"I'm not marrying Diesel!" I told Annie.

"Hey" Diesel said, "a lot of women would give anything to snag me."

"I'm not a lot of women."

"No shit," Diesel said. He shifted Albert from one hand to the other. "Can we get on with it? This guys getting heavy."

"Would you really marry me?" I asked Diesel.

"Not forever, but a night might be fun."

Good grief.

"I'm confused," my father said. "Who's getting married?"

"Albert and Valerie are getting married," I said. I turned to Albert. "Here's the choice. You can go through this with your eyes open, or I can go get my stun gun, and you can get married with your eyes closed and your body twitching on the floor. My sister is pregnant again, and I'm going to make sure she's married."

Albert's mouth was open and his eyes were glazed.

"I'm going to take this as a choice to keep eyes open," I said to the justice of the peace. "Start reading. And hurry up."

"Do you—" the justice said to Albert.

"He does," we all said in unison.

"Me, too," Valerie said.

And Valerie and Albert were married.

"Let's cut the cake," Lula said.

My grandmother trotted in with a cake knife, and we clustered around the cake. It was a great cake, except Bob had eaten all the icing off one side.

"It's better this way," Grandma said. "You got a choice like white meat or dark meat, only this time it's icing or no icing."

I ran upstairs to the bathroom to look for more salve.

Diesel came up a minute later with a piece of cake for me. "That was a nice thing you did for your sister," Diesel said.

"How's Albert?"

"Deliriously happy."

"I think they've found true love."

Diesel nodded and fed me a piece of cake. "I have to go. I'm being reassigned."

"So soon?"

"Yeah, but I'll be back. You owe me a night."

"I do not owe you a night."

"I was willing to go the distance," Diesel said. "That has to be worth something."

"How about beer and pizza?"

"It's a start," Diesel said. "And don't worry about Delvina. I changed him into a toad."

The doorbell rang, and I heard Grandma hustle to get the door.

"Stephanie," she yelled up the stairs. "There's a flower delivery guy here, and he's got a bunch of flowers for you. The flower guy said two of these were supposed to go to your apartment, but I said you'd take them all here."

I went downstairs with Diesel following, and I took three boxes from Grandma.

The first box held a single perfect long-stemmed red rose. No card.

The second box held a dozen yellow roses. The message on the card was… LOVE, JOE.

The third box held a bouquet of daisies. The hand-scrawled note said… VALENTINE'S DAY SUCKS, USUALLY.

Valentine's Day didn't suck this year, I thought.

I felt someone brush a kiss across the nape of my neck, and I turned to Diesel, but the only thing behind me was the cake plate sitting on the bottom step.