“How the h… eck do you know what a Bugatti is?” Rip asked.
“YouTube.” Ben shrugged. “And some kid on Roblox has one.”
Kids these days.
I laughed at the exchange and then realized that Rip had zeroed in on me. I held up my hands. “Now, Rip, be mature… remember what that’s like? Where you don’t have fun and iron your jeans.”
He snapped the towel at me. “Weren’t you the one that said you were bringing”—another snap toward my thigh—“me out of my shell?”
“Maybe tonight you go back inside it.” I laughed.
He snapped the towel while I shrieked and jumped out of the way, and then he was grabbing me from behind while I screamed and the kids laughed.
“Cuddle her!” Viera shouted.
“Yeah!” Ben pumped his fist. “Say a bad word!”
I started laughing so hard I had tears running down my cheeks, the good kind, the happy kind, and as I wriggled around to face him, I could tell from the look on his face he was feeling the same way.
His smile was different.
Some might even say downright dazzling as he tilted my chin up and then pressed a deep kiss against my lips.
“Ewwwwwwwww.” Ben groaned. “You’re gross like Mom and Dad!”
“You hear that?” I said. “We’re gross.”
“So gross,” Rip repeated. “Does this mean he’s not dating until he’s forty? Because I’m OK with that plan.”
“I was thinking fifty.”
“Deal.” We both turned toward the kids.
Viera was grinning up at us like we were her world, and Ben was counting the money in the swear jar, or attempting to.
Our kiss hadn’t freaked them out.
If anything, it was the one normal thing they’d seen in the weeks since their parents’ deaths.
And again it felt right.
Like things clicked into place.
I laid my head on Rip’s shoulder and sighed. He wrapped an arm around me, and when he relaxed against me, I grabbed my towel and let it fly right against his thigh. “Gotcha.”
Instead of attacking, he simply held me tighter and said, “Yes. You do.”