“My life won’t change forever,” I countered.
“Win, you’ll be a fully-fledged bookstore owner, small business owner, marketing manager, cleaner, accounts manager, social media manager, public relations?—”
“Okay, okay,” I relented with a laugh. “Pizza it is.”
“Plus,” she added, “you won’t have time because you need to take the boys to the vet clinic on the way home so Daddy Deacon can look at them.”
“What we’re not going to do is call him that,” I said flatly, because dear god. “Ever again.”
“I thought it was fun. Pairs nicely with Papa Win.”
I stared at her. “I will pay you actual money to never say that again.”
“Just kidding,” she said with a laugh. “You can pay for lunch though.”
“Deal.”
She pulled on her coat, then collected her purse and scarf. “Did you need to see Jayden about tomorrow?”
“Nope. It’s all organized.”
We waved to Jayden as we were leaving. “See ya tomorrow,” he called out.
We turned for the door and literally ran into Hamish from the hardware store as he was coming in. “Hello again,” I said, giving him some room.
“Oh, hi,” he said, brightly, giving us a killer-watt grin. “Looking forward to tomorrow. We’ll be there, don’t you worry. Oh, and you must come to the lighting of the Christmas tree tomorrow night. I know you’ll have had a crazy day, but it’s a great way to meet everyone.”
“I will,” I said. “Given you’re the third person to ask me, I think that’s a sign that I should go.”
He beamed at that, then he turned to Ro. He grabbed her hand but looked at me. “You never mentioned a gorgeous sister.”
“Aunt,” I corrected.
“Oh my goodness, I love you already,” she said, her grin matching his, and it suddenly felt like I was in a Colgate commercial.
“Oh, good, I’ll never hear the end of that,” I mumbled, and Ro shushed me. Someone else tried to come through the door—a man wearing a deputy uniform who Hamish called Colson—so I took that as an escape route. “We should get going. It was good to see you again, Hamish.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” he replied, already talking to Colson about something else.
As we made it to the sidewalk, Ro slid her arm in mine. “Is everyone in this town gay?” she asked.
“Statistically, I’d say that’s unlikely.”
She hummed. “But still. Statistically speaking, of course, I love that for us.”
I laughed, both of us smiling all the way back to the store.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WINTER
I bundledthe boys and their basket into the vet clinic just after four. I hadn’t made an official appointment, but both Deacon and Wayne had said to just turn up, so that’s what I did.
Courtney, the receptionist, seemed very confused, but when Deacon came out and saw me, his smile damn near stole my breath. Courtney seemed to notice too, because she did a little wiggle in her seat when Deacon ushered me into the examination room.
Pretty sure Deacon didn’t notice, but I did.
He was wearing his cute vet uniform and a huge smile, with flushed cheeks. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
