“She does, but—”

“She’s beautiful. Stylish. She has her own money.”

“This is true, but—”

“She thinks you’re handsome. She loves spending time with you. You make her laugh.”

“That means a lot, MeeMee, however—”

“However nothing,” I snapped. “We girls, we need it. We need the grand statement. We need to know that nothing else matters, nothing, not one thing but the shot you’re willing to take at you making us yours. You’d risk anything. You’d do anything. Logic and manners and her living right across the street and sisters as best friends don’t factor. Nothing does. Caution is thrown to the wind and you’d go against everything you believe in just for that one chance. That one chance to start building something. So if you do that in the beginning, when life happens, we know you’d do whatever you gotta do to keep us happy.” I paused before I finished, “This, of course, does not include if all this happens while you’re married. But that’s the only exception.”

Lawrie was silent.

“Lawrie,” I hissed. “Did you hear me?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“You are not,” I bit out.

“If I don’t, how can I call Robin?”

I rocked to solid then tore my phone from my ear and hung up on him.

“You need the grand statement?”

My eyes cut to Mickey who was standing on his side of my bed in his pajama bottoms, looking at me.

“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to, Mickey Donovan. You’re the king of the grand statement.”

His face got soft right before he stated, “Buckle up, baby.”

“I know,” I agreed. “Robin is a whackjob, just the good kind, but this isn’t going to go easy because Lawrie has his own baggage too.”

“Not what I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

He moved from his place by the bed across the room, past me, to his jacket he’d thrown over the arm of the daybed. He shifted it, dug into it, pulled out some tri-folded papers and walked to me.

He then held them out to me.

I took them but didn’t look at them.

“Itinerary,” he declared. “Shit’s sorted. Even called Conrad. He’s takin’ the kids and in two days, we’re goin’ to the Keys.”

I blinked.

“How big a rock he buy you?” he asked.

“Three and a half carats,” I answered automatically.

“Then prepare to drag your hand around, darlin’, ’cause you know I’ll have to best that shit and do it soundly.”

At that, I dropped the paper, threw myself in his arms, pushing back until we hit bed and went down on it, me bouncing on Mickey.

Then I was all over him.

“Babe, don’t know if the kids are asleep,” he told me (my kids, his were at Rhiannon’s).

“They won’t hear.”

“What if they—?”