I had my eyes to the computer but turned them to the door when I sensed something there.
Aisling was leaning against the jamb, hair curled, understated makeup making her pretty face even prettier, her curvy body encased in a cute short skirt, tights, cuter low-heeled boots and a pretty sweater.
“Hey, blossom,” I called.
“Love you, Amy,” she replied quietly.
She’d seen the candle.
Sitting at the desk, working, suddenly I was flying.
“Love you too, kiddo,” I returned.
She gave me a small smile and disappeared.
I drew in a deep breath so I could get my feet closer to the ground in order to concentrate on work.
When I accomplished that, I turned back to my computer and went back to work on the invoices.
*
“I’m gonna vomit,” Robin mumbled.
“You’re not gonna vomit,” I retorted.
“If she doesn’t vomit, I’m gonna vomit,” Alyssa stated.
I looked to Josie, who was standing with the rest of my girls in our klatch.
All my girls together.
Happy.
I saw Josie was looking at me and when I caught her eyes, she said, “It is nauseating.”
I gave my attention back to what was happening across the room, this being my mother and father fawning over Mickey’s mother and father.
We were at Mickey and my rehearsal dinner in the back room of The Eaves. A grand spectacle dripping with flowers and free-flowing champagne with the dress code my mother decreed as strictly cocktail, something that didn’t bother me or anybody but the guys.
I liked dressing up.
And it meant I got to give Mickey his own personal LBD.
Mom could decree this since she and my dad were paying for everything, the food, the flowers, the hostess gifts (two expensive crystal champagne flutes for everyone, except the kids who got boxes of imported Belgian chocolates) and the open bar.
Needless to say, my parents’ freeze out had ended. This happened when Lawr told them I was marrying into the Maine Fresh Maritime family. In fact, it wasn’t just that the freeze had ended, they were beside themselves with delight.
This was because Mickey’s family had more money than Conrad’s and they felt this move on my part was me again toeing the line.
Mickey’s family didn’t have as much money as my family did (and this wouldn’t do, the Bourne-Hathaways always had to have the upper hand). Not to mention, Mickey didn’t work in the family business.
But surprisingly, this last didn’t bother Mom and Dad.
“Runs his own business,” Dad had stated arrogantly over the phone during the official end of the freeze out call he’d made to me months before. “There’s a lot to be said about a man who’s his own man.”
I already knew that so I’d said nothing.
They’d arrived the day before, and since their arrival they’d spent nearly all of their time crawling right up Mickey’s family’s asses. Including Mickey’s brothers.
Genteelly, of course.
Mickey’s family was great, just like Mickey. Friendly. Teasing. Affectionate. Loving.
Mine, not so much.
“It’s just their way,” I said to the girls.
“How you and Lawr are of their loins, I’ll never know,” Robin replied.
Since I agreed with this statement, I had no comment.
But at hearing it, I looked through the room to find Lawr standing talking with Jake, Jake’s son Conner and Conner’s girl, Sofie. Conner had his arm around her and was holding her close. She was comfortable there. Safe and content and happy.
They’d survived the first year of college apart and now Sofie was down in Boston with him.
Although Junior and Alyssa were happy she got into a good school, during a mani-pedi session prior to her move south, Alyssa had declared, “If my girl comes up pregnant her freshman year, it’s gonna suck, seein’ as I’ll have to help raise the kid because her dad’ll be doin’ life for killin’ the kid’s baby daddy.”
I didn’t want to think of these goings-on, so I didn’t. Auden was dating. Ash was still with Kellan (who could now drive, which meant car dates, which in turn was driving Ash’s father ’round the bend) and my daughter was also dating (serially, she’d been out with four different boys since school started, all this impatiently awaiting Joe asking her out, something she hoped he would do, something, being tight with Auden, he wasn’t doing).
No, I absolutely did not want to think of these goings-on.
So, I didn’t.
Whatever happened, I’d survive. So would Mickey. That had been proven beyond a doubt.
Instead, I watched my big brother’s eyes move around the room, catch on the woman beside me, and warm.
Robin and Lawr were no longer dating. Robin and Lawr were now an item.
It was serious.
They couldn’t make any big moves since her oldest was in college but her youngest was still a junior and she didn’t want to be far away. They had to wait a couple of years before she moved up to Santa Barbara to be with Lawrie permanently, but that was the plan. Now, every other week, she was up there with my brother and it was working.
Splendidly.
I knew it would and, of course, rubbed that fact in at every available opportunity.
Like right then, when his attention shifted from Robin to me and I assumed a superior look to which he shook his head, his lips twitching, and turned his focus back to Jake.
“Gonna steal her.”
I jumped slightly at hearing Mickey’s murmur and turned just in time for him to slide my glass of champagne out of my hand and set it on the table.
“Of course,” Josie murmured.
“If I wasn’t taken and you weren’t seriously taken, as evidenced by the proceedings,” Robin said to my guy. “I’d want you to steal me.”
My best girl liked my guy.
And I liked this.
Mickey gave Robin a smile, and I gave Robin a fake glare as he took my hand.
While he was moving me toward the door, I felt a hint of chill and glanced my mother’s way to see her aiming that chill at me as Mickey pulled me into the main restaurant.
“We’re sitting down to dinner in a few minutes, honey,” I told him as he guided me through the tables.
“Can’t do that without us,” he replied.
“This is why we can’t leave,” I pointed out.
He said nothing.
I didn’t either when he led me to the hallway that took you to the bathrooms.
My belly started to warm and my legs started to get shaky as he turned right at the end of the hall then took us past the bathrooms.
At the end of that hall, he shoved aside the coats (I knew it was a cloak area) and pushed me to the back wall.
It was dark.
It was quiet.
There was likely going to be a hostess invading our space to hang up a coat at any second.
I didn’t care about any of this when Mickey put his hands to my hips.
Weird how a coat closet was our place.
But it was.
This was not where it began.
But it was where it began.
And I loved Mickey Donovan even more for taking me there the night before he was officially going to make me his and I was going to make him mine.
His eyes were down, taking me in through the shadows.
Then they lifted to mine. “Nice dress, baby.”