“Seriously. He keeps looking over here,” she says, poking me in the ribs not so subtly.

“Dude,” I say, to get her to stop. “Maybe he’s checking you out.”

I look over to see the kids playing together in the grass and lie back on the blanket to soak in the sun.

“Don’t even play like that. Ivan is more than ten feet from me. If he hears you, he’ll come over here and murder everyone,” she says, looking around for him like she’s excited by the possibility. “Besides, I’m, like, eleven months pregnant with my fifth kid. I think Ivan might be the only man alive who finds me sexy.”

“Let’s hope so. If he found out someone else did, we’d all be in trouble.”

“I do love how possessive he can be.” She sighs dreamily, and I roll my eyes.

I can’t hate it, though. Possessive is one of my favorite features on my man. I lower my glasses and see Royce with our two little girls getting snow cones. His ass is looking way too good in those jeans today. Ivan is beside him, and he waves to Penelope, who blows him a kiss. God, I love her and how ridiculous she is sometimes.

“Oh shit. He’s coming over here. What do we do? Should we throw something at him?” Penelope is freaking out, and I want to laugh and cover her mouth at the same time.

“Excuse me, but do I know you?” the tall, thin guy asks, looking down at me.

“No,” I say, looking back to where Royce and Ivan are standing, but their backs are turned to us.

“They are not going to like this,” Penelope mumbles in a singsong voice.

“Are you sure, you look very familiar. Have you been to the art gallery on 7th?”

“Nope,” I say, sitting up now so the guy isn’t looming over me so much.

“It’s strange, because I own it, and I swear I’ve seen you at one of our exhibits.”

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else. My hus—”

“My name is Drake,” he says, interrupting me and kneeling down, holding out his hand.

Penelope leans past me and whispers to the stranger. “Look, Drake, you seem like a nice enough guy, so I’m going to save your life.” She looks to our guys and then back to him. “Those men are straight killers. You need to walk away slowly and never look back.”

He smiles like Penelope is being funny, but she pulls back and shakes her head. “Oh shit. Here we go.”

I turn to see Royce stomping over to us, the snow cones gripped in his hands so tight all of the ice is falling off them as he gets closer. He’s trying to hang on to them as the girls are hot on his heels reaching for them, and it’s a pretty funny sight.

“Are you talking to my wife?” He says the last word like I belong to him and it should be obvious to the world.