“No drinking. You’re not old enough, and even if you were, I don’t want you drinking without me there to take care of you.”
“Okay,” I concede easily.
“No walking around on your own. Knight will pick you up and drop you back home after dinner.”
I nod, because that was my plan anyway.
“No bars. You’re too fucking beautiful to be dancing or shaking your ass at a bar without me to growl at every dude who thinks they have a chance of owning you. If you want to go out dancing, I’ll take you once I’m off shift, but until then, you do not set foot in a bar without me.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you, amore mio. Now take me with you to the bathroom, set the cell on the counter, and let me watch you take a shower.”
We end up staying on the video chat for another forty minutes until he says he has to get back to work, tells me he loves me, to behave, and to call him once I get home later.
I’m nervous when Knight pulls up outside the house in a huge black SUV. Checking I have my cell and house key, I pull the door closed behind me and rush out to the car, hoping that I’m dressed okay.
Knight climbs out of the driver’s seat and prowls around to open the back door of the car for me, watching while I clip my seat belt in place before he closes the door again.
“You look so cute, those pants are gorgeous,” Octy gushes. Once again, she’s dressed in her usual style, only instead of a dress, she’s wearing a white blouse with puffed sleeves and a high collar, paired with a pink pleated skirt with a black net underskirt beneath it.
Glancing down at my own outfit, I feel boring in my beige wide-leg pants and black asymmetric one-shoulder shirt. This is one of the outfits Cora’s mom styled for me. In the store, it made me feel confident and sexy, but in comparison to Octy, I feel utterly dull.
Octy chatters away, while I occasionally offer a few words as Knight drives us down the mountain and into town. When we slow to a stop outside a restaurant, I feel sick with nerves. Most of the people I’m eating with tonight are strangers. Will they like me? Will I like them? Will they tell Warrick if they hate me?
My hands are shaking when I open the car door and slip onto the sidewalk.
“Are you okay?” Octy asks after Knight literally lifts her out of her car seat and places her carefully on her feet again beside me.
“Nervous,” I admit.
“You don’t need to be nervous. You’re adorable and you already met James, Tori, Cora, Lulu, and Alice, right?”
“All of you are important to Warrick, I guess I just want to make a good impression.”
Before Octy can say anything else, a huge black vehicle stops at the curb ahead of where Knight parked and within seconds seven beautiful women have piled out of the car.
Grabbing my hand, Octy tows me over to the intimidating group. “Hi ladies, some of you have met her already, but this is Verity. She’s Warrick’s.”
Pushing her way to the front of the group, Cora throws her arms around me and hugs me as much as she can with her pregnant belly squashed between us. “I’m so glad you came,” she gushes, hooking her arm through mine. “You remember Alice and Lulu, right? Well, these are the rest of my sisters. Bonnie, Juni, Missy, and Betty.”
“Hi,” I say, lifting my hand to wave. The introductions are interrupted by more people arriving. James and Tori arrive together, quickly followed by Etta, Parker, and Henry.
Octy lets go of me for long enough to be lifted into Knight’s arms and thoroughly devoured in a kiss that’s so not PG, I look away.
The restaurant feels full once the fourteen of us have all sat down, the noise level dramatically increasing as they all discuss what to eat and drink. I promised Warrick that I wouldn’t drink alcohol, but when Tori starts excitedly asking how many people want margaritas, I feel suddenly self-conscious.
“Verity, margaritas?” Tori asks.
“I’m only twenty,” I say quietly.
Smiling conspiratorially, she shrugs. “I doubt anyone will ask you for ID.”
“Oh, err…” How do I admit that I promised my sort-of boyfriend that I wouldn’t drink without him?
“They do really good mocktails here too,” Alice says sweetly. “That’s what I’m having.”
“You don’t drink?” I ask.
