Harry smiled to himself as he pulled a bottle of Scotch out of a diaper bag, “Yeah, I’m remembering month three pretty clearly.”
Stellan was about to open a can of mandarin oranges when he caught Simone standing still but with her head tipped well back.
He took her in and realized she was looking at the speaker in the ceiling.
Then she dropped her chin and looked right into his eyes.
And the open longing exposed in hers again shifted his entire world.
That was when he heard Loggins and Messina’s version of “Danny’s Song.”
Stellan felt his gut drop, his throat get tight and that perfect moment grew exquisitely more perfect when Susan started singing with the song while swaying and dancing around with Crosby in her arms with the addition that he saw Simone felt exactly the same about the moment.
His mother disappeared.
His father disappeared.
His sister disappeared.
Her mother disappeared.
Her father disappeared.
Her uncle disappeared.
Stellan was going to give Simone Marchesa his name.
He was going to make a family with her.
But right then, already, they had a family where there once was none.
And they both knew it.
He called softly, “I forgot your drink, darling.”
She moved slowly to him and replied in the same tone, “I’ll live. Where are the vases? I’ll put those flowers in water.”
“I’ve no earthly clue,” he admitted.
She smiled a smile at him that was the first he’d ever gotten from a Sixx who was openly Simone.
It was the brightest, most beautiful thing he’d seen in his life.
Like flying right to the sun.
*
“Holy Moses, what are you going to do?” Susan asked.
It was after dinner. They were still sitting at the dining room table. Susan had a drooping Crosby in her arms, giving him his bottle.
And Stellan had just learned what Simone had told him earlier he would not believe, but never shared what that was.
Simone shrugged. “Nothing much I can do. It isn’t like a lot of our clients aren’t schmucks,” she answered Susan’s question.
“That’s gotta suck,” Harry noted.
Simone gave her attention to Harry. “Usually, the other guy is a schmuck too so it doesn’t. But this time, all I’m getting from the guy we’re suing is that he’s a decent person. It was our guy who syphoned off the top, regularly blew everything they made, from what was in petty cash to expensing his fantasy football draw party in Vegas and made deals with his buds the business couldn’t support,” Simone explained.
“And you broke into the good guy’s house and saw all his notes on this?” Harry asked.
Simone grinned at him “Not officially. Officially, we have no idea that our opponent has kept profuse notes throughout their deteriorating personal and professional relationship. Notes that are of significant detriment to the case. But unofficially, his lawyer is pouring over every word I took pictures of in hopes of coming up with good answers for all this stuff when it’s introduced in court.”
“Is he gonna come up with good answers?” Harry queried, and Simone’s grin turned into a smile.
“Nope. But all the time he’s spending on it is billable hours, so it’s a win for the firm either way. But it’ll eventually be a loss for the client in two ways, and it’s appearing he deserves that double-whammy.”
Harry chuckled.
“If this guy is such a jerk and did such jerky things, why would he sue his ex-business partner?” Susan asked.
Simone lifted her drink from the table, answering before taking a sip, “The sun rises, and a variety of jerks rise with it. Who knows why they do what they do? In this case, the only thing that’s important is prompt payment of bills.”
Susan looked shocked. “Your attorney won’t advise him to drop the suit?”
Simone put her drink down. “Our attorney spent two hours this afternoon trying to convince him his case is weak at best, and he should reconsider this course of action. He refused and accused the firm of not preparing appropriately to efficiently put forth his suit. I think at this point no one will be too cut up to mark one in the loss column.”
“People,” Susan muttered, “I don’t get them.”
“You and me both, sister,” Simone muttered back.
They shared a small smile.
Stellan looked from them to Harry, and then the men shared a small smile.
“Should I break out those chocolates you brought?” Simone offered.
Susan groaned.
“Totally,” Harry answered.
Simone shot Harry a huge smile. “Where did you hide them?”
“Pantry, behind the olives. And just to say, you guys got a lot of olives.”
“We both drink martinis,” Stellan muttered.
“That explains it,” Harry muttered in return.
Simone got up, and Stellan, lounged back in his chair that was across the table from Harry and Susan—not at the head, so no one was odd man out in seating—turned his head to watch her move to the pantry.
He felt something and looked to Susan.
His gut didn’t drop at witnessing her look.
It warmed.
“Just in case, you know…” Harry started quietly, gaining Stellan’s attention, “you didn’t get it from the drama we walked in on and the night being a good one, we approve.”
Stellan inclined his head.
“We better be seriously in the black this year, boss man, because I’m totally going five carats for that girl,” Susan shared.
“You have an unlimited budget,” Stellan told her.
She beamed.
The beam died and she asked, “You okay about your mother?”
“Absolutely,” he answered, turning his head as he sensed Simone coming back. He caught her eyes, gave her a soft look, and then he again gave Susan his attention. “The only thing troubling me is the fact that I realized I should have done it a long time ago.”
“Preach that, my man, so maybe my woman will officially break ties with that ahsweepay she calls a father,” Harry put in.
Stellan’s attention riveted on Susan.
“Oh boy,” Simone muttered at his side, flipping open the box of chocolates on the table.
“You’re speaking to him again?” Stellan asked.
“I had to tell him he was going to be a grandfather … again,” Susan answered.
“Considering all the love and devotion he’s given Crosby, and obviously you, but of course,” Stellan drawled sarcastically.
“That’s it, bro. Tell it like it is,” Harry said.
“Shut up, Harry,” Susan hissed.
“No way, baby,” Harry returned.
“He’s my father,” Susan reminded her husband.
“I’m a father,” Harry retorted. “So I know what a father is, babe. And that man is no father.”
“Damn right,” Stellan agreed.
Susan’s narrowed eyes came to him. “You can pipe down too.”
Stellan opened his mouth.
But got nothing out.
“Leave her be.”
He looked to his side and watched Simone pop a chocolate in her mouth.
“Darling, you don’t know the story,” he pointed out.
“Nope, I don’t,” she agreed after swallowing. “What I do know is her telling her dad about the baby is not for her dad. It’s for her. She’s a good person doing the right thing. The right thing sometimes is not easy but it’s still right, and the goal is for her to be able to rest her head on her pillow and sleep at night because she did right even to a man who has done her wrong. So stand down, big brother. She’s got the real kind of love, so she can deal with him and be all right.”
Before Stellan could kiss her terribly inappropriately in front of Susan and Harry, Susan spoke.
“I am soooooooo seeing how having another being with female parts in our little family is going to work for me. Which means I soooooo hope this new one is a girl so she can totally even out the numbers.” Susan smiled at Simone. “And check it, baby-girl shopping and then toddler-girl shopping and then little-girl shopping followed by teenage-girl shopping. I mean, decades of that goodness. I’m going to be drowning in princess dresses until she gets married.”
“If it’s a girl, I’m throwing it back,” Harry declared.
That was when Stellan chuckled, he heard Simone’s soft laughter, and Susan looked in pain because with a now sleeping Crosby in her arms, she couldn’t punch her husband.