Page 110 of Smoke and Glitter

For a few seconds, neither of us pays much attention to whatever is happening around us.

Then Sam lowers the bottle and gives me a small lift of his chin.

I return it.

He stays where he is.

There's relief in that. Disappointment too, which is irritating enough that I refuse to sort through it while Lucia is tugging on my hand and demanding a ruling on whether two missing front teeth qualify as a major life event.

They do.

Bex bought the baby a lamp.

At least that's what she claims.

Colt lifts it out of the box and turns it slowly in both hands. Chrome curves up from the base beneath a spray of colored glass that looks less like nursery lighting and more like something stolen from an aggressively fashionable hotel lobby.

Summer leans forward from the couch. "Plug it in."

Colt looks at her. "You haven't seen what it does."

"That's why I said plug it in."

Bex is already on the floor looking for an outlet. "Thank you."

Lucia drops beside her to help, and thirty seconds later the wall behind Summer is covered in pink, blue and amber light.

Summer gasps.

Colt studies the wall with the expression of a man trying to remain supportive through a zoning violation.

"I love it," Summer says.

Bex gets to her feet and dusts off her knees. "Nobody at the bar thought I should buy it."

"Where are we putting it?" Colt asks.

"In the nursery."

He looks at the lamp, then at his wife. "Where in the nursery?"

Summer squints at him. "Somewhere you can see it."

"That did not narrow anything down."

"It's a lamp, Colt. We'll survive."

I'm still smiling when Marisol takes the empty chair beside me. She has been waiting for a gap in the noise, and the second she sits, I can tell she has something.

"I start fittings next week."

I turn fully toward her. "You got the Chicago production?"

Her grin breaks wide enough to answer me.

"Marisol." I'm out of my chair before she finishes nodding. She laughs when I wrap my arms around her, and I feel her hand pat twice between my shoulder blades.

When we separate, she catches my forearms. "Before you start, yes, I earned it."