Naomi: There will be no fit throwing of any kind. Only bridal perfection!
45
Snippity-Doo-Dah
Lucian
Nash: Good luck today. Make sure you can still walk down the aisle next week.
Knox: Oh fuck. Today’s the day our boy becomes a man?
Me: Fuck you both very much.
Nash: I’m feeling unloved and used.
Knox: Yeah. Maybe we shouldn’t hold up our end of the deal until Lucy learns to play nice.
Me: I hate you both and plan to kick your asses at my earliest convenience.
Itook a deep breath and straightened my tie in the mirror. On the outside, I looked cool, calm, perhaps a touch pissed off. On the inside, I was a roiling mess of…something. I narrowed my eyes at my reflection.
I was Lucian Fucking Rollins. I didn’t get anxious about shit. I made shit anxious about me.
I adjusted my cuffs one final time, nodded to the mirror, and headed out of the room to kick-start my future.
My future was sitting at the breakfast bar, polishing off an omelet, looking both adorable and sexy in tight jeans and a red sweater with strawberry elbow patches.
“Let’s go,” I said, spinning the keys for the Jag on my index finger.
Sloane looked up, and I caught her quick grin. For years, her first reaction on seeing me was a scowl. I wasn’t about to take that smile for granted.
“You didn’t have breakfast,” she pointed out, glancing at her watch. “And it’s not even 7:30 yet.”
I pressed a kiss to her wrinkled brow. “We’re not going to the office this morning.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, looping her arms around my neck.
“It’s a surprise.”
She frowned. “You didn’t buy a castle, did you?”
“A castle?” I asked, ushering her toward the door. “No. Do you want one?”
“I’m not sure.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sloane looked even more concerned.
“The urologist? Listen, big guy, I’m great at peeing after sex. I swear I don’t have a UTI,” she said, eyeing the building in front of us as I locked the car.
“We’re here for me, not you,” I said dryly.
“Oh God. Did I break your penis with that spinning maneuver?”
“Not yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time,” I said, handing her the keys.
“Are you sick? Is something wrong?” Her eyes were wide and worried behind her glasses.
“I’m fine,” I assured her as I held the glass door open for her. The waiting room was all marble and leather and chrome. There were half a dozen men my age, most looking nervously toward the exit, with unread magazines in their laps.
Sloane trailed me to the check-in desk where I gave the nurse my name and accepted the clipboard she handed over.
“Lucian, what the hell are we doing here?” Sloane hissed.
I turned to face her. “I’m getting my vasectomy reversed.”
What came out of her mouth wasn’t a sentence. It wasn’t even words. It was the garbled tongue of an ancient civilization.
“That was not the reaction I was expecting. That wