“I-I tried to make her leave,” their father said, sitting there, looking horrified as he watched his wife sing her heart out.
Shaking his head, because he had no fucking clue why he was here, he grabbed his brother’s beer and finished it off. Before he’d swallowed the last drop, he was signaling for another round.
“I just needed a place to clear my head,” he said, deciding that the waitress was taking too long and swiped his father’s beer.
“And you willingly chose a karaoke bar to accomplish that?” Aidan asked as he searched the plates covering the table for a morsel of food that might have escaped someone’s notice, but there was nothing left.
“That and I got your text,” Lucifer said, gesturing for a second round of appetizers when the waitress dropped their beer off, which is probably why it took him a few seconds to realize that Aidan was frowning.
“What text? I didn’t send you a text,” he said, pulling out his phone only to shake his head with a muttered, “Fucking assholes,” before he shot a glare at the two large bastards on stage.
“So, I’m guessing that you didn’t need my help to drag mom out of here,” Lucifer said dryly as he rubbed his hands down his face and groaned.
One day he was going to kill those bastards.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Aidan said, gesturing towards their mother who didn’t appear as though she was going to willingly give up that mic anytime soon.
“I thought you would have left after dinner,” he said, deciding that talking about absolute bullshit was better than focusing on his latest fuck up.
“We tried,” Aidan bit out, looking close to losing his fucking mind, which he honestly couldn’t blame him for.
Christ, he’d only been here for a few minutes and he was already close to losing his fucking mind. He wasn’t sure how he would handle three hours stuck in this place.
“That was so much fun! Let’s do another one!” their mother said, gushing with excitement as Jason and Trevor led her back to the table.
As soon as they saw him, their expressions turned calculating. After they helped his mother to her seat they sat down across from him.
“Well, well, well, look who we have here,” Jason murmured as Trevor grabbed his beer and took a sip.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Trevor said, placing his beer back on the table so that he could gesture to the waitress for more food. With a confused look on her face, she scribbled something down and headed back towards the kitchen.
“Uh huh,” Lucifer said, really not caring until Jason opened his mouth and let him know that his night was far from over.
“Our other guest should arrive in just a few minutes,” Jason said, grinning.
“Then the fun can really begin,” Trevor said, not smiling, but looking just as pleased.
“You called my girlfriend?” he asked, deciding that it would be for the best if he clarified things first.
“Texted her,” Jason said, relaxing in his chair as he gestured towards the other end of the table.
“Telling her what exactly?” he asked as he shifted his gaze to the other end of the table just in time to see his mother drag his father, who looked absolutely terrified, towards the computer set up next to the stage, most likely to pick a song that would haunt them for the rest of their life.
“That we didn’t want her to miss the fun,” Jason said right around the time that a Backstreet Boys’ song came on and he heard his father mutter, “Please kill me.”
Nodding, Lucifer shifted his attention back to Trevor and Jason, deciding that his father was on his own and asked, “You realize that I’m going to kill you, right?”
Jason snorted at that. “I’ve known that since you were two and tried to shove me into oncoming traffic.”
“As long as we have an understanding,” Lucifer murmured absently as he suddenly found the woman that he loved jumping onto his lap with a satisfied sigh and a smile that really said it all.
She was going to fuck them all over tonight.
Chapter 52
“God, there are just so many possibilities,” she said, smiling as she looked around the table, letting all the possibilities race through her mind.
It was just like Christmas morning…
“I will give you a thousand dollars if you drink this,” Aidan said, placing a large glass of beer in front of her and as much as she would love an ice-cold beer to make this night absolutely perfect she was going to have to pass.
“I’m good,” she said absently as she shifted her attention to the stage, noting that Mrs. Bradford seemed to be having the time of her life while Ethan stood there, frozen on the spot, pale and looking like he was either going to pass out or puke.
Possibly both.
“Two thousand,” Aidan said, a bit hysterically.
“You’re really willing to risk my health just so that you could get out of some quality time with your family?” she asked, shaking her head in mock disgust even as she had to wonder if they had anything on tap that she could have.
“In a heartbeat,” Aidan said, and she didn’t doubt him for a second.
“We’d just drag you back here,” Trevor said with a wink as he sipped his beer before Jason added, “Again.”
“Bastards,” Aidan muttered, finishing off his beer as she sat there, trying to decide where to begin.
There were just so many possibilities…
“What are you doing here?” Lucifer asked, reminding her that she’d actually come here for a reason.
“I came to talk to you,” she said, shifting her attention to Jason and Trevor, who just sat there, watching her with a look that she knew all too well.
It was the same look that she got when she was about to screw someone over only this time it was aimed at her, which just wasn’t going to work for her.
“So talk,” Lucifer said, wrapping one arm loosely around her waist as he signaled the waitress and asked for two Cokes, which was probably for the best. Although, to be honest she wasn’t sure that she was going to be able to get through this conversation without a little liquid courage.
“We have an audience,” she reminded him as she shifted on his lap so that she could put her arm around his shoulders.
Shifting her gaze to Aidan, she realized that she might have to sacrifice him. Not that she had a problem doing that since the bastard had knocked up her best friend and abandoned her. Yes, she was aware that he didn’t know, but that didn’t matter to her. Melanie was her best friend so she owed her, her loyalty no matter how crazy and irrational her reasoning may be.
“Why don’t we go home and talk about this?” Lucifer suggested, but she wasn’t having that, not after getting a second chance to see this thing through.
“No,” she said, shaking her head as she finally shifted her attention to Lucifer, “this is fine.”
“I don’t want to talk about this with the nosy bastards listening in,” he said, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes so that he could cup her face in his hand and gently trace her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, nearly making her give up her plan.
“We’re not listening in,” Jason said, gesturing for them to continue.
Biting back a smile, because she was definitely going to fit in well with his family if he ever got the nerve to propose to her again, she decided that it was time to get things moving. If she left it up to him, she knew that he would do everything in his power to make the moment absolutely perfect and that wasn’t what she wanted.
She just wanted him.
“We can talk about this later,” she said with a reassuring smile as she scanned the large restaurant, taking in all the possibili
ties.
“We should talk about this now,” he said roughly, looking like he was going to be sick, which was probably a good reason to put this talk off for a little while.
At least until he stopped looking like he was going to be sick, which she had to admit was a tad insulting. Not that she was going to let him back out of his proposal, intended or not, he was hers.
She opened her mouth to tell him that there was nothing to worry about, because she’d decided to bestow upon him the honor of marrying her when he opened his mouth and let her know that he was going to be difficult.