Page 120 of Bombshell

“That’s our cue,” Jack says. He walks to me, extending his hand. I take it, and he pulls me into a hug. “You ready for this?”

“Because we’ve had to extract you from tighter spots before,” Luca adds, joining us. His dark eyes dance.

“No doubt in my mind,” I promise them.

Luca grins, whistling as he heads out the back door to wait for the ceremony. Jack smiles again before releasing my hand.

“I’m happy for you,” he tells me before joining Kai to go wait with Luca.

“Me, too,” Sutton adds, managing to sound sincere.

“You two will be friends someday,” I promise her, wrapping my arms around her in a tight hug. She looks so grown up in her gold, lightly beaded dress, but her round, blue eyes take me back to when she was a little kid, looking to me for guidance. I’m determined to be there for her. “I want us to be a family. I don’t want to lose any more time.”

When they’re gone, Francie comes over and fiddles with my bowtie, not bothering to hide the tears pooling in her eyes. She’s dressed in a simple navy dress that Adair and her picked out when she arrived last week. The two bonded over how little they cared about clothes, much to Poppy’s horror.

“You look beautiful,” I tell her. She does. Her warm brown skin glows as brightly as her million watt smile.

“I look old,” she says with a sniff, brushing invisible lint from my shoulders.

I shake my head. A few strands of gray have made themselves into her tightly woven braids. “You look the same as the day we met.”

“You remember that day?” she asks. “I thought you were too busy ignoring me.”

“I was intimidated,” I admit. “You weren’t like the other foster homes they sent me, too. You were...scary.”

She laughs, and I can’t help but join her. “I had to scare you.”

“Was I that bad?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Nope, you were just worth saving,” she says quietly. There’s no mistaking the look in her eyes or the emotion in her voice. She’s also guarded herself around me, like she’s approaching a wild animal. I can’t blame her.

“I’m sorry I was trouble,” I murmur. “Thank you for not giving up on me. Thanks for always being there.”

“I always will be,” she promises me.

“I know…Mom.” I’ve never said it before. I’ve thought it. I’ve felt it. But something always held me back. For a long time, it was guilt. Because I had a mom, even though she was gone. Then, it was fear. I didn’t want to make her into something she didn’t want to be. But I don’t see the world the same way I did then, not even the same way I did a year ago.

Francie didn’t have to love me. She did it anyway. She didn’t have to stick by me when I fucked up—and I fucked up a lot. She never budged. I didn’t understand—couldn’t understand it. Now, I do. She’s always been my mom, patiently waiting for me to see it, too.

She hugs me with all her strength, which is considerably more than her slight frame suggests. “About damn time.”

When we finally let go, she brushes away tears. “We need to get you married!”

I pull a box out of my pocket and open it to reveal the rings.

“Adair is a lucky woman,” she says with a wink as she helps me tie it to Zeus’s collar.

Zeus, who seems to understand the gravitas of the situation, sits like a statue as we thread Adair’s ring through the ribbon. Adair’s worn a simple diamond engagement ring since I proposed. Mostly, because I’d been too impatient to ask her to wait for the custom ring I’m giving her today.

I’d taken the engagement ring and had it made into a necklace for Ellie, wanting her to feel as much a part of today as possible. Adair’s actual wedding ring features four half carat pear-shaped diamonds set in a cluster. At first glance, it just looks like a huge rock, which wasn’t really my attention, but closer inspection, shows the narrow points of the diamonds meeting in the middle to form a delicate clover. Pavé diamonds halo the larger stones, and two eternity bands of diamonds are joined to serve as the official wedding band. She’s going to fuss over its size, but I don’t care. If it was up to her, she’d be happy with a rubber band. I want everyone to know she’s mine.

We finish getting Zeus ready and Francie hands me the lead of his blue leash.

“Does she know?” she asks.

“Not yet,” I say with a grin.

“You’re up to something,” Francie guesses.