This time, it’s Andrew who laughs until he cries.
The waiter appears, begins to ask about the food, finds four people in various states of apoplexy, and discreetly backs out, leaving a fresh bottle of white wine, which we devour in the next fifteen minutes. By the time the meal is over I am half drunk, stuffed silly, and blissfully happy to be among friends.
Life is good.
Even if we nearly required a SWAT team to escape my own wedding yesterday.
“I thought I’d have a sister-in-law by now,” Andrew says after the bottle’s been drained and we’re smiling at each other.
“You will.” Declan’s hand caresses the spot between my shoulder blades, making me arch and purr like a cat in a perfect spot of sunshine. “Soon.”
“Are you eloping?” I can’t tell if Amanda’s question holds disappointment or excitement.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Uh, oh,” Andrew responds to our mixed answers.
“We’re still negotiating,” Declan says smoothly.
“He thinks we’re still negotiating.” I wink at Andrew.
Bad move.
“Life is nothing but negotiation,” Dec answers, his jaw going tight. Whatever loose happiness we had a moment ago turns bleak.
“Right,” I say, staying in neutral.
“Nothing is immutable.”
“Except for you,” I joke.
Just then, the waiter arrives with a cake. Silver sparklers protrude from it, the center covered in frosting that spells out, I love you.
He sets it in front of Amanda.
Declan looks like he’s going to kill his brother with nothing but a wine cork and a demitasse spoon.
“What’s this?”
“A celebration,” he says as the waiter lights the sparklers. “To new beginnings. To us.”
“To being outdoors at an orchid farm where there are loads of wasps,” Declan says under his breath. I jolt.
“That is a new beginning, for him, Dec. Please don’t do this,” I plead as the sparklers light, go out, and Amanda kisses Andrew, shooting me a sorry look. I shake my head, making sure she knows it’s fine.
And it is. I’m not jealous. The rest of them seem to think I should be, but I’m really not. Andrew’s over-the-top gestures are adorable. Amanda’s eating it all up. Good for them.
“Don’t do what?” Declan hisses.
“Get competitive.”
“This isn’t about competition.”
“It isn’t? Then what’s it about?”
Before he can answer, the waiter has plated the cake and hey...cake.
You know how some men have this thing about breasts because...breasts?
Cake is breasts for women.
Bzzzz.
I’m halfway through my piece when I check the message. It’s not a text message, actually. Just a notification from an app Declan put on my phone, one that is for Litraeon, informing hotel guests of the day’s events.
It turns out today’s the first day of a three-day “adult products” trade show being held in the convention center.
I give Declan a hollow look and put down my fork, pushing the plate away.
“What’s wrong?” Amanda gasps in alarm, looking at my plate. Failure to finish cake is a full-blown catastrophe in our world.
I hold out my phone with the notification on the screen.
“I don’t think we have to worry about my mom for a while.”
Chapter Ten
After zero debate, Andrew and Amanda leave lunch to head back to their room, their amorous intentions all over both their faces. Declan, on the other hand, looks about as eager to go find my mother in a sex toy convention hall as he is to have a vasectomy performed by a crack addict with Parkinson’s disease.
“Timing is everything,” Dec jokes as he reads through his messages on his phone, following behind me just enough to make it clear he’s become a phone zombie, eyes tracking my feet so he can stay in line and multitask.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did you know there’s a small rodeo convention and the adult products trade show here in the resort at the same time?”
“Yee haw?”
“Ride ’em, cowboy,” Dec says as the doors open and we walk slowly through the labyrinth of the resort. We haven’t even been here for a day. When you arrive at places by limo, you often miss the actual entrance. I’m spellbound as the elevator doors open and we go into the main common areas of the casino.
This is nothing like any casino I’ve ever seen on television or in the movies.
To be fair, I don’t watch the kind of movies featuring gambling. I’m more of a romantic comedy girl, and my action-thrillers lean more toward natural disaster movies and away from the mob or drug-smuggling features. I can handle tension if it’s so unreal I can’t imagine it really happening to me.
So this casino puts me in a quandary. It’s sumptuous, more Monte Carlo than grungy gambler. Dad used to watch these old ’70s and ’80s television shows where the casinos were filled with smoke clouds, with people fishing around in cups of coins to shove in slot machines, ladies in muumuus all clustered around that one lever that was going to change their world while some mob boss stole their life savings and granddaughter behind their back.
The casino at Litraeon is about as close to those plots as my mother is to being a Supreme Court Justice.
“Wow,” I gasp.
“What?”
“It’s just...wow.” I slow down, my heels clicking on the marble floor, and as I look up at the Italian style of the hallways, all wide and tan, with beige and burgundy accents, I realize how much I really don’t know about the world beyond Boston.