With Aurora cozied up in front of the TV, the men took turns washing the makeup off their faces before gathering around the kitchen table for a poker lesson.
Beckett took the opportunity to sit down and respond to Gia’s text.
Aurora’s on her second beer, Evan’s playing with firearms, and Jax just got his shirt ripped off by a goat. Totally under control.
She answered quickly.
Oh good. We passed a fire truck a few miles out and I was worried the kids burnt down Carter’s house already.
False alarm, he told her. We got to it with extinguishers first.
My hero.
How goes the dress shopping?
Her response had him shifting in his chair as his blood threatened to migrate.
Summer picked out some really classy pasties with tassels and hot pants with rhinestone crotches for the bridesmaids.
Can’t wait to see you in it. Gotta go teach Evan how to build explosives.
Great. BTW, blue is definitely your color. It really brings out the gray in your eyes. You look breathtaking.
“Evan!” Beckett shouted. “Get over here so I can murder you!”
“Now remember,” Summer whispered as she pushed open the front door. “Not a word to Carter about the dress, got it?”
Gia and Joey nodded earnestly, while Annette and Phoebe crossed their hearts.
“Our lips are sealed,” Gia promised.
“Thank you ladies so much for coming with me today,” Summer said. “It meant the world to me.”
“Sweetheart, we wouldn’t have missed it,” her mother said, grasping her hand. “Your father is going to get a little choked up when he sees you on the big day.”
Gia left them to commiserate in the hallway and headed back to the kitchen. It was quiet in the house. Too quiet. There should have been yelling, possibly some crying, or at the very least a few shrieks of laughter.
She found the kitchen empty, but the TV in the great room was lit up with cartoon pandas parading about. That’s when she heard the first snore.
Tip-toeing in, she spotted Jax first on the end of the couch, his feet on the coffee table. Evan was sandwiched between him and Carter, his feet on Jax’s lap and his head resting on a pillow jammed up against Carter’s side.
Beckett was sprawled out on the other couch with Aurora asleep on his chest. She felt something warm and bright open in her heart. She bit her lip.
“Well, if that isn’t the sweetest thing …” Phoebe whispered at Gia’s side.
Grinning, the two women dug for their cellphones as quietly as they could.
25
Beckett’s lunch on Tuesday magically freed up when the property he visited with his mother turned out to be a bust.
“We’re never going to find a place,” Phoebe lamented in the car after they left the rundown ranch with mirrored living room walls.
“How many properties have you looked at?” Beckett asked, gripping the handle above his door as his mother accelerated up to a stop sign. She wasn’t a bad driver per se, but she was a city driver. Heavy-footed on the gas and the brake, she took some getting used to. She’d often wondered why all three of her boys got carsick when she drove, but not when John was behind the wheel.
“Fourteen,” his mother sighed. She shook her head and sent her brown bob bouncing. “They’re either too big, too small, too expensive, or too ugly. I’m not looking for a fixer upper at this stage in life. We want a comfortable place with room for grandkids.”
“You’d better hurry up. You’ll have two in no time,” Beckett warned, closing his eyes as his mother stomped on the gas.
“Four,” Phoebe chirped. “Evan and Aurora are on that list.”
Beckett waded through the feeling that statement conjured. Moving in together and sharing grandkids meant that marriage was right around the corner for his mother and Franklin. And while he was doing his best to tolerate Phoebe dating, he worried that marriage would push him over the edge.
He was trying. He would continue to try. It kept the peace not only with his mother, but also Gianna.
“That Gia has done an incredible job with those kids,” Phoebe said, speeding through a yellow light.
“Yeah, she’s great,” Beckett agreed. He cracked his window just a little bit.
“Oh, honey, you don’t still get carsick, do you?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Just enjoying the fresh air,” he said weakly. Beckett made a mental note to call his friend Donovan Cardona and ask the sheriff how many times a week Phoebe Pierce gets pulled over.
“So how’s it going with a single mom and two kids living in your backyard?” Phoebe asked.
“It’s fine,” he shrugged.
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you mean, uh-huh?”
“I just mean that I didn’t raise idiots,” Phoebe continued. “And there’s a beautiful, unattached woman living in your backyard.”
“Who happens to have kids.”