise words just kept coming.
“And, when you have him where you want him, sit on your man’s face,” the old lady declared. “Waterboard him with your pussy.”
I didn’t know who the woman was to Phoebe, or why she was talking so openly with her, but I couldn’t help but smile inwardly at all the advice—some of it even good at that—that she was getting.
“Who is this woman?” I murmured low.
Phoebe’s eyes were shining. “I don’t know. I just met her today.”
We were at work, and this woman had met us outside. I’d stopped with Phoebe because it’d looked like she’d known the woman with how the woman had come straight up to her and started talking.
“Well, ma’am,” I said, tightening my hand on Phoebe’s wrist. “We have to get to work. Have a good one.”
The woman waved, then stepped back into line next to another woman not much younger than herself.
“I didn’t know that it was normal for random women to come up to other random women outside of a prison and tell them things that they probably shouldn’t be telling anybody but their significant others,” I teased.