Ian
I’m so giddy with happiness that I might as well be drinking. Julia’s hand is in mine and she’s going to have my babies. There’s nothing standing in the way.
The rest of the evening is a blur as Julia gets drunker and drunker, the music gets louder and louder, and my heart gets more and more full. I don’t sing again after my ear-splitting performance, but Heidi, Nicole, and Julia mop up thestage multiple times with their rum-and-Diet-Coke renditions of hit girl-group songs.
I do my best to mitigate the alcohol by feeding them nachos and wings, but sometime around midnight, I cut all three of them off. They are giggly messes, falling all over each other. It’s time to take them home.
While they make one last stop in the restroom, I settle up the bar tab and leave a healthy tip for all the extra cherries. Three purses looped over one arm—if you can call Nicole’s belt pack a purse—and Julia hanging on the other, I herd the women to the parking lot and into my Jeep.
Julia ends up in the back seat with Nicole, who’s the most sober, although that’s not saying much considering the way she’s belting out random song lyrics every so often. A completely wasted Heidi takes the passenger seat. When I slide behind the wheel, she passes me her driver’s license, giggling.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Sorry, Occi-fer,” she slurs. “I didn’t mean to do it. There’s my dome headdress. Home address.” She pokes in the general direction of the card in my hand, but she misses and her finger lands in my chest. My pec jumps, and she pokes it again. “Ooh. He’s buff, Julia! You’re going to have little buff puddles. Bappies. Babies.” She burps, and all of them die laughing.
“There are water bottles in the cooler behind my seat,” I tell them, chuckling as I set the GPS for Heidi’s house. I turn up the radio when they ask, and they sing along all the way to our destination. I deliver them to the front porch of a very purple Victorian in a quiet cul-de-sac of a mostly human neighborhood.
“Are you sure I can’t take you to your house?” I ask Julia. I know she lives nearby, but she’s pretty wobbly, and it’s probably not a good idea for her to attempt the walk in the dark alone…or with her adorable, drunk friends, for that matter.
She shakes her head. Her hair is a little rumpled on one side where she rested her head against Nicole’s shoulder in the car, and my fingers itch to smooth it behind her ear. “That’s okay. I’ll stay here tonight.”
“Yeah, she’s staying withus!” Nicole shouts. Heidi shushes her, giggling as they attempt to unlock the front door. They manage it and fall through the door together, still laughing.
“Are they okay?” I ask.
“We’re fiiiine!” Nicole calls as they untangle limbs and struggle to their feet again.
Julia waves a hand at them, rolling her eyes. “They’re always like that, even when they’re sober.”
I shake my head, laughing as I pass all the purses to her, but not before I slip her forgotten peachpanties into her bag. I’m sorry to see them go, but I need to be more careful of her boundaries if I’m going to make this thing work. “Okay, then. Give me your keys, and I’ll bring your car by in the morning. If you’re done with the paperwork by then, I can pick it up and we can schedule…”Our mating.
She retrieves her car key out of her purse and hands it over. “I’m ovulating this weekend,” she says, giving me a dreamy smile that tells me she probably won’t remember this conversation. “That’s what Dr. MacDoogie…no, that’s not right.”
“MacDougal,” I supply, grinning at her annoyed little frown.
“Right. She said this weekend. Or should we wait until next month?”
I don’t even have to think about it. “I vote this weekend.”
“Okay,” she whispers, and I will my dick not to get hard right now, in case shedoesremember this conversation. “Your tail’s wagging.”
“Why do you think that is?” She blushes, and I grab my tail so it will chill the fuck out. I am trying to be cool here. “Good night, pretty girl.”
“Night.”
I watch as she stumbles through the pink front door and wait until I hear the reassuring two clicks that let me know it’s latched and locked.
Conall yawns just as his bobber dips, and in the gray pre-dawn light, he misses it.
I nod at his line. “Wake up. You got a bite.”
His eyes pop open, and he gives his fishing rod an experimental tug. The hook sets, and the fish takes off across the lake, his line spooling out. Conall’s bark of disbelief startles a group of ducks out of the weeds, and they take flight, beating their wings into the fog.
While I grab the hand net and wade out a few feet, he reels in the fish, shaking his head at the effort it takes. The trout fights him every inch of the way, splashing its way with powerful twists of its tail. “Oh wow! It’s a nice size!” he grunts.
When he gets it close, I dip it out of the water and wade back. “18-incher.”
“Must be a few pounds. Meg’s getting a good breakfast today.” He grabs the pliers and meets me by the wicker creel we lined with wet moss. Together, we manage to remove the hook and get the fish in the basket where it joins the two smaller trout I’ve already caught.
