“It seemed to be the right response, becausefuckthat shit Rodney was saying!” Sadie looped her arm around Hobbit’s shoulders and smooched him noisily on the side of his face.
“Howdarehe?” Belle agreed, doing the exact same thing to Jules.
Which made him laugh as he looked around at all of them. “I love you,” Jules said. “Can we please be friends?”
Belle smiled at him. “Silly Rabbit, you had us atSilly Rabbit. Come, we’ll show you where we lunch—far from the madding crowd.”
Lunch. Where he’d been intending to finish writing that long,longletter to David, asking him to reconsider their break-up, asking him to at least give long-distance a try. Asking? Trybegging.
Belle was holding out her hand for him, and Jules hesitated only very slightly before he took it. Because how had Sadie put it? Fuck that shit.
Fuckallthe shit—David included.
CHAPTER THREE
Present Day
Van Nuys, California
Mission Day Minus Five
Emily Johnson had just opened her front door to Mick—who’d arrived at the exact same time as their take-out lunch order from Door Dash—when her cell phone rang.
“Oof, it’s Carlotta,” she told Mick, calling a quick “Thank you!” to the delivery person who was already running back to her idling car. “I really should answer this.”
Mick, being the most easy-going and understanding man on the planet said, “Of course. I’ll...” He held up the take-out package, gesturing, too, with his head toward her little galley kitchen.
“Thanks.” She smiled up at him, aware as always at just how glad she was to see him, at the tiny frissonof excitement and anticipation that made her stomach flip—just a little—whenever she looked into his smiling eyes.
He was older than she was by only around five years, but the thick, dark hair around his temples was prematurely doing just a touch of that salt and pepper thing. She liked that.
She likedhim.
A lot.
The love part had been stupidly instantaneous. She’d literally run into him with her cart at Gelson’s supermarket as she’d attempted to not drop an entire watermelon on the floor. It had been mundane and uneventful as far as meet-cutes went—except for the part where she’d met the warmth of his eyes and gone into freefall.
And the fact that she hadn’t immediately taken him home and had crazy-great sex while her groceries melted in the back of her car wasentirelybecause Mick was... well, he was Mick.
Instead, they’d had coffee and then done the agonizingly long list of things that grownups here in SoCal did as they got to know each other. Afternoon trail hikes, lunches, more coffee, matinee movie dates, and then sloooowly advancing to evening activities. Dinner dates, star gazing, and finally, thank God, take-out plus Netflix and chill.
She was looking forward to a full long weekend ofchill, but right now, since Mick was at home in her kitchen and was always eager to move their food onto real plates, she answered the call and put her phone to her ear.
“Aunt Cara! How are you?”
Her long-departed mother’s only living sibling had some vexing health issues. Emily fully expected an update on the battle that had been ongoing for more than five years now, which was why her aunt’s sharply delivered words didn’t make sense at first.
“The motherfucker’s father died.”
Thewhodidwhatnow...?
“The house alone is worth at least ten million, plus I read there’s another twelve in stocks or whatever those fucks do with their millions, and he’s gonna get it all! Motherfucker! He should still be in jail!”
Ah, okay. They were talking about Milton Devonshire Junior, the man who’d killed Emily’s mother—Carlotta’s little sister—in a brutal hit-and-run just over fifteen years ago. And Carlotta was reporting that the man’s father, Milton Senior, was dead...?
“Hang on, Cara. Just let me...” Emily’s laptop was out and open on her dining area table and she crossed to it now, putting her phone on speaker so she could use both hands to quickly google...
And, yes.
