I turn around and give him a playful punch in the breastbone. “Not the goats! We can keep the goats.”
“Kinky,” Amanda says, eyebrow cocked.
“You want goats?” Andrew asks her. “I can get you goats.”
“The goats are for African villages,” I explain to her.
“Like the Heifer Project goats?” she asks.
“A foundation like that,” Dec says, wrapping his arms around me. I guess we’re making up. Fight over. Conflict not resolved, but tabled for further discussion.
Away from the prying eyes of a seven-foot-tall bear.
“I can get you water buffalo,” Andrew hisses in her ear. “I can even get you a zebra.”
“What are you? A zoo pimp?” I ask.
“Do you mind?” Andrew says, pretending to be offended. “This is a private conversation.”
“Your idea of dirty talk is kind of sick,” I tell him.
“Get out,” Dec says, a pleasant smile on his face, looking pointedly at his brother.
“Why are you guys here?” I ask.
“I saw the bear being delivered and followed it to your room,” Andrew admits. He looks at Amanda. “You want a bigger bear?”
She leans in and whispers in his ear. Didn’t know a McCormick man’s skin could flush that fast.
“Convention hall? Which one?”
Declan names the ballroom where the sex toy trade show’s going on.
And they’re off.
“Sex?” Declan whispers in my ear just as I say, “Nap?”
He mulls that over. “Nap now, sex later?”
“Deal.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Quit worrying,” Declan commands as I fiddle with my earring for the umpteenth time and drink more water. The nap was a waste of time. I couldn’t sleep, and Declan spent the entire time answering messages on his phone. We’re about to have dinner with my mom and dad, the big meal where we finally talk it all out, and I’m one big nerve jangling like a charm on an Alex and Ani bracelet owned by a four year old on a trampoline.
“I’m not worrying. I am thinking through a delicate situation over and over in an infinite loop of analysis to make sure I don’t leave any details to chance.”
“Like I said. Quit worrying.” He pulls me into his arms, still in a business shirt, cuffs rolled up, eyes tired. He’s been working for a few hours, even though we’re supposed to be on our “honeymoon.” Four different national tourism boards have been lobbying Grace—hard—offering a host of free opportunities for us if we’ll honeymoon in their respective nations.
With the paparazzi in tow, of course.
Our kiss is interrupted by my hand reaching up to play with my stupid earring, and the buzzing of my phone. I check the clock. 7:43 p.m.
“Bet that’s Mom,” I say, pulling out the phone. He lets me go and looks down, reading the glowing screen upside down.
What I see on my text screen fills me with rage.
Need to postpone dinner. Got free tickets to the Donnie and Marie concert across the street. Love u. Breakfast instead?
“What does it say? I can’t read Mother-in-Lawish upside down,” Dec asks.
“They’re ditching us for Donnie and Marie!”
“Who? What?”
“My parents are blowing us off for hair and teeth!” I shout, disgusted. Upstaged by a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.
I’m a little bit pissed.
“Donnie and Marie are still alive?” Declan muses. “Huh.”
I wave my screen in the air between us. “Apparently! And worth more than a special dinner with their daughter so they can clear the air with me!”
“Are you sure ‘Donnie’ and ‘Marie’ aren’t a euphemism for something?”
We shudder in unison.
“Let’s change the subject.” He beams. “This is good news! Now we have the entire evening free, and to ourselves.”
My stomach growls.
“I see dinner is first on the agenda,” Dec says with a smile.
“I shored myself up for tonight. I spent half the day avoiding talking to my mother, even when it came to getting a vajacial, and now—”
“A what?”
“I told you about the vajacial earlier, right before you had Smokey the Teletubby delivered to my room.”
“I wasn’t listening. You were too beautiful.” He gives me a grin that he thinks will paper over past sins.
“Never mind.” I give him a sour look. “But you really need to have a mystery shopping company come in and evaluate that spa you have downstairs. They have some unconventional practices.”
“Let Grace know.” He waves the thought away. “What about food? Where do you want to eat tonight?” Declan asks.
My stomach growls again, and I remember the restaurant next door, the one I walked past several times in my free days. You know. When I could get my own lattes at Grind It Fresh!
“I would love to go to a tapas bar,” I say, recalling the sleek lines, the grey stools, the bottle-glass backsplash at the bar in the resort next door. Maybe if I can make the tapas bar look like Declan’s idea, I can sneak into Grind It Fresh! and get a clandestine latte. Hmmm. This is a sudden plan.
It could work.
“Excuse me?” Declan clears his throat and leans in. “You want to go to a what?”
“A tapas bar.” I let out a huge sigh. “It’s been a long, tense few days, and now that we’re off the hook with Mom and Dad for dinner, I could use something to pull me out of my own head and help me relax. You know. Try a new experience. Taste the world a little.”