Page 43 of More, Daddy (Bluebell Bruisers #3)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

West surprised me.

He took me to the farmers market where he introduced me to all of his friends. Of course, I knew most of them already, but I didn’t know them as West’s friends . I knew them as coworkers, or people around Bluebell.

Knowing Dean McAllister now, getting to be his friend because my boyfriend is best friends with him?

So much different than knowing him as Coach McAllister from the sidelines.

The same goes for Riley Rivers Turner. I’ve always loved Riley and looked up to her.

She and I share a silent bond over our dislike for the gorgeous, but secretly evil, Cadence Caine.

And it turns out, the pregnant woman from the market last weekend?

Dolly Gray? She’s married to Hudson, one of West’s friends, too.

Kismet. It all feels like kismet. Like I was meant to grow up here, and he was meant to move here, and just like the palm reader told me six months ago, my life lines lead me to knowing him.

Even just meeting Dolly a week ago and seeing her again now feels like a little wink from the universe. I love it so much.

After the farmers market, a group of us decide to head to Goode’s Diner for a late lunch. West, Dean, Jake and Hudson have been summoned out of Goode’s, onto Main Street, where Sterling, the garbage man, has pulled up in his new pickup.

The four of us stare out the foggy front window of the diner, watching as Sterling points, and the men all bend at the waist in unison, peering at something under the chassis of the truck. Dean nods his head in approval, and Jake and Hudson share an excited look.

“They’ll be looking at that stupid truck for thirty minutes,” Riley says, popping her gum as she flips the laminated menu over.

Dolly puts her hand on Riley’s menu, shoving it down. “That gives us time to fully welcome Briar to the club .”

My brow arches automatically. “Club?”

Riley and Dolly share a look, smirking and giggling, while Clara June turns bright red. Riley grabs Clara June’s hand but looks at me. “She’s still new, too. She hasn’t got past the shyness of being part of a club.”

Clara June shakes her head. “We’re not a club, not really.”

Dolly pops a grape into her mouth. “Well, we meet often, and swap secrets, so… I’m pretty sure that’s a club. ”

Riley volleys her head. “A club has minutes though, right?”

“I think that’s board meetings,” Clara June says.

Dolly gets a pen out of her purse, clicking it open. On the napkin in front of her she writes KMMC Minutes: before looking at her watch. Returning to the napkin she writes 2:37pm Briar’s initiation . She slides the napkin to the center of the table, and we read it.

“There.” She makes a show of dusting her hands together. “We have minutes. We’re an official club.” She squeezes Clara June’s hands. “Don’t worry CJ, we’ll force Briar to tell us her thing, and then you won’t feel so shy about yours.”

“Not that you should anyway,” Riley says, wrapping her straw wrapper around her finger repeatedly. “Everyone has a thing.”

Excitement glitters in my stomach. “What do you mean, a thing?” I think I know, but it feels like a fever dream.

First falling in love with a guy way out of reach and then landing him?

Then finding out his friends are kinky, too?

I’ve always said I love small towns. Without big movie theaters and shopping malls, we get kinky.

I try not to let my eyes widen at the prospect of having friends who also have kinky things .

Dolly smiles, but the waitress approaches, and we’re forced to take a moment to order. It takes a minute, and since the guys are still outside checking out Sterling’s truck—I peer out the window to see five grown men staring at a mud flap—we order for them, too.

After, Dolly smiles. “Okay, so every couple has one kinky freak that turns the other into a kinkster, too.” She dances her eyebrows, and because I purchased a greeting card from her (that she hand painted) featuring a woman catching a man’s spit with her mouth as she sits naked at his feet, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Dolly’s the kinky one.

She presses her hand to her chest, adding, “That’s me, between me and Huddy. ”

Riley crunches a piece of ice from her Diet Coke. “Jake’s a kinkster. Totally.”

I glance out the window and look at Hudson, who has a large bruise on the back of his neck. Dolly seems to notice me looking at him, and leans over, adding, “Human swing trials.”

I nod. “Ah.” My eyes slide to Jake, wearing a long-sleeved flannel, cowboy hat stained with sweat, and worn black cowboy boots.

His jeans look like they’re the first pair he’s ever owned, the place where his wallet is stashed permanently white from strain.

He doesn’t look like he’d be anything other than a kind of boring middle aged farmer type who is also hot.

I am dying to ask what his thing is, but it feels like way too much of an overstep. Riley nudges me, and when I glance at her, she winks. “You’re trying to figure out his thing, aren’t you?”

