okay. If you hadn’t talked to Fredrick, I would be dead right now.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true. You saved me. How is Father dealing?”
“I don’t know. He’s locked up in his office in the city trying to figure out how to spin his hand-picked future son-in-law trying to kill his gay son.” She shrugged. “It’s pretty much his worst nightmare.”
“I really am sorry, Becca. I know this ruined all your future plans.”
“I’m not. You know I didn’t want to marry him, and if I’d been braver, I would have called the whole thing off months ago. But now I don’t have to.”
“What are you going to do next?”
“I don’t know. They’re going to come up with some story to explain everything away, and they’re going to expect me to go along with it. To go to his campaign rallies and stand up while he lies and spins. I don’t think I can do that anymore.”
“Then don’t. Move in here,” Roman said from the doorway. I patted the seat next to me letting him know he was welcome to join us. How could I not love this man? He loved me, and I loved Becca, therefore to him, Becca mattered. Same with Ash. How did I get so lucky? “You can stay with us until you get on your feet.”
“But I don’t have a job or money or anything. I can’t just move in here and stay.”
“Sure you can,” he insisted. “For as long as you need, and as far as a job goes, I’m sure we can help with that. You’re family, and in the Hart family, we take care of our own.”
Roman
“Your mother cracks me up,” Trey said, as he dug through the cheese trying to find what he wanted.
“Because she insisted this didn’t count as family linner because it wasn’t at her house or because she insisted on judging the macaroni and cheese competition?”
“Both. But not just that. How seriously she took the whole thing. Like we have to use the same dish and someone else has to bring them to the table, so she won’t know whose is whose.”
“I think she’s hoping I’ll lose so I’ll have to learn to cook. She always wanted to teach us, but I wasn’t into it at all.” I paused and looked over at his basket. “Is that gruyere cheese you just put in there?”
He jerked his basket to the other side. “Stop cheating.”
“I told you I don’t cheat,” I insisted.
“You do cheat. Both at Scrabble and now at mac-n-cheese making. I told you we should shop separately, and you said you wouldn’t look.”
“I wasn’t looking. Not in your basket anyway. I was looking for the gruyere cheese, that’s why I noticed.”
“Nope. Not doing this. You go get your pasta while I finish getting my cheese. I’ll meet you back at the checkout, and I don’t want to see you in here until then,” he insisted. I really didn’t want gruyere cheese. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what gruyere cheese was. But giving him a hard time was so much fun. He was so competitive that winding him up was easy.
“Fine, whatever you want, maybe I’ll just go over to the deli and buy some already made,” I said as I wandered off.
“Cheater,” he yelled back after me.
“Poor sport,” I called back.
“What did you say?” he asked, stopping and turning to face me.
“I said, I love you.”
“You did not,” he grumbled, turning to go back to digging through the cheese. “But I love you, too.”
In true mother fashion, she claimed she couldn’t choose a favorite. I was almost positive that everyone liked Trey’s best since his dish was empty first, but I would never admit it. In the end, we agreed we would both take a cooking class together, and that we both made amazing mac-n-cheese.
I grabbed another beer, plopped down beside my brothers, and watched Trey and Becca talking with my mom. They were laughing about something. I wasn’t sure what, but every so often Trey would point over at the garage, so I had a feeling it was about our soon-to-be rooftop paradise. We'd had a contractor out earlier this week, and he'd confirmed that yes, if I was willing to turn one corner of the garage into a storage closet, we could indeed put a hot tub up there. I guess the plan was to use that corner to put in supports and plumbing, and then wall it in like a closet to hide it all.