My mom, wearing a pair of jeans and a Harvard Law sweatshirt, sits on the edge of Kennedy’s desk, well into her third glass of champagne and starting to get a little giggly.
And me, I’m sitting on Dallas’s lap with his arms wrapped firmly around me. I’m surrounded by the people I love and I couldn’t be happier.
“Congratulations to Lorelei for proving she is the biggest badass out of all of us!” Kennedy announces with a smile.
Everyone laughs and lifts their glasses of champagne up a little higher.
“Who knew that almost a year ago when I met these two lightweights in a self-defense class, we would become best friends and open a pretty kick-ass private investigation firm?” Kennedy says.
“Hey, who are you calling lightweight?” Paige shouts. “I brought down a crime ring and Lorelei took a bullet. All you did was chase around a yappy dog and a freak who believes in aliens.”
Everyone laughs again and I feel Dallas clasp me tighter. I lean back against his chest and smile.
“Oh, shut up!” Kennedy tells Paige. “I just want to say I’m glad that I met both of you. Here’s to Fool Me Once Investigations—the best PI agency around.”
Everyone cheers and takes a sip of their champagne. The loud conversations and laughter start up again.
“How’s your shoulder?” Dallas asks.
I turn around on his lap to face him. “It’s good. It’s not sore right now.”
The bullet I took to the shoulder went clean through and luckily didn’t nick an artery. After my surgery, I spent three days in the hospital recuperating, and Dallas spent every single moment there with me. He also accompanied me to every physical therapy session and kept the promise he whispered to me in the hospital—he never lets me out of his sight. My shoulder still gives me a little bit of trouble every now and then, but it’s manageable. The doctor said I’ll be as good as new in no time.
“Good. Tomorrow we’re going to the shooting range. You’re going to learn how to really shoot a gun,” he tells me.
He’s been saying this to me ever since I got out of the hospital. I officially quit my job with the law firm and I’m now a full-time investigator. Dallas knows that eventually he won’t be able to shadow me everywhere, and he told me he’d feel much better about that if he knew I could protect myself even better.
I haven’t told him yet that I’m probably a better shot than he is. My father was an award-winning skeet shooter. He took me shooting every weekend for almost my entire life. Thinking about my father makes me a little sad. I haven’t spoken to him since that night at dinner. He sent flowers to the hospital, and when my mother sees him in passing in the driveway, she says he asks about me. I know he’s disappointed with the choices I’ve made and I hope that in time he’ll come around. My mother though—she’s a completely different person since she kicked my father out.
“Lorelei, I think I finally settled on a tattoo,” she tells me, walking up to Dallas and me.
I feel the rumble of Dallas’s laughter against my back and I elbow him in the ribs.
She holds out a piece of paper and I take it from her hand. “I like the idea of getting song lyrics like you did, but I couldn’t find any I liked. I saw this neat little slogan and I thought it was perfect. I don’t know if it’s got anything to do with me, but I don’t care; I still want it.”
Glancing down at the paper in my hands, I laugh so hard that my sides hurt and tears start to roll down my cheeks. Kennedy and Paige walk over to see what’s going on. I silently hand them the piece of paper.
“My mom’s new tattoo, what do you guys think?” I ask them through my laughter.
“Oh, my God. This is fucking epic! I think we should all get this tattooed on our asses,” Kennedy laughs, handing the paper to Paige.
She reads it over quickly and giggles. “Oh, this is perfect. Mrs. Warner, you are a genius. We’re definitely going with you.”
Dallas holds his hand out for the paper and Paige gives it to him. He reads it out loud. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . . I don’t fucking think so.”
This just makes us all dissolve into laughter again.
“I think this should be our slogan. I’m going to get a new sign made for the front of the building,” Kennedy says.
“We were fools once, but never again,” Paige announces.
“Shame on you two for thinking that opening this business would never work,” Kennedy tells us with a shake of her head.
Paige nods in agreement. “Shame on me for not believing we could do this.”
They both look at me and smile. “And shame on all the fucking ‘hims’ in our lives for screwing us over!”
The three of us cheer and clink our glasses together.
We were all fooled at one point in our lives, but I guess we should be thankful for that. Without those idiot men in our lives, we’d never be where we are today—with a successful business and blissfully in love all over again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS