“Hi,” he said. “No, not sleeping.”
I made a face at him.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said.
With a wicked smile, I trailed my foot up the inside of his leg. If he was going to take calls during dinner, at least I could have a little fun.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “You can ask her.”
He handed me the phone, paying me back twofold for my little tease. Damn.
Not really having a choice, I took the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, Allie. This is Rose.”
My eyes flew to Colin’s, but I said, “Oh. Hi there.”
“Listen. I wanted to apologize for giving you a hard time when we met. And I was hoping you’d all come over for dinner. Bailey too.”
I opened my mouth and then shut it. How could I get out of this? It wasn’t a rhetorical question. My eyes beseeched Colin. He shrugged. Useless, stubborn man.
“I’d love to,” I said.
She laughed. “It won’t be that bad. I promise.”
I didn’t quite believe her, but it didn’t matter. “I’ll be fine.” Pray that it was true.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ll see. How about next Saturday night at seven?”
“Sure. Sounds great.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Oh, and I’ll host it at Philip’s. You’ve already been there, and it encourages him to come if we have it in his house.” She laughed. “See you there.”
“Bye,” I choked out.
“She wants to have dinner,” I told Colin.
He nodded slowly.
“At Philip’s house,” I said.
He gave me a sympathetic grimace.
I suppose that was the best I could hope for. Perhaps this “meet the family” would go better than the first time around, but it could hardly be worse. My issues with Philip were mostly over now that Andrew was out of the picture. And besides, I doubted he would spend much time talking to me, judging by last time. Rose had apologized and offered this dinner as an olive branch, if I’d understood correctly. Maybe it was even a sort of welcome.
It wouldn’t exactly be fun, but this was part of a real relationship. A family dinner, I mused. It was almost quaint in its normalcy.
I narrowed my eyes at Colin. “If I’m going to deal with all that,” I said, “you’d better put out.”
He gave me a small, mysterious smile before he took a bite of his pancakes.
Chapter Fourteen
The week that followed was a honeymoon of sorts…if you subtracted wedding vows and an exotic locale and added a toddler. But then I’d always done things ass backward.
Colin took us to Navy Pier, where we visited the children’s museum and gorged ourselves on corn dogs and ice cream. A fearless Bailey demanded we ride the giant Ferris wheel, and Colin indulged her. Only after the pair emerged from the cab covered in upchucked corn dog did he admit that perhaps I’d been right after all. We visited the aquarium, where Bailey squealed as she touched a prickly starfish and dragged us all to the splash zone. Colin even got us tickets to a community theater production of Mary Poppins, though we discovered Bailey preferred to sing her own soundtrack and left at intermission.
It was amazing. Really, it was. If I felt an undercurrent of frantic energy, then it was just relief at my newfound freedom. And if it seemed that Colin was desperate to experience everything, to give us everything we wanted, it was just due to the newness of our happiness. It had to be.
Philip called constantly. At first Colin would answer, excusing himself to speak in tense, hushed tones. After a while he turned his phone off.
“Will it be okay?” I didn’t know how much we really relied on Philip, especially financially. “I know you do work for him…”
“Don’t worry,” Colin said. “He’ll get over it.”
When I looked at him for more, he ran his thumb along my lips. A tender shut up.
That eased my worry—somewhat. It seemed we could get along just fine without Philip, but if there was major damage to their sibling relationship, Colin might regret his time with me.
The dinner party was still set for tomorrow, so we’d see then just how angry Philip was. I doubted he took well to being ignored.
I’d offered to make a dessert to bring with us. Colin suggested wine, but I thought dessert would be more personal. Make it clear I was willing to put in an effort. Besides, that way Rose wouldn’t have to worry about making it. Colin had chuckled at me then, but he’d agreed to text Rose and let her know.
I pulled the packages of fresh strawberries from the paper grocery bag. Since we’d witnessed the first tendrils of spring, I’d decided on a strawberry-rhubarb crumble.
From her high chair Bailey chomped on a bowl of diced strawberries while I went to work on the rest. A knock on the door stopped me midchop.