She glares at me. “I’m still not over that.”
“God, are they fighting about Disneyland again?” Grant asks as he walks into the kitchen.
“Yes,” Mom rolls her eyes, “and before you ask, Alex, yes, they’re always like this.”
Fuck. I forgot he was here for a second. That was a nice vacation from this nightmare.
We all gather in the dining room. My appetite disappeared when I first saw Alex here in my childhood home. Henry climbs up to sit on my lap, giving me a good reason not to look across the table as I feed him some of my fries and he tells me the names he likes for the puppy he’s convinced he’s getting for Christmas.
Spoiler alert—there will be no puppy.
Mom and Dad tell Alex stories of our escapades. More than once, Alex laughs aloud, sending bolts of lightning to my stomach. He laughs the loudest when they tell him about the time we tried to sneak out through the attic window and got stuck on the roof when the window closed behind us. They had to get us down with a fire truck.
“Such lies your parents tell about us,” my best friend says, laughing next to me.
“Yeah, we were absolute angels, Bean. Never caused a single grey hair on their heads.”
“Those firefighters were hot, though.”
“Ew. No. I’m related to half of them, remember?” Small-town woes.
After dinner, I load the dishwasher as people bring me their plates. I turn for the next one and find Alex next to me.
“We need to talk,” he says quietly but firmly. His spicy cologne fills my nose and my heart races.
“We havenothingto talk about,” I whisper back through gritted teeth just as firmly, snatching his plate out of his hand.
“Oh, I think we do, Amelia.”
Fuck, the things his voice does to me. It’s even worse after that night in his office. His voice alone still makes me wet, and now I know just how good we are together.
“Alex, I’ve got the baseball game on and beer in the fridge if you’re interested,” my dad offers from the doorway.
“Sure, Barry. Right behind you.” He gives me one last look that tells me there’s no way I’m getting out of having this talk with him at some point. I shoot him one that says I’m going to put it off as long as fucking possible. Forever, if I can swing it.
Chapter 17
Excuse me while my brain explodes
Alex
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Amelia is here.
My Amelia is Minnie, my daughter’s best friend.
I’m too busy just being thankful that I found her by accident to focus on anything else—like how the hell did we not put it all together before and the things I’ve overheard about Lizzie during the last year. There’s no way Amelia knew I was Lizzie’s dad until tonight. She looked just as shocked as I felt. As I still feel.
It took every ounce of control I had not to stalk over to Amelia and grab her when I first saw her. I want to pull her close to me. I want to yell at her for running away and ignoring my attempts to contact her. I want to grovel at her feet and beg her to forgive me. I want to bend her over the table and fuck her until she’s moaning my name again.
But I need to stop thinking about that right now because I’m drinking beer and watching a baseball game with her dad. Barry seems like a nice guy. The whole family is great. Lizzie’s been telling me about them for years. They’ve been there for my daughter for most of her life, and I’m happy to finally be able to meet them and thank them for all they’ve done. But fuck, it’s hard to focus on that right now.
The two oldest boys join us in the den after a few minutes. “Who’s winning?” Leon asks.
“Who cares? It’s not wedding shit, and that’s all that matters.” Grant drops onto the couch with a heavy sigh. “It’s been nonstop like I said it would because Stephanie left everything she could for the last minute, so now Minnie and Lizzie have been scrambling all week.”
Amelia had said something similar to me a few months ago. It hurt her more than she liked to admit that she would end up doing most of the work without being given the title of maid of honor. But she’s still willing to do it all because she loves her best friend.
