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  She smiles as she gazes up at me. “You’ve made me happier today than you have in a long time.”

  “I always want to make you proud and make sure you’re happy.”

  “You know what’ll make me happy, honey?” she asks, smiling all sweet and innocent.

  I know what’s going to come out of her mouth before she says the words. Based on her vision board, the only thing that’ll make her happy is grandbabies and lots of them. “What’ll make you happy, Ma?”

  “Whatever makes you happy,” she replies, shocking me.

  “Not grandbabies?”

  Her smile widens. “Those too, but in due time. You’re young and have plenty of time to give me lots of grandkids. For now, I want you to enjoy life, enjoy your girlfriend, and enjoy being young. Life flies by in the blink of an eye and should be savored as much as possible. Live life on your own timeline. Not on mine.”

  I pull her against my chest, hugging her, and kissing her forehead. “Thanks, Ma. I want you to find your happy also. You’re still young too.”

  She laughs. “You’re precious.”

  “Just don’t find that happiness with someone I know, please. I’m not sure I can handle that.”

  She nods. “Got it. So, any complete stranger will do. Duly noted.”

  Shit.

  I didn’t think that through.

  Clearly, her ability to pick the right man is off after her time with Boyd, but I also know I don’t want her with someone I am close to like Morris. He is too young for her, and the cougar jokes would get real old pretty fucking quick. One of us wouldn’t come out the other end alive.

  “Maybe you should just keep things casual for a while, no matter who you date.”

  “I like casual,” she tells me, and my stomach twists because she’s my mom and we’re talking about dating, therefore, sex.

  “Just nothing serious. Don’t run off and move in with the first guy who looks like a good thing.”

  This time, she guides me toward the house. “Honey,” she says, and I’ve always loved how sweet that word sounded coming from her lips, “I’m not looking to jump back into something so serious. Maybe if we would’ve casually dated for a while, I would’ve seen the other side of him. I do know, the next time I’m really interested in someone, I’ll probably call Tamara’s uncles and have them run a background check on him.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I tell her because it’s not. Some simple checking on Boyd and a million little red flags would’ve been waving in her face, sending her in the opposite direction.

  “And I’ll have you around too. You have a pretty good sense about people, especially men.”

  “So, you’re sticking around for more than a little while?”

  She nods as we stand in the doorway. “I have nowhere to go back to, and it’s about time I stick close to my son and his girl, waiting on those grandbabies who will eventually come.”

  “But not too soon,” I remind her.

  “Not too soon.” She smiles back. “Now, let’s celebrate. I’m no longer a wanted criminal. That calls for a drink.”

  I laugh and shake my head, never thinking I’d hear those words coming out of my mother’s mouth and hoping I never do again.

  18

  Tamara

  Eight months later

  I stare at myself in the full-length mirror, smiling like an idiot. I never thought this day would come. It always felt so far away and elusive, but somehow, I survived the last four years to make it to college graduation day. The cap and gown are hideous, but they’re part of the rite of passage. At least it’s not the same awful color that I had to wear during my high school ceremony, but it is still no more flattering.

  “Let me see my baby,” my mom says, walking into my apartment on campus without even knocking.

  “Oh my God!” I scream, clutching my chest as my heart hammers so fast you’d think I’d just walked out of a haunted house. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “You knew we’d be here. You’re such a drama queen.” My mother waves me off before she grabs my shoulders, gawking at me in my cap and gown. “I never thought this day would come. I’m so stinking proud. Let me see you.”

  “You look all grown up,” Dad says, walking in a few seconds after her with my brother Asher next to him.

  “Yo,” my little brother says, looking not so small anymore. He’s as tall as my father, but bulkier, like a football player and not a musician.

  Sadly for my father, my brother doesn’t have a musical bone in his body. He sings every song off-key and can’t follow a beat to save his life. So, instead of molding him into becoming the next big rock star, Dad pushed him into athletics, and my brother excels at using his muscles and not so much of his creative brain. He is still in high school, but he’s a rising star on the basketball and football teams.

  My parents spend their weeknights at games, cheering on their son, which is fine by me because if they have their eyes on him, they aren’t watching me so closely.

  Not that I am ever doing anything wrong. I just don’t need them all up in my business every second of every day. They’ve given me room to breathe over the years, but without Asher, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have had as much freedom or anonymity.

  “Hey,” I tell him, giving him the same chin lift he gave me when he walked in.

  “I need to get photos,” Ma says, ignoring my short and stunted conversation with my brother. “This is a big day.”

  I pull on the sides of my gown, showing my mother just how stupidly large the thing is. “I look like you could put a string on me and fly me in the air like a kite.”

  Asher laughs as he pulls out his phone, staring down at his screen, already bored with the entire day.

  Dad elbows him and gives him a stern and somehow laughable glare. Dad likes to play a good game, acting like he is somehow tough as a parent, but he isn’t. Mom is the one who rules the house and who sets the guidelines when it came to us. Dad would’ve let us do things that probably would’ve landed the two of us in the emergency room more often than not.

  “We had a deal,” Dad says to Asher, still staring at him.

