“Benny, you can’t tell me Carson doesn’t get wicked with you in the sack,” Harleigh Rose said as she picked at a hole in her skintight jeans and then started to draw on the skin through it with black Sharpie. “Boy looks like he’d fuckin’ rock a guy’s world if you know what I mean.”
A blush rushed over Benny’s skin like wildfire, but his smile was secretive and proud when he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “I think I’m more lady than all of you. I don’t kiss and tell.”
I laughed so hard my belly ached. “So true. Touché, Benito.”
“I still can’t get over the beauty of your dress,” Loulou sighed as she swung Angel up on her chest and proceeded to pat her back to burp her. “Here I am with spit up on my clothes, and there you were looking like something straight out of a dream.”
It was true, the dress was something from a fantasy, a confection of webbed lace over nearly sheer chiffon that hinted tantalizingly at my body beneath. It was sexy and whimsical, the perfect slightly contrary pairing I’d been searching for to marry King in.
We’d gone dress hunting, just the three girls, that morning while Benny manned the store and then returned to all have lunch at Stella’s diner. We closed the bookstore early but hadn’t left yet because it had become a kind of clubhouse for The Fallen women.
“Two weeks.” I shook my head, shocked that after nearly five years, I’d finally be King’s wife. “I can’t really believe it.”
I held my hands out for Lou to pass me Angel and beamed when she passed the perfect little parcel of pink, plump baby over to me. She was the sweetest, prettiest baby I’d ever laid eyes on, a thicket of white blond hair on her head the same shade as her mama’s, her pink pale as the inside of a seashell and just as smooth. I brushed my thumb down her silken skin as I tucked her against my breast and cooed down into her smiling blue eyes. My womb was hot inside me, achingly empty as I held another woman’s baby in my arms.
“Zeus and I’ve been married for three, and it still feels surreal,” Loulou admitted as she stretched hugely, working the kinks out of her back from hauling around one or two babies at a time.
“Maybe because you got married when you were seventeen?” H.R. offered with a sweet and sour smile.
“Oh fuck off.”
“You’re too easy.”
“You’re a brat.”
H.R. shrugged. “Sure, but a lovable one.”
“I’m just so glad you’re home,” I told her, falling carefully to the side so that I could rest my head on her shoulder while keeping a sleeping Angel tucked up safe to my chest. “Missed you like crazy.”
“Same, Cress. But I’m home now and I’m here to stay.”
She and Lion had officially moved back to Entrance, staying in an apartment off Main Street while they did some minor renovation of Lion’s ranch property. It was so good to have them home that I’d immediately brought Lion into the fold by asking him to play the guitar at our wedding.
He’d been so touched, I think I’d rendered him speechless.
It felt right to include him when he was so obviously going to be with Harleigh Rose for the rest of their lives.
Everything was finally falling into place, outside of Zeus’s absence, except for one last component.
“Do you think I should invite Lysander to the wedding?”
Lou paused in checking on a sleeping Walker in his basinet, whipping around to stare openmouthed at me. “I thought you were hard lined on your stance about him.”
I sighed. “He’s my brother, and even though I have you guys now, he was the only person who really cared about me for most of my life. He’s made some horrible mistakes, and I don’t know if he’s exactly on the side of The Fallen, but…he used to be my hero.”
“I say invite him,” Harleigh Rose declared and then shrugged when I pulled back to frown at her. “What? If it wasn’t for him, Loulou, Bea, and I all would have died that day with Mute. No matter what else has happened, I think he deserves to at least witness his little sister gettin’ married as boon for that.”
It was a valid point, one that made me feel like crap for not inviting him before now even though I was still, and maybe always would be, suspicious of his motives.
“Okay.” I stood and carefully handed Angel over to her sister. “Let me just take out the garbage and close down the back office, then we can head out?”
They all nodded, Harleigh Rose and Loulou launching right back into their interrogation about Benny’s love life with Carson.
I laughed softly as I moved through the shelves, fingers to the book spines as I walked by, loving the scent of parchment and the feel of the glossy covers. I made quick work of wrapping up the massive garbage bag filled with the week’s detritus and then pushed through the back door into the alley.