“I don’t know what that means,” Harley replied.
“Yes!” Aria exclaimed over him.
“So, Byron and Waylon are married, and Ezra is engaged,” I said.Those were three of Millie’s sons.“Their partners are all out-of-towners. Byron’s wife, Callie, is from Seattle. Waylon’s wife, Kinsley, is basically from Boston. And Ezra’s fiancé, Georgia, is from a small town in Georgia.”
“They named her after the state?” he asked.
“I know!” I exclaimed. “That was a poor choice, but we don’t say that out loud.”
“You just said it out loud,” Aria interrupted.Damn, she had no problem calling me out, did she?
“And you’re never going to tell them, are you, spooky queen?”
“Nope!” She popped the‘p’loudly.
“Good,” I said. “Anyway, that means they leave for the holidays. So, Millie made an agreement with them: she sends them all out into the wild like she’s releasing fish—oh, yeah, I fish now.”
“Really?” he replied. “I don’t fish, but I can swim.”
“You told me that already. And that means, you should come out with me sometime. I can make fishing fun.”
“No one can make fishing fun, but I’ll spend the day on the lake with you.”
“It’s a date.” I grinned. “Anyway, she sends them out into the wild for Thanksgiving as long as they spend Christmas here. She does, however, do an unofficial-official dinner with everyonebefore Halloween. Thanksgiving is crazy at the diner, so they do it early, and you two are invited.”
“When is it?” Harley asked.
“That’s probably important information to have,” I said. “It’s next weekend.”
“We can do that.” His arm slipped through my elbow and pulled me to a stop. I faced him, a little surprised by the serious expression on his face. “I do need you to tell her that she’s got a peanut allergy.”
Aria let out an angry huff, her weight shifting in a way that had me scrambling to make sure she didn’t fall. I got hit in the face with a snake and took a knee to the ear.
“Aria, be careful, please,” Harley said as he reached up to steady her back.
“I want to get down!” she demanded, her voice laced with frustration.
“All right, all right,” I replied quickly. She held still long enough for me to get her off my shoulders. The moment her feet touched the ground, she stomped a little ways down the aisle, her fingers dragging along the tree trunks, and her snake hugged tight to her chest.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as his gaze tracked her. “She gets upset. It puts a lot of restrictions on her life, and it’s not fair to her. She wears a bracelet at school, she has food restrictions, and we have an EpiPen everywhere we go.”
Shit.I couldn’t begin to imagine the level of stress that caused him.
“I just need you to make sure that Millie knows,” he repeated.
“I’ll make sure she knows,” I promised. I made a mental note to text Millie later.
“Thank you.”
“Always.”
“Hey, handsome,” he began as he glanced at me.I loved it when he called me that.
“Hmm?”
“How many apples do we need?” he said. “This wagon is heavy?”
I laughed. Admittedly, we’d gone a little overboard with the apples, but she was having so much fun picking them that I didn’t have the heart to stop her. Millie was going to be baking pies for days with the number of barrels I’d be bringing her.
