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Greer nodded. “Yes from me.”
We all turned to Mom. She owned Dad’s and her shares in the company, and with a big smile, she nodded too. “As long as I still get to babysit a couple of days a week, it’s a yes from me too.”
My throat was tight with emotion as Ivy’s face spread with a satisfied grin. “Thank you,” I told her. I picked up the agenda and shrugged one shoulder. “Well, I guess that’s it if you need to get to work now.”
Parker yawned. “Not me. It’s the offseason. I’m going back to bed.”
“Maybe go work out instead,” Erik said. “You looked slow last week in that video you posted.”
Parker flipped him off, winked at me, and his screen went black.
Cameron shook his head. “Greer, let’s go. You’ve got an apology tour to make.”
After hugs from both of them, then Ian and Harlow, and a minute later, Adaline and Erik logged off. It was just Mom, Ivy, and me.
Ivy watched my face carefully, and that always made me a little nervous. From the moment I met her, she had an uncanny ability to read me. Sometimes it was good, and sometimes, like now, it made me want to hide under the freaking table.
“So,” she drawled, “I hear you’ve shifted Jax Cartwright into the friend zone as of last night.”
I ran a hand over my belly and smiled. “Yup. We talked last night. He asked what I needed, and”—I shrugged—”that’s pretty much it.”
“You talk to Dean about him yet?”
Slowly, I shook my head. “I’m going to call him later when he’s off work.”
Mom’s eyebrows rose slowly. “What do you think he’ll say?”
Ivy snorted. “Captain America will have the perfect response, as per usual. God, he’ll probably want Jax’s autograph or something.”
I chucked a wadded-up agenda at her head, and shecaught it with a neat snatch of her hand, eyebrows raised like, can’t you do any better than that?
“You’re as bad as Parker,” I told her. “I think it’s admirable that he has firm personal boundaries.”
“Is it also admirable that he cheats at chess?” Ivy muttered.
“That boy beat you fair and square, Ivy,” Mom said.
Ivy screwed her lips up, and I coughed to cover my laugh.
“I bet they’ll get along just fine,” I said.
Mom and Ivy traded a loaded look.
“Stop it,” I told them. “They will.”
“Sure,” Ivy said condescendingly. “You and your love line, non-triangle love triangle. I can see it now, Jax and his working vocabulary of seven words sitting with Dean while he waxes poetic about his renewed V-card.”
I tried to mimic her boss-bitch glare, but I had a feeling it wasn’t quite as effective, especially when she simply smiled innocently.
Mom chuckled. “Why don’t we do this,” she said. “I’ll have everyone over for dinner in a couple of nights. That way, Jax doesn’t feel like there’s too much pressure on meeting Dean.” She shrugged. “Just a normal night at the Wilders.”
“Dinner with Jax,” Dean repeated slowly, his bright eyes trained firmly on mine. “Dinner with Jax in front of your entire family?”
I risked a small nod. We were sitting on the back deck of his house after dropping my little news bomb about the baby’s surprise paternity and his sudden reappearance in town. I did call him, like I’d said, but this was no conversation to be hadover the phone. I needed to see his face. He deserved that, if nothing else.
Maybe this was what Jerry Springer felt like. It was awful—delivering world-altering news, yet again, knowing he’d probably feel like I was yanking the floor out from underneath his feet. I was on a roll this week, honestly. Jax and my family and now Dean. You’d think it would get easier, but it really hadn’t.
It was one thing to accept the baby, butsurprise! He was my brother’s best friend, so he was around all the time, anddouble surprise! I had aTitanic-sized crush on him my entire life.
