She was silent.
Then she burst into tears.
I almost did the same, but I was totally cried out from before, so I just smiled.
Then Robbie’s gravelly voice came over the line.
“What the fuck?” he demanded.
Un-hunh.
I loved it that I had a mountain man tough guy dad.
“You okay?” he asked before I could answer. “Tell me it isn’t that little fuckwad. Is he back?”
“Those are happy tears, Robbie. I have a new job, more money, I get to keep Willow’s Good Stuff going, but do it in an industry kitchen, no additional overhead, just have to pay a percentage of the profits. So I’ll be working less, making more, no more deliveries. And I’m dating one of the Nightingale guys.”
They’d met Cap. And Eric. Also Javi.
And…
Wait.
Shit.
We’d all gone out to catch a game at a sports bar when they were down one time, so they’d met them all.
Including Gabe.
So I added, “It’s Gabe. The black-haired one with the beard and the blue?—”
“I remember which one he is.” Then, not to me, “She’s dating the one called Gabe. You know, the one who looks like he could twist a band of rebar into a Celtic knot with his bare hands.”
“Oh my Lord!” I heard Mom cry. “He’s a cutie!”
He was not a cutie.
But I loved it that Mom thought that.
So I was laughing again.
“I’ll wanna meet him even if I’ve met him,” Robbie decreed, this time to me. “It’ll be meeting him in a way he knows you got a man in your life who is not gonna put up with him shoveling an infinitesimal amount of shit your way. Shoulda done that with that other asshole, but Viola wouldn’t let me.”
Viola was my mom.
“You can’t intimidate and threaten all of Willow’s boyfriends, Robert,” I heard Mom snap.
“Uh, yeah I can,” Robbie retorted. “And henceforth, I’m gonna.”
I was laughing yet again, and doing it harder just hearing Robbie utter the word “henceforth,” when Mom demanded, “Give me my phone.”
Robbie didn’t give Mom her phone.
He said into it, “Love you. Bring him up soon. He can bunk in the woodshed.”
After that, I had Mom.
“Honey, Gabe’s not going to bunk in the woodshed. Good gracious! If I didn’t like what your stepdad did with that overabundance of testosterone he has, I’d lament he had so damned much of it.”