  Asher sighs, pressing the off button on his new and extremely expensive phone before shoving it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Whatever,” he mutters.

  My mother rolls her eyes. “Boys are the worst, baby. The. Worst. If you’re going to have kids, only have girls.”

  “I don’t think it works that way, Mom,” I tell her, pushing my cap back as it starts to slip. “This thing is pissing me off.”

  She looks around, trying to make heads or tails of the mess I’ve made in my apartment as I packed up the last four years of my life in the last week. “Do you have bobby pins? We can make it so that sucker doesn’t move.”

  I nod and run to the bathroom, grabbing a few I’d found lying around when I was packing and left there just in case I’d need them. “Here,” I tell her as I rush back to stand in front of her, my cap halfway down my forehead and the top covering my eyes. “Please help me.”

  Mom laughs, taking the bobby pins from my hands. “Girl, what would you do without me?”

  “I can’t imagine a world without you, Mom,” I admit because, damn it, I can’t.

  She and I may fight. Hell, we are too much alike not to have some knock-down-drag-out arguments from time to time. But a world without Max Gallo isn’t a world I ever want to live in.

  Mom pushes my cap back, using her teeth to pry open the metal pins. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. Don’t look so sad,” she tells me as she pushes the first pin into my hair, anchoring my cap.

  “I know,” I tell her, standing completely still so she doesn’t shove one into my skull. “But everything’s changing. I’m getting older, and by default, so are you.”

  “Child, you’re twenty-two, and I’m forty.”

  “Mom.”

  “Fortyish?” She smiles.

  “Close enough,” I say, holding back my lau
ghter.

  “We have many years, and getting older doesn’t have to be scary. Believe it or not, life gets better the older you get.”

  “It does?” I furrow my brows because I can remember some pretty damn great times in high school without a single care or worry in the world.

  “You already found love. Soon, you’ll get married and have kids.”

  “You’re not proving your points,” I say flatly.

  She chuckles, opening another bobby pin with her teeth. “Marriage is the fun part, and kids…”

  “Suck,” I reply, letting my gaze drift to Asher.

  “Stop that,” she tells me, jamming the next bobby pin into my hair a little harder. “I love you and your brother. If I could’ve, I would’ve had way more kids.”

  I gasp. “That would’ve been awful. Really, really awful.”

  “Fuck that,” Asher mumbles, earning him a slap on the back of the head from my father.

  “Language,” Dad warns him.

  “That’s some bullshit,” Asher whispers, and right on cue, another hit, causing his head to pitch forward. “Okay. Okay.” He lifts his hands, backing away far enough so that he’s out of arm’s reach of my dad. “I’ll stop. I’ll stop.”

  “Your daddy and I got started late in life or else we would’ve had a big family. There’s nothing more wonderful than having a baby stare up at you like the sun and moon revolve around you. You’ll know the joy someday.”

  “Not yet,” I tell her, unable to keep the grimace off my face. “I’m in no rush.”

  Ma places the final bobby pin and gives the cap a good yank, but the sucker doesn’t move. “There.” She smiles and moves her hands back to my shoulders. “Don’t rush into anything, baby. Life goes too fast, but…” she says, and with Maxine, there’s always a but. “Don’t wait too long either. Life doesn’t always play by your rules.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” I mutter.

  “Where’s Mammoth?” Dad asks, looking around my apartment like I’m hiding him somewhere.

  “He and his mom are almost here,” I tell him as he pokes his head into my bedroom. “They slept at our place last night and got on the road early.”

  My father blanches, still hating the idea that I’m moving in with Mammoth. He keeps calling it living in sin, which is laughable coming from him. “They should’ve stayed at the hotel like us.”

  “Motel,” my mother corrects him. “There isn’t a decent hotel near here for fifty miles. Why a big college town like this only has sleazy-ass motels is beyond me.”

  “They rent rooms by the hour,” Asher announces, earning curious looks from my parents. “What? It was on the neon sign out front.” He shrugs, collapsing onto the couch, making the old girl creak.

  “No more talking,” my dad tells him, pointing his finger at Asher.

  Asher stretches his long arms across the top of the couch. “No phone. No talking. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Just sit there and look pretty,” I sass.

  He smiles. “I can do that all day long, sis.”

  I roll my eyes this time. “You love yourself, don’t you?”

  He turns his head, kissing one of his biceps. “What’s not to love?”

  I gag. “Do the girls fall for your attitude?”

  He nods, smirking. “The ladies love everything about me.”

  “Oh Lord,” Mom mutters. “If we make it to his eighteenth birthday without becoming grandparents, I’ll claim it as a victory.” She finishes zipping up my gown, making me feel somehow claustrophobic even with the material voluminous enough I could make myself a human hot air balloon. “Between the two of you, I should have a full head of gray hair and tons of wrinkles.”

  “Ma, you have one wrinkle on your face.”

  She looks me dead in the eye, lifting an eyebrow, head tilted. “Black don’t crack, baby. Remember that. Lord knows you two tried to prove that saying wrong but failed.”

  I chuckle, and so does Asher. “You’re ridiculous, Ma,” he tells her, shaking his head. “You know that isn’t true, and I have just as much white in me as black.”

