“Wow.”
“Really?”
“Serious wow, and I don’t give up my serious wows lightly. You were great.”
“I love gigging with Avenue A now and then. They’re all just mag. Just mega mag.”
Leonardo urged a glass of water on her. “Hydrate, my moon and stars.”
“Yeah. Whew.”
“Did you know,” Eve wondered, “that Number Two sometimes moves one way when you move another?”
Now Mavis grinned. “Yeah. Number Two knows how to rock it. Loud, hard, and wild.”
“Duty calls.” Roarke took Eve’s hand.
“Did someone get dead?”
“No.” He shook his head at Mavis. “Part of the duty for me and mine tonight is socializing.”
“Right.” Marriage Rules, Eve reminded herself. “We’ll be back.”
“You gotta. The second set slays.”
She did her duty, shook hands, made the small talk—or listened to it, when she had a choice. She watched women, and more than a few men, look at Roarke as though they wanted to lap him up like ice cream.
The second set slayed. She had to spend some time on the dance floor—part of the duty. She didn’t mind that part when it was Roarke on a slow one.
“You’re enjoying yourself.”
“More than I figured, yeah.”
“It’s nice, darling Eve, to have an evening like this with you now and again.”
She looked at him as they swayed on the crowded dance floor, as Mavis’s bright voice blended with Avenue A’s on lyrics about forever love.
“But unlike me, unlike Mavis, you always imagined yourself here—in a place like this. Owning a place like this.”
“It helped me escape to believe it.” He touched his lips to hers. “I didn’t imagine you. That was beyond my ken. But here we are.”
“Here we are,” she repeated, and laid her head on his shoulder.
When the music stopped, and the ballroom thinned out to staff and a few stragglers, Mavis rubbed a hand on her belly.
“I’m not ready to call it. The bar’s open, right, Roarke?”
“It is, of course.”
“Are we up for it? I’m pulling the pregnant card. In a few weeks I won’t be up for sitting in a bar with friends after midnight. It’ll be rocking-chair time. It’s Friday night, and we’ve got an overnight babysitter.”
“Up for it, Lois?” Jake asked Nadine.
“Why not? It’s Friday night. We’re young, we’re beautiful.”
“Absolutely true.” Charles turned to Louise.
“Nobody says no to a pregnant woman.”
