“Uh…yeah. That is the next step, Angel.”
Her face went soft and she whispered, “Right. I like that.”
“Well, good,” Mike muttered and her lips twitched.
“But, the thing is, I was thinking of keeping my name. I kinda like it but also in my business I’m known by it.”
“I don’t care what you need to do for you, for the rest of the world, for your business. In this ‘Burg, this house and for our family, you’ll be a Haines.”
Her brows drew together again. “What?”
“Women use two names all the time. One for business, one for personal and family shit. You need to be a Holliday for business and out there in the world, fine. Whatever you need. In this house, in this ‘Burg and with our family, you’re a Haines.”
She held his eyes then she said quietly, “I could do that.”
He was glad since she didn’t have a choice.
He didn’t inform her of that.
“Good,” he muttered again.
She grinned.
Then her grin faded but her gaze on him grew warm and intense when she whispered, “Are you asking me to marry you, honey?”
“No, I’m tellin’ you by the end of this year you’ll be wearing my rings, bearing my name and, probably, pregnant with my baby.”
Her gaze was no less warm and intense but her lips twitched again.
“So you said we’d plan but actually what you meant was that you already have it planned.”
“Yep,” he agreed.
He felt her body start shaking against his.
“You got a problem with any of that?” he asked.
She shook her head and forced out a vibrating with humor, “No.”
“Good,” Mike muttered.
One of her arms disengaged from around him, her hand sliding around his lat, in, up his chest to curl around his neck and even as she chuckled she lifted up and touched her mouth to his.
When she fell back to the pillows, her fingers at his neck gave him a squeeze and her humor was gone but the warmth remained.
“I love you, babe,” she whispered.
“Love you too, Angel,” Mike whispered back.
“Now I need my nightie and panties and you need to go get Layla from No.”
Mike nodded, bent his neck, kissed her throat and rolled away. Then he grabbed her nightie and undies and handed them to her. As she was shimmying them on, he tugged up his pajamas.
Then he went to get his dog.
Then he closed them in and, like every night, the three of them fell asleep in the six thousand dollar bed he’d fucking hated for years but for the last two months he fucking loved.
*
Thursday early evening…
Mike walked into Mimi’s and, to his surprise, he saw Audrey sitting at the back corner table. She had a mug of coffee in front of her and that was it. No white bag. No coffee for him. No sitting at a window to show to anyone who passed they were having a sit down.
He strode directly to her. She’d seen him arrive and she’d gone for her purse right after. She was digging through it when he made it to the table.
Out of habit, his eyes went to the words scratched into the table he’d seen time and again. Feb’s Spot, sit here and die. Before Colt and Feb reunited, Colt’s wife spent a lot of time here and she sat at that table. Mimi’s kids were terrors, they loved their Aunt Feb and they went about making sure she always had her favorite spot. Mike thought it was hilarious. He doubted Mimi felt the same but still, it had been years and she’d never replaced that table or sanded it out.
Mike pulled out the chair opposite Audrey and folded into it.
Her eyes went from her purse to him.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Hey,” she greeted back, put a rectangular piece of paper on the table and slid it to him. “I know you’re busy. So you can just take that. It’s for Rees’s school.”
Mike felt his brow furrow and he looked down to see the paper was a check. His hand came up, his fingers shifting it around on the table so it faced him then he stared down at it, his eyes now narrowed.
It was for fifteen thousand five hundred dollars.
What the fuck?
His eyes cut back to Audrey.
“What the fuck?” he whispered.
“Like I said, for Rees’s school,” she answered. “I talked with Mrs. Layne. She said tuition for that school up in Chicago, the one that she thinks will suit Clarisse better, is fourteen thousand dollars a semester and that doesn’t include the room and board. She gets in, I’ll pay the first semester and the rest is for supplies or living quarters or whatever. We can, um…figure out how to split the rest of her living expenses. Then you can pay the second semester and I’ll see what I can do for the year after that.”