Page 22 of Need (Men of Inked Sinners #3)

OLIVER

“When do I get to meet her?” Mom asks as she pours herself a fresh cup of coffee in the middle of the afternoon.

“Whenever you want, Mom.”

“Randall said she’s lovely.”

“Were those his words?” I raise an eyebrow.

In my entire life, I’ve never heard Randall call anyone lovely. He isn’t a mean guy, but his vernacular isn’t that proper.

“He said she was pretty and kind. He said he liked her for you.”

“That’s different from lovely, but all of it is true. Although, I think she’s too good for me.”

Mom waves me off. “No one is too good for my boy,” she says, reaching across the table to pinch my cheeks like she’s done since I was a little boy .

“Ma,” I say, rubbing the skin she just assaulted as soon as she lets go. “Stop that shit.”

She laughs as her hands move to her coffee mug, which is far safer for my face. “Is she the one, baby?”

I stare at my mother, turning over how I want to answer the question.

The simple answer is yes. In a short amount of time, Lulu Gallo has stolen my heart.

It’s never happened for me before. Not like this.

Not this fast. Everything with her has come easy, including the feelings.

But I know my mom. If I answer yes, she’ll start planning the wedding before I even have a chance to ask Lulu the big question.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says before I mutter a reply. “I need to meet her as soon as possible if she’s going to be my daughter-in-law.”

“No.”

“No?” Ma’s eyebrows rise. “Why?”

“Because Lulu doesn’t know she’s going to be your daughter-in-law yet, and I don’t want you to scare her off.”

“Baby,” she says with a sweet smile, “would I do that?”

“Yes.”

“I can keep my lips closed.”

I stare at her because we both know that’s a lie.

“I can do it if it’s necessary. I don’t like to do it, but I can, Oli.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Mom rolls her eyes as she lifts the coffee to her lips and blows across the top. “Invite her over for dinner this weekend. For me. Please,” she begs, knowing I find it hard to say no to her anytime, let alone when she gives me those puppy-dog eyes.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll ask her if she’s free.”

“She can pick the night.”

Damn. She’s trying everything in her arsenal to make sure she meets Lulu sooner rather than later. “I will.”

“Hey. Hey. I’m here,” Liam announces as he walks through the front door. I groan as he kicks off his shoes. “Sharla wasn’t feeling well, so I came alone.”

“Good,” Ma says, “Not about Sharla, but that you’re here. There’s something I want to talk to both of you about.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, ignoring my brother as he stalks into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee too.

“We’ll wait for your brother.”

I point at him.

“Fine,” she says with a sigh. “Randall and I are working on our wills.”

My stomach turns. I hate talking about death. It’s like I’m mentally allergic to the topic and have been since I was a little kid.

“You’re too young for that shit,” Liam says to her as he sets down his black coffee on the table and takes a seat .

“Baby,” she turns toward him and smiles, “I’m not young. I don’t know how many years I have left on this planet?—”

“No one does,” I tell her. “But why now?”

“I had a little health scare,” she says, like she’s talking about the weather and not something more serious. “But everything’s fine.”

“What the hell, Ma?” Liam says with wide eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want you two to worry.”

She’s been that way her entire life. The only things she’s good at keeping secrets about are herself and her health. The woman is a nosy open book otherwise, but as soon as it involves her well-being, she’s tight-lipped.

“I'd rather know than be blindsided,” I tell her.

“If the tests would’ve come back with something bad, I would’ve told you then, but there was no need for all of us to worry until I knew for sure.”

“So, you worried alone?” I ask.

“No. I had Randall.”

Liam grunts. “He’s about as sincere as an alley cat, Ma.”

“Oh, stop.” She swats Liam’s arm. “You know Randall loves me and worships the ground I walk on. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from him while we waited for the tests to come back.”

Randall isn’t a bad dude. He’s obsessed with money, but so many people are these days.

He’s everything you’d think of when picturing a car salesman.

Everything is about the deal unless it has to do with my mother.

He’s always been sweet to her, something our biological father didn’t seem capable of doing.

“Anyway,” she says, reaching over to the counter and grabbing a stack of papers, “we’re finalizing our wills—I mean trusts. I keep getting that wrong. Trusts are for fancy people, and Randall says we need them.”

“Don’t know the difference. Don’t care either,” Liam says before he takes a sip of the awful coffee. My mother likes her coffee strong and bitter and has since I was a little kid.

“It means when we die, you won’t have to go to court to inherit everything. And if either of us becomes seriously ill, you won’t lose everything we spent a lifetime building to a care facility.”

The very thought of my mother getting older and being put in a place like that makes my blood boil. “I’ll take care of you if you get too sick,” I tell her, knowing I’ll do anything for the woman who gave me life.

“You’re sweet, baby,” she says.

“You’re always nicer to him,” Liam complains with a sour look.

“He’s always nicer to me,” she replies.

Liam shakes his head and glares at me. “Suck-up. ”

I give him the middle finger.

“It’s like sitting here when you two were teenagers,” she says.

My phone vibrates, and I glance down, seeing a message from Lulu.

Lulu: Headed out to an appointment. I’ll text you when I’m on my way back to the city.

Me: Send me your location.

Lulu: Why?

Me: Safety, babe.

I swear I can hear Lulu groan from here. But there’s something about her job that has me on edge. It would be different if she had an assistant with her, but going alone to stranger’s houses isn’t something I’m comfortable with. She knows how I feel, but she’s not having it.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asks.

I glance up and meet my mother’s eyes. “Lulu’s going to work.”

“Okay, but what’s with the face? You look worried.”

I scrub a hand across my beard and exhale, trying to work out the tension that’s now perpetually in my shoulders. “I hate her job.”

“What’s she do?”

“She’s an organizer. ”

Mom tilts her head like she didn’t hear a word I said. “A what?”

“She’s a home organizer. She goes to clients’ homes and organizes all their shit.”

“Does she know these people?” Mom asks.

“Nope.”

Liam sucks in a breath between his teeth. “I’d never let Sharla do that shit.”

I don’t want to argue with him over Sharla. He’s perfectly fine with her taking off her clothes for a bunch of sex-depraved men every night, which is ridiculous, but then again, he’s one of those guys watching her.

“That’s dangerous,” Mom replies.

“Exactly,” I tell her.

“Are they vetted in any way?”

I shake my head.

Mom’s lips twist. “How does she find new customers?”

“Mainly social media.”

Mom sits back and shakes her head. “That girl has a death wish, baby. You better set her ass straight.”

“I just told her to share her location with me so I at least know where she is if something ever goes wrong.”

“If you’re going to marry this girl, you’re going to need to lay down the law.”

Liam’s eyes snap to me. “Marriage? ”

“Mom.”

“Sorry,” she says with a grimace.

“You’re going to marry her?”

“Someday,” I tell him.

“Good.”

“Good?” I ask my brother, wondering when this nicer side of him happened.

“She’s good for you. I like her.”

“You like her?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

He nods. “You’re less grumpy with her around.”

“Whatever,” I mumble.

“Well, at least most of the time,” he adds and laughs.

“I have a bad feeling I can’t quite shake,” I tell my mother.

“About Lulu?” she asks.

“About her work. Every day, I wake up with a pit in my stomach when I know she’s going to meet a new client.”

“Maybe you need to become her assistant,” Liam tells me. “I can handle the garage.”

“That’ll go over like a ton of bricks, and I know nothing about organizing. I don’t think she’d go for it or believe my intentions were more for the business than her protection. And then there’s the fact that I’d rather stick a hot poker in my eye than organize someone else’s mess.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Liam says with a tip of his head .

It’s the only way we’re able to work together without being at each other’s throats all the time.

If one of us were organized and the other weren’t, we’d be in constant battle with as much shit as we have at the garage.

My mother had her hands full trying to get us to clean our rooms when we were young.

In the end, we usually jammed all the shit into our closets and closed the door, pretending that we’d done something productive.

“Well, I hope for her sake, our worry is for nothing,” Mom says as she places her hand over mine. “But maybe have the conversation with her.”

“I have.”

“Do it again. Sometimes it takes a few times for the words to actually stick.”

“I’ll try.”

“Okay. Now, back to the trust.”

I grumble under my breath, hating everything about the conversation today. No one’s ready to talk about their parents’ mortality, even though we’re all going to face it someday.

“Oliver, you’re going to be executor.”

“What the hell?” Liam asks, lifting his arms wide. “Why not me?”

“Baby, you’re still going to get half of everything, but Oliver will have to do all the paperwork. Would you rather have to do the paperwork?”

My brother drops his arms back down. “No. ”

Mom’s smooth. She knew exactly what to say to calm my brother down. “I didn’t think so,” she says.

“Randall and I are leaving everything to you two, and there’s a lot. Between the house, the cars, the accounts, it’s well over a couple million dollars in assets.”