I laugh. “I really am.”

Riley puts her arms over the table, and one at a time, tugs up her long sleeves, exposing rows of bruises in the shape of… I reach out, and run my fingers over what looks like a new mark on her bicep. “Is that from rope?”

She nods. “It is. Jake’s like a hot cowboy Christian Grey.”

Dolly giggles. “Jake Turner Grey.”

Clara June gives me a small smile. “You don’t have to share anything with us that you don’t want to.”

Dolly smacks Clara June in the arm. “Shut up. She does, too.” Dolly levels her serious and kind of scary blue eyes on me. “You have to tell us, Briar. That’s what the club is for.”

Riley smirks. “Did she tell you what it stands for? KMMC?” She looks at Dolly and Clara June, and the three of them share a laugh that has me giggling in anticipation.

“Kinky Married Moms Club,” Riley says, and my smile slides from my face.

I clear my throat. “West and I aren’t married. And… no baby, not yet.”

The waitress approaches our table with two huge trays full of plates of food. I do not know how waitresses do it, seriously. After unloading each plate and setting it at the correct place at the table (seriously, amazing), Dolly begins cutting her steak, her brows pulled together.

“I’m sure West is gonna lock it down soon, you know, with an engagement.” She takes a bite, moaning around the meat. We glance outside and Riley groans when we discover what the men are now talking about— “I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing about an exhaust pipe,” Riley says.

Dolly talks with her mouth full. “Same.”

Clara June sips her iced tea. “Agreed.”

After another bite of steak, Dolly tips her head to the side, sizing me up a moment as I bite into my club sandwich.

“Propose soon?” I ask, feeling so at home with the group already.

“I don’t think so.” The way they accepted me without question, and accepted me as West’s partner, only solidified to me that West and I are fated to be together.

Everything has worked out as perfectly as possible.

Even my lie has been forgiven. I’m so lucky.

“You are pregnant though, aren’t you?” She uses her fork and knife to cut her steak fries, then takes a bite. Clara June puts her fork down and studies me, then Riley does the same, and suddenly, my skin grows hot and I want the guys to come back inside.

“No,” I breathe, “I’m not.” My hand falls instinctively to my stomach. “I’m on the pill right now. We haven’t really talked about me going off. Not yet.” I smile. “A little too soon for me.”

Truth be told? It’s not too soon. I love West. I want to be a mother, to raise children to grow up in a home with familial love and care, to have a mama that adores them and dotes on them, and cooks them meals and fills their stockings.

I want to be young enough to enjoy sports with them, to get out there and coach their teams, be the classroom mom, host the sleepovers and throw the blowout parties.

I’ll be twenty soon, and being a mom at twenty going on twenty-one, it doesn't scare me.

But coming clean to West about how intensely I pursued him before we even spoke on Veiled has me hesitant to push for more. I don’t want to push for too much too soon. I’m like a sugar loving girl in a candy store just trying to pace myself.

I take another bite of my club sandwich, and after I swallow, I get the courage to ask, “What made you think I was?” I rub my stomach with my hand, finding it flat, still, from many nights of Cup O Noodles for dinner and not much else.

Dolly slaps the bottom of a bottle of A1.

“Wow, Huddy’s lucky,” Riley jokes.

Dolly winks, then returns her gaze to me. “Oh, you just have that four to five week look.”

Clara June, still sipping her tea, nods. “Yeah,” she hums, “you really do.”

I touch my cheek. “Four to five week look?”

Dolly nods, dipping a piece of her steak into the brown sauce on her plate. “Yeah, you know, a touch pale, and sensitive to smell.” She points the loaded tines of her fork at me. “You winced a little when Dolores brought out my steak.”

I did? I try to remember and yeah, maybe I did. “It just smells so strong. ”

“That,” Riley points, rubbing her own pregnant belly, which looks to be about five months along. “Super smell is an early pregnancy symptom. When I was first pregnant, I knew when we pulled up at the farmers market and I could smell Juniper’s Berry Jubilee Jam from the truck.”

My sense of smell is always good.

“You’ve yawned a lot today, too and it’s mid-afternoon,” Dolly adds, but the bell on the door dings, and in walks Hudson, Jake, Dean and West.

Dolly smiles. “Well, at least you know the early symptoms now.”

“You can still be part of the club, even if you’re not married or pregnant yet,” Riley adds, blowing a kiss to Jake over the top of Dolly’s head.