Everything else is going to have to wait a couple of weeks for our next fortnight off work.
“My mom. Tonight. I feel like she wants her own space, but what if I’m wrong?”
He laughs. “Robin, for one thing you’re never wrong. For another, your mom is going to love it. That guest house is bigger than the apartment we had in Silver Valley. It’s gorgeous. And it’s only three feet away from where we are.”
He moves over to me, only wearing his pants so far, and puts his arms around me from behind.
“You worry too much. She’s going to love it.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Really. The party’s going to be great, and I guarantee she’ll love the house. If she doesn’t love it, I’ll move out there and she can live in here with the rest of you, okay?”
I laugh. “Don’t say that.”
He shrugs, kisses my shoulder and goes back to the closet.
I pull on the dress and move back over to him.
“Zip me up, please.”
I turn around and scoop my hair up to keep it out of the way.
He zips me up.
I let my hair fall back down, and I go slip into the pair of flat silver sandals that match.
Harper did get me to try heels, but I had a hard time getting used to them and gave up.
He’s staring at me now, instead of getting dressed.
I look back at him. “They’ll be here soon, Harper.”
“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” he promises.
I leave the room, going down the stairs to the living room.
It’s all kind of sparse without real furniture, but the wooden floors are gorgeous.
The patio furniture we brought in from the garden is nice enough that it doesn’t look too crazy inside the house. There are enough chairs for everyone, and tables for the plates of food.
Shayne has his phone hooked up to a speaker for party music, and I had Chef Pierre make the cake after Rob confirmed he’d been checked for brainwashing. It’s kind of hard not to be paranoid about that now.
“Oh, no,” I mutter, realizing I forgot the single most important thing.
Jay steps out of the kitchen with a stack of red cups and a big glass bottle of fizzy water.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, as he puts the cups and water down on one of the tables.
“I meant to bring a clock. We can’t have a countdown without one.”
“We could use my phone?” he suggests.
I press my lips together. “I guess.”
“Or, if Shayne can get a radio station on his phone, we could switch to that near midnight. They’ll do a countdown for us.” He heads back to the kitchen. “I’ll ask.”
“Great.” I nod, looking around at the decorations and hoping everything is nice enough.