  “You’ll age better than most.” She just levels Asher with her gaze, because he hasn’t stopped laughing, motioning for him to get up. “Come here and show me a wrinkle on my face.”

  “Don’t fall for the trap,” Dad whispers. “If you want to keep breathing, do not move.”

  Mom tilts her head, lips twisted, waiting.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. You haven’t aged a day,” Asher says, his eyes moving from my mom to my dad, who’s giving him a not so subtle thumbs-up.

  “Smart boy,” Dad mutters.

  “Mm-hmm,” Mom grumbles, turning back to face me. “Men are the worst.”

  “They are sometimes,” I tell her, smiling as my brother gives me the middle finger. “But they have good points too.”

  “She’s in love,” Asher says, like somehow this is news.

  “She’s young,” Dad replies to him with a shrug.

  “She may be young, baby, but she found her man. There’s no changing that. You’re just going to have to deal with the simple fact that our baby is about to grow up, get married, and someday, give us a grandchild.”

  Just then, as if Jessica heard the word grandchild and willed herself to my location, she and Mammoth walk through the door of my apartment.

  My eyes widen as I soak him in.

  He’s dressed more like a businessman than a biker. Hair pulled back. Clean and crisp white dress shirt with a few buttons undone at the top. Black slacks, which hug his thighs and crotch in just the right way to drive every grandmother, mother, and college girl crazy with lust.

  Freaking great.

  I’ll be beating them off with a stick after the ceremony when it’s time for pictures. I don’t need a crystal ball to know that’s in our future.

  My mom turns and freezes, no doubt getting herself a giant dose of Mammoth. “Well, Jesus,” she whispers. “The man sure does clean up nice.”

  “We’re here,” Jessica announces, clutching her handbag to her body and dressed in a flowery sundress like always.

  Mammoth is staring at me as I gawk at him. The smile on his face is immediate. “Damn, princess. You look amazing.”

  I pull at the material again, showing him just how big the stupid thing is. “I look ridiculous.”

  He shakes his head, moving toward me with nothing but pure male energy and lust in his gray eyes. “I’m so fucking proud of you,” he says, wrapping his arms around me, hugging me so tight I almost can’t breathe. “My girl has a college degree.”

  “Not yet, sparky,” I whisper, forcing the words out as he pushes all the air from my body. “But soon.”

  “We’re going to have such great-looking grandbabies, aren’t we, Maxine?” Jessica asks my mother, standing next to her and watching us.

  He finally loosens his hold, still smiling and staring at me with so much love, I feel it deep in my soul. “They’ll never give up, will they?”

  “Nope. I don’t think they will.”

  “Your grandma is the worst, though.”

  “Which one?” I laugh. “Because they’re both insane.”

  “Should we?” he asks, looking innocent and serious.

  My eyes widen. “Um. No. Are you kidding me?”

  “Thank God.” He smiles, gripping my sides. “I need some time to enjoy my woman being at my side before I’m willing to share her with a tiny human.”

  “Alone time sounds so perfect. I can’t wait to officially move in to our house instead of just being a weekender.”

  Three months ago, we finally put down roots and purchased our first house together. I’d spent a few nights at the garage, hating every minute of it, and eventually put my foot down, telling him things needed to change before I graduated. We closed on the house and took possession a month later.

  It is absolutely perfect. It is nothing big or fancy, but it has everything we need. Three bedro
oms, two bathrooms, a small living room, a decent kitchen, and a backyard with a pool that will be where I spend most of my time when it isn’t hot enough to boil an egg on the pavement.

  “It’s been lonely there without you,” he says softly.

  I press my hand against his chest, feeling the warmth and hardness of his body. “Well, you’re about to have so much of me, you’re going to get sick real quick.”

  “Impossible,” he murmurs, nuzzling into my neck and pressing his lips to my skin. “I’ll never get enough.”

  “You two going to make that baby in front of us all?” Asher asks, followed by a slap and an ouch.

  “Shut up, child.”

  “I’m just saying, if I were mackin’ on a girl like that in front of you…”

  “You better keep that mack to yourself, young man,” Mom tells him.

  I laugh both from her words and the way Mammoth’s beard tickles the skin near my ear.

  “Let’s go. The ceremony starts in less than two hours, and I want to get a good seat,” Mom tells us, snapping her fingers.

  Mammoth and I stare at each other, passing so many words without saying anything at all.

  Our future is about to start.

  19

  Mammoth

  “Wow,” Tamara says, stepping into the backyard of our house, taking in the decorations. “You did this?”

  I shake my head, motioning toward her cousins. “Gigi, Pike, Lily, and Jett did all this while we were gone.”

  Tamara covers her mouth, tears starting to form in her eyes. “This is so…” Rarely is she ever speechless, but in this moment, she is.

  I slide my arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “They did damn good, didn’t they? The girls picked everything out, and the guys put it all up.”

  Lights and balloons are everywhere, hanging from tree to tree, crisscrossing the entire backyard. There are large round tables with beautiful wooden chairs scattered underneath the lights, enough for the entire family. It almost looks like a small wedding reception instead of a college graduation.