“Yes.”
“On it. Give me a signal if I need to accidentally spill my wine on you to get you out of anything else too. Cough twice. That’s a good signal.”
All good plans.
But the best-laid plans are no match for my mother, and I end up seated right next to Kyle.
While Miranda is seated next to another businessman’s son.
With his parents between us on one side, and our parents between us on another.
And with Holt four tables away.
Yep.
Gonna be a long night.
35
Holt
This isthe worst banquet in the history of banquets.
Even though I know my foot is solid, I feel like I’m going to break it again every time I step on it.
Fletcher and Silas are both at my table, and they’re being Fletcher and Silas, which is clearly amusing Goldie but annoying me.
And I can’t see Ziggy.
Not only is Zander’s big head in the way, I have to turn around to even look at her table.
But I know she’s there.
Seated next to a guy Fletcher’s already called Fuckwank Two-Point-Oh.
Occasionally her voice drifts my way as we eat thick, juicy ribeyes and loaded baked potatoes that taste like shit without her next to me.
They’re fine.
Likely excellent, in fact, based on the way everyone at my table is moaning over their food.
Porter even grins at me and says it’s too bad we can’t give me credit for the menu because no man in their right mind would object to his daughter dating a man with good food taste like this.
Roland gets up and makes a speech about how proud he is to have such a great team and how all of us players are like sons to him, which makes me want to howl in outrage.
If I were like a son, he wouldn’t be making proclamations that none of us are allowed to look at his daughters.
I hear a couple soft grunts and snorts behind me, which tells me there are other people not buying it.
I’ve at least turned around to watch the speech, which means I can glance toward Ziggy’s table and look for her curly hair.
She wore it all down tonight.
Down, over a black cocktail dress that highlights her baby bump and was driving me mad while we were getting ready.
She’s a bundle of nerves tonight, and I can’t solve it.
Check that: I could solve it, but she doesn’t like my solution.
