“Hey, anything you can do to move on, sista.” Avery clinked her glass to Shannon’s.
“Where would you move?”
“I’m not sure. I like the beach.”
“Just don’t move too far,” Avery suggested.
“Hey, I moved to Texas,” Trina said.
“You fly here all the time.” Avery set her glass down.
“True.”
“So, Avery, how is everything going with Liam?”
“He is an unexpected pleasure in my world.”
“Has he told you he loves you?” Trina asked.
Avery knew her cheeks were blushing. “Yes.”
Trina did the smiling chair dance.
“And you him?” Lori asked.
Avery hid her answer in her drink.
“Excuse me, what was that?” Shannon asked.
“No. I can’t.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Of course. He’s the best thing in my life. We laugh all the time, toss each other around in krav and in the bedroom. He keeps me grounded and safe . . . and I don’t know, settled.”
Lori moved away from the railing she was leaning on and sat in a chair. “So why not tell him that?”
“Because then he will move on to the next thing. It’s what he does. It started with insisting that we were dating when we weren’t . . . and the next thing I know I’m in a relationship. I erased all my dating profiles, my data dump of phone numbers gave my phone so much room it downloaded music all by itself just because it could.”
They were laughing.
“He has a drawer at my place—hell, he took half the closet. I even have a dog bed for Whiskey. His niece is already calling me Auntie Avery, and Michelle is calling me to arrange a family dinner so everyone can meet. I can’t do that, because I still haven’t taken him over to the Grant home for what will surely be the dinner from hell.”
“It could go well,” Miss Glass Half-Full told her.
“Snowball’s chance, Shannon. Snowball’s chance.”
“What does he do when he tells you he loves you and you don’t say it back?”
Avery found herself smiling. “He tells me it’s okay that I don’t because he knows that when I do, I’m all in, that since the words aren’t easy for me, they mean more. He’s so damn understanding.”
“Sounds like the real thing.”
“I tell him I love him, and the next thing I know, you guys will be back buying more freaking bridesmaids’ dresses. My condo doesn’t work for the dog. I love my condo. And what happens if I get pregnant? I’m too young to be a mom.”
“You’re thirty-two,” Trina reminded her.
“Liam will be a great dad,” Lori added.
Avery thought about how he treated his niece, and smiled.
“You know what is killing me about this whole picture?” Shannon asked.
“What?”
“You know you love him. He adores you. Keeping that little word that means so much out of the mix is only prolonging what you know is going to happen. You want it to happen.”
“Do I?”
Shannon leaned forward. “Close your eyes?”
“What?”
“Humor me.”
Avery frowned and followed instructions.
“Fast-forward five years. Is Liam there?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
“Where are you guys?”
She saw his home, the one with the yard, or one like it. There were kids’ toys in the yard and a white fence. Damn, she was happy.
Avery unfolded herself from her chair. “Son of a . . .” Opened the door leading back inside.
“Where are you going?” Trina called after her.
“I have to call Liam.”
They started laughing.
Avery grabbed her cell phone from her purse and hid in the bathroom. Before she lost her nerve, she leveled the phone with her face and called Liam via FaceTime.
He picked up on the second ring.
Just seeing him made her smile. “Shouldn’t you be chardonnay drunk by now?” he teased.
“Probably.”
He was in his backyard, under the lights of his patio.
“Is that Auntie Avery?”
Liam smiled and turned the phone toward Cassandra. “Sure is. Say hi.”
“Hi, Auntie Avery. When are you gonna come back over so I can braid your hair?”
“Soon, honey. Can you do me a big favor and give me and your uncle a few minutes?”
Liam scooted his niece off his lap. “Play with the dog before it gets dark.”
Avery heard Cassie’s squeals and the dog barking as she ran out of view.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
She nodded like a fool for a good five seconds and then sucked up her nerve. “Yup. I just called to tell you I love you.”
Liam’s smile started at his eyes, and when it reached his lips, he held it in. “Did that hurt?”
“God, yes,” she exhaled.
He was chuckling.
“I promised that I wouldn’t lie to you, and not saying it has been a lie by omission, so there. I love you, Liam Holt.”
He peered into the camera. “Are you in a bathroom?”
“Are you going to give me crap about where I chose to say it?”
“Maybe.”
She was laughing with him. “It was private.”
“I think I’m going to love these club meetings of yours.”
She glanced at the bathroom door, heard the ladies on the other side. “Okay, so that’s it. That’s all I called to say.”
“Say it again.”
“Is that a demand?”
“Yes.” His eyes were alive with happiness.
“I love you, Liam. I’ll show you how much when I see you on Monday.”
“I love you, too. Thanks for being impulsive.”
“A trait you’re going to hate.”
“So far it’s working for me.”
He blew her a kiss and hung up.
She closed her eyes and hugged her phone to her chest.
It was all over now.
Epilogue
Avery walked around the condo, placing flowers in the perfect locations and then deciding they didn’t look right and moving them.
The caterers were busy setting up in the kitchen, and music already played on her sound system.
Introducing Liam to her parents at a cocktail party had been his idea.
Making sure everyone was at the party before her parents could arrive was hers.
Liam brushed up behind her and ran his hands up her bare arms. “You look edible.”
The sleek cocktail dress didn’t leave room for a bra. It came up to her neck almost like a collar and crisscrossed all over the back, which dipped low. The First Wives approved and also suggested that she double up on her birth control pills if she wore it for Liam. By the heat breathing down on her neck from the man in question, they were right.
“So we should tell everyone the party is off and go to bed early.”
He chuckled in her ear. “You’re not wiggling out of this.”
She moaned.
The doorbell rang and her palms broke out in a sweat.
“Relax.”
Not standing on ceremony, Trina and Wade arrived and immediately made themselves at home. Lori and Reed, Shannon. The Wives were there. Michelle brought a friend from class. Leslie arrived with a mutual friend from krav.
“Samantha! I didn’t think you guys were going to make it.” Avery kissed the side of Samantha Harrison’s cheek and did the same for Blake.
“And miss meeting this guy?” Sam extended a hand. “I’m Samantha, almost everyone calls me Sam.”
“My pleasure.”
“This is Blake Harrison. We’ve been friends with Avery for quite a few years.”
“Nice to meet you,” Liam said.
“Are the parents here yet?” Sam asked.
“No.”
Sam leaned closer to Liam. “Keep Avery away from the tequila when Adeline shows up.”
“Stop. I’m not that . . .” She paused. “Okay, I was that bad.”
Blake turned to Liam. “I’m told you’re in construction.”
“I am.”
“Commercial or residential?”
“A little of both, actually.”
The two of them started a conversation about work, and the doorbell rang again. Each time was like a tiny nail in Avery’s side.
“Brenda?” Avery’s jaw dropped. She’d invited her krav instructor, but she seriously hadn’t thought she’d show.
Holy shit did Brenda clean up. Wow, she took little black dress to a whole new meaning, and the man holding her arm was African American and towered over her. Not hard, because she was kinda on the short side, but wow.
Avery excused herself from Sam’s side and crossed to the door. “Look at this sexy mama!”
Brenda gave her a stern look. “Zip it, Grant, or you’ll be doing burpees until Christmas.”
Yeah, those words didn’t scare her. “You must be Brenda’s main squeeze.”
“I am.” Oh, and his voice was bayou deep.
“Phil. His name is Phil, not main squeeze,” Brenda corrected.
Avery pulled them into the room. “Let me introduce you to some of our friends. Shannon, Lori, this is Brenda, the krav queen of LA, and her boyfriend, Phil. Brenda, you need to talk Shannon into coming to class. I think a strong wind could knock her down.”