Page 63 of Queen Crow
Aodhan scoffs quietly under his breath but when I turn to look at him, he raises both of his hands with a grin. “I didn’t say a word. As long as Crawford is on the opposite side of the table as Ash then I’m good. I don’t really wanna listen to their bullshit the whole night.”
Ash walks over and Noah hands him a bourbon obediently, looking positively gleeful when Ash thanks him directly.
This might end up a very messy evening.
I stumble into the kitchen to start heating up the dishes right as the doorbell rings and Lips skips off to start letting people in.
Illi walks in with Johnny’s capsule in one hand and the other arm wrapped around Odie, a glare on his face like he’s mad at the entire world for existing and dragging him out of his apartment to be here today.
It melts away when Odie smiles up at him, pressing a kiss to his cheek and then pulling away from him to hug Lips as she approaches them both. I head over to greet them and coo at the sweet little boy who is having a sleep, a little plush wolf toy tucked into his arms that I could die over.
I give Illi a quick squeeze. “I’ve packed up a month’s worth of dinners for you both to take home tonight. I hope you enjoy vegan casseroles.”
Illi scoffs at me, taking a beer from Harley with a nod. “I already know you wouldn’t do that shit to me, Queenie. I get rid of the leaking, bloating, stinking bodies of your enemies too good for you to pull that shit on me.”
He is absolutely correct, and I used the highest quality meats in all of the dishes. I also packed enough lactation cookies to keep that baby in milk for the next twenty years, because I’m sure Illi will end up digging into them as well and I wanted to make sure Odie had enough to keep her going for a few months.
Morrison comes over and snaps, “Thank fuck for that. When are you back on the streets again? It’s been disgusting without you, I’m not gonna lie.”
Lips rolls her eyes at them all, and then the doorbell goes off again and the house becomes a chaotic mess.
I get everyone seated at the dining table, dinner served, and everyone eating happily an hour later. I consider it a huge achievement but when I look around at everyone there laughing and chatting together, there’s a swell of pride in my chest as well as an overwhelming sense of achievement.
We did it.
We made it through all of the trauma and the devastation, the lies and the testing loyalties, the betrayals and the heartaches.
We made it through with each other.
Atticus watches me watching everyone else and his hand slips into mine under the table, sipping at his bourbon and nodding along to something Luca has said to him. I glance down at where Harley is telling Aodhan some ridiculous story about a party they went to in Jersey while they were away, and I grin at them both.
Every part of this night is perfect.
Once dinner has been eaten and dessert has been annihilated thanks to Lips and Noah, the sweet tooth clearly a Graves thing, everyone breaks off to sit around and chat some more, the alcohol flowing and keeping everyone happily social. Lips and I have a cuddle with Johnny on the couch in front of the TV, cooing at his big blue eyes because someday this boy is going to break a lot of hearts.
I cover his eyes when the news comes on, the real reason we’re sitting in here instead of enjoying everyone else’s company by the bar area.
The cross is shown on the TV, heavily pixelated so there’s no telling that it’s Randy Crawford strung up there like that, but the Wolf insignia that’s been carved into his flesh is shown in full HD.
We all know, though, and there’s no better feeling than hearing everything the news anchors have to say about it.
“Gang violence is once again on the rise in Mounts Bay after a short lull following the massacre last summer. We have spoken with Police Chief Drummond but he has stated that the Mounts Bay Police Department has no comment at this early stage of the investigation.”
I glance over to where Lips is holding Johnny, more comfortable now she has some experience with it, and I raise an eyebrow at her. “Well, that certainly is a statement.”
She grins at me. “He’s good at what he does, that’s for sure.”
The sounds of our family are loud around us, but no one is taking any notice of us sitting here quietly together. The margaritas are warming my blood and making me giggly as hell as I finally ask her, “Are you going to tell me what happened on tour yet?”
Lips groans and juggles Johnny in her arms a little, lifting her glass from the coffee table again to knock it back in one go. “I wish what happened on tour could stay there, but there’s the small problem of dealing with the corpse in the freezer on the bus.”
I blink at her.
Then again, just to be sure I’m hearing her correctly. “The corpse. In the freezer. On the bus. The bus in my driveway that I’ve been trying to get Morrison to move for weeks. That bus?”
She pours another drink and finishes that one in a single gulp too. “That’s the one.”
Jesus fucking Christ.