I winked at her before biting the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning fully. I peeled my eyes away from her and concentrated on the food in front of me, catching Jack’s suspicious stare from the corner of my eye.
“Oksana, what part of the Ukraine are you from?” Reina asked, clearing her throat as she stared across the table at Jack.
“The Ukraine is much big,” Oksana offered.
“Got yourself a real bright bulb there, Pipe,” Jack muttered.
“The food is delicious, Reina,” I said, swallowing. “I stand by my statement when I told you, you should wife her,” I told Jack.
“That’s the plan,” he said, looking back at her.
“Are you going to have a big wedding?” Lacey questioned.
“No, something simple,” Reina stated. “Right?” she asked Jack.
“Just tell me when and where, Sunshine, I’ll be there,” he said, winking at her.
A chime sounded beside me and Lace lifted her hips to pull her phone from her pocket. Her fingers worked ferociously on the tiny screen and continued to chime. Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she placed her phone on the table and continued eating, picking the olives out of her salad and placing them onto a napkin.
I leaned over, snatched one of the olives from her napkin and popped it into my mouth before leaning against the back of my chair and stretching my arm over the back of hers. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, trying to hide her smile as she picked more olives and placing them into my dish.
“Riggs will be sorry he missed this, Prez. I vote we plan another one of these shindigs,” Pipe said, looking at Jack who was glaring at my dish.
I met Jack’s gaze.
“I expected Bianci to be here,” I said, stabbing an olive with my fork and popping it into my mouth.
“Did you tell him what those crazy Italians did when we were off saving his ass?” Wolf asked with his mouthful.
Jack ran his hand over his face, holding back a chuckle as he shook his head.
“His mother and Pastore’s wife turned the fucking clubhouse into a fucking trattoria,” Pipe chimed in.
“Oh come on, I thought that was nice,” Lacey argued as her phone went off three times in a row.
“You become a surgeon and forget to tell your old man?” Jack questioned, pointing his fork towards her phone. “What the hell is so urgent?”
Lacey lifted her eyes from the screen and met Jack’s gaze.
“Very funny,” she said sarcastically. “I have to go.”
“Where are you going?” I questioned.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jack asked at the same time.
Lacey answered her father, turning her attention toward him.
“Noah is pledging a fraternity, and he asked me and Daniela to go to the party,” she explained, looking over her shoulder at Reina. “I’m sorry but I promised him before I knew about the dinner.”
“They’ll be plenty more dinners,” Reina promised.
“Daniela’s outside, so I’m just going to run upstairs and change quick,” she said, pushing back her chair and grabbing her plate. She moved behind me but stopped in her tracks, leaning over my shoulder and stretching her arm out as her breasts brushed against me and she snatched her phone off the table.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Little tease.
I watched as she stopped in front of Jack, bent down and kissed his cheek. I’m not going to lie…I was jealous as fuck and to prove it, a grunt escaped my lips.
“You’re fucked,” Pipe said, causing me to turn my attention towards him but lucky for me he was eyeing Jack.
“How so?”
“Are you serious?” Pipe scoffed.
“The idiot’s right, you’re fucked,” Wolf put his two cents in. “Got a boy who pledged a frat two years ago…them little fuckers get down, make our patch parties look like choir practice with a bunch of nuns,” he said pointedly.
I was losing my mind.
First, I was jealous of the peck Lace gave her father.
Then she mentioned this Noah character, add Wolf’s little comments, and I was the one who was fucked...not Jack.
I had to rely on him to reign her in, tie her to a chair and tell her she couldn’t fucking go to some frat house because if I said something, Jack would likely tie me to the fucking chair and stick a gun in my mouth.
Man, if he only knew what the fuck I was thinking.
I’d be dead.
“You have a son old enough to be in college?” Reina asked.
“Yeah, smart as a whip that boy is. It’s no wonder because his mother is dumb as bag of rocks,” he quipped, shoveling more lasagna onto his plate.
“So you going to let her go?” Pipe questioned, surprised.
“Why wouldn’t I? In nineteen years she hasn’t given me a problem,” he shrugged his shoulders, diverting his gaze back to mine. “Be good for her to get out, be around people her own age. Especially, after this shit that went down, the girl needs a little fun in her life.”
I don’t know if he was looking at me, daring me to disagree with him or if he was doing it to torment me.