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I stared up at this beautiful, caring man and gave him a small, watery smile. “I’m talking to you.” I mirrored his words to me from not that long ago.
“And you always can.” The words were heavy and deep with promise.
CHAP TER 22
S ix pairs of pretty eyes stared at me, together conveying a mixture of curiosity, teasing, delight, and expectation. Chloe, Sha
It was two days after my decision to give Logan a chance, and I’d called them all for a reason.
Probably not the reason they were hoping for.
I wasn’t much of a gossip.
“Thank you all for coming, guys. I’ve asked you here —”
“To thank us for pushing you to give in to Logan? You’re welcome.” Sha
I smiled serenely. “Oh, no. You’re here despite that.”
Joss snorted. “Gotcha.”
“This is actually about Maia’s sixteenth birthday. Logan feels it would be better if I organize it —”
“And of course you said yes because you looovve him,” Chloe interrupted.
The girls tittered at her immaturity.
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, I was wondering if you ladies would like to help me organize a sweet sixteen birthday party.”
“Of course!” Sha
“Okay, so I think we’re all on board with helping you organize the best sweet sixteen any girl has ever had, but first please give us some details about you and Logan,” Olivia said.
Sha
Looking around at their inquiring faces, I gave a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. I have agreed to give a relationship with Logan a chance so he can earn back my trust. It’s been two days so far, and we’re still working on it.”
“And the sex?” Chloe persisted. “Is it as good as the first time? He looks like he would make it good every time.”
Sha
“He’s not good at it.” I shook my head, watching their faces fall. “He’s fantastic at it, and that’s all you need to know on the matter.”
“Frankly, that was too much for some of us,” Sha
Chloe raised an eyebrow, apparently unimpressed. “And not enough for others.”
“Best you’ve ever had, huh?” Joss said, a knowing, almost sympathetic glint in her eye. “You’re so fucked.”
“Literally,” Ellie agreed.
The girls laughed while I tried to quell the rising panic inside of me.
“Let’s change the subject before I have to tell my brother we’re the reason Grace is backing out of a relationship with him.” Sha
I did as Sha
“Agreed,” Sha
“Exactly.” I flipped open the notebook in front of me. “So, if you’re all up for it, I thought Maia would like it if you all were there with your kids. She’s never had a big family party before, and I think she’d love it.”
“We’re definitely up for that,” Jo said, her eyes bright with kindness. “We’ll be there.”
“Hyper kids and all,” Olivia added.
Ha
“You know Braden would probably let us host it on the bottom level of Fire,” Ellie said.
“Or there’s D’Alessandro’s,” Ha
“Yeah?” I said, pleased. “Maia loves the food there. That would be perfect.”
“I’ll get Marco to call him tonight. When is it?”
I gave her the date, two weeks from now. “What about decorations? Maia’s not a girlie girl, but I would like to make an effort.”
“Metallics,” Joss suggested. “As a non–girlie girl myself, you can’t go wrong with silvers and golds and bronzes for decoration.”
“Okay.” I nodded, scribbling that down.
“But make sure it’s sweet sixteenth stuff,” Sha
“Right. What about music?”
“Deejay?” Olivia suggested.
I mused over it. “Do you think we could get him to play alternative rock?”
“Forget a deejay.” Chloe waved the idea off. “We’ll get an iDock and some speakers and plug an iPhone with all her favorite stuff on it into it.”
That was the music sorted, then.
“Is that it, then?” I stared at the list I’d made.
“Ooh, why don’t we put up a projector screen?” Ellie said. “Right across the back wall. At first we can just use it for slides of photos of Maia with us. We’ll take sneaky shots over the next few weeks when we’re with her, and then afterward we can stick on a film for the kids. We could rent a really big one for the back wall. Make a statement.”
We all liked that, so I wrote down “Rent projector.”
As we sat talking and throwing out more ideas, laughing and getting sidetracked, I relaxed completely as I realized these women were genuinely invested in making sure Maia had the best birthday ever.
We were in the middle of discussing whether it would be too much to hire some kind of entertainment act when Logan came striding into my sitting room.
“Hello, ladies,” he said, and brushed his hand over Sha
“Where’s Maia?” I said. He was supposed to be with her, distracting her.
Logan leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips before settling on the arm of my chair. “I dropped her off at the tattoo parlor. Apparently, Cole said she could spend the day learning about the world of tattoo artistry.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that,” Sha
I wrinkled my nose. “Should she be spending the day in a tattoo studio?”
“Why not?” Ha
I made a face. “I see sarcasm runs in this family.”
Sha
Logan rubbed my shoulder. “You think I would have left her there otherwise?”
“No, of course not,” I assured him. “I’m just a little frazzled. There’s a lot going on.”
“How are the plans coming along?”
I dove into explaining what we’d come up with so far.
His eyes brightened as the girls jumped in with all their ideas. “Sounds perfect,” he said once we’d finished. He peered down at the notebook and the guest list I’d written out. He frowned. “Be sure to add my mum, dad, and Amanda.”
“What?” Sha
Logan shot her a warning look. “I’m not happy about it either, but Maia wants to meet them and they want to meet her.”
“Oh, now they want to meet her. So! It’s not up to them.”
“No. It’s up to Maia. I gave her the choice.”
“And whose bright idea was that?”
I winced. “Uh… well… that would be mine.”
Sha
“I can guess. And I’m worried about Maia meeting them, too, but she is old enough to make this decision herself.”
“I explained it to her,” Logan said. “I told her exactly what they’re like so she knows what’s she getting into. She still wants to meet them, and we’re going to let her.”
His sister shook her head and lowered her gaze. “It’s a mistake.”
An awkward, tension-filled silence enveloped the entire room, and the girls looked at one another, wondering what to do. Jo watched Sha