Walk Through Fire (Chaos, #4)(134)

Elvira kept slapping her hand on the table when she cried, “Oh Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.” She stopped slapping her hand and pointed at me. “I want it all.”

All of it?

Feathers and fur? Crystal and glittered twigs?

“That’s a lot,” I pointed out.

“You’ll make it work,” she declared.

I would because that was me but it would be a design nightmare.

“Good thing she’s got more than a year to plan,” Lanie murmured, likely taking in the dread on my face.

“And more than a year for Malik to pop the question.”

Veronica’s eyebrows flew up and she asked Elvira, “You’re planning a wedding and your man hasn’t proposed yet?”

“I’m thinkin’ I don’t care,” Elvira stated. “I’ll just tell him he’s gotta put on a suit, get his ass in the car, and drive him to the church. He can stay and do the deed or he can leave and never see me again.”

“New reality program. Extreme Proposals, Denver,” Kellie whispered through giggles.

“Things are gonna get extreme if that man doesn’t put a rock on her finger,” Tyra put in.

“As far as I’m concerned, my girl Beyoncé made a call to arms,” Elvira said. “And I listened.”

“I think the Great One meant that, if you didn’t put a ring on it, you would see the back of her. Not that you should go out and buy a handgun,” Tabby pointed out.

“Then I shoulda wrote that song,” Elvira returned.

“Don’t settle for anything less, Elvira,” Carissa stated. “But you won’t have to. Malik adores you. He’ll make you an honest woman.”

“Haven’t been that in a good long while,” Elvira muttered, and everyone smiled. “So it’d be nice to wear an ivory velvet wedding dress during my Winter Wonderland Wedding to wash in the honesty.”

“I think I like your new friends,” Kellie decreed to me.

I looked to her and smiled.

“I know I do,” Justine stated.

Dot raised her cosmo. “Right, girls. To old friends. And to new.” Her gaze came to me before it went to Elvira. “And to dreams coming true, no matter how that happens.”

“I hear that!” Tabby cried, lifting what looked like sparkling water.

“Hear, hear,” Veronica said, lifting her martini.

We all followed suit and clinked.

I looked over my shoulder and caught Claire writing what was undoubtedly her phone number on a cocktail napkin for the smiling hot guy who was watching her do it.

I turned back to the table, suppressing a sigh at the same time I suppressed a giggle.

“Right,” Justine turned to Tabby. “When are you due?”

I tuned in to Tab and tuned out my day.

And as it was when the sisterhood gathered—something no relaxing bath, no glass of wine could do better—my crew helped me wash away my shitty day.

*??*??*


The next morning, I made the call.

I was in the kitchen in my jammies with my coffee and two kittens with their faces stuffed into a bowl of kitty chow, my phone to my ear.

It rang twice, then I heard, “Babe, we’re all up. Gonna be there. Maybe an hour.”

“Low, can we talk for a sec?”

There was a hesitation before, “Sure, beautiful.”

I drew in breath before I said, “I think we should cancel today.”

There was another hesitation, then I heard him say, not to me, “Gonna be outside. Keep on keepin’ on.” I heard some noises that might be the RV door opening and shutting and then I had Logan back. “Say what?”

“I think we should cancel today,” I repeated, then quickly continued. “I think the girls need a break.”

“From what?”

“From me,” I said carefully.

He said nothing for a moment.

Then he pointed out, “They had fun with you yesterday.”

Maybe Cleo had.

Zadie, not at all.

“They need dad time,” I told him.

“They had that last night.”

I knew this wasn’t going to be easy and I’d been right.

“Snooks,” I said softly. “They only see you for any period of time every couple of weeks. It’ll get to the point where I’m a part of their life, a part of visits with Dad. But right now it’s a lot of stress to put on two young girls.”

And me.

Though I didn’t add that.

“They’re fine.”

“I really think you should give them a day with just you,” I pushed.

I got another moment of hesitation before he asked, “Are you sayin’ you don’t wanna be with my girls?”

Shit.

“No, absolutely not,” I replied firmly. “It’s not that at all, Low. I like them. Cleo’s sweet and Zadie’s coming around.” The last was a lie but...?whatever. “It’s just that I think this is too much too soon.”

“They don’t see you today, babe, I don’t see you.”

I’d thought of that. I loved that he wanted to see me and I hated that we wouldn’t see each other.

But we, both of us, had to have a mind to his girls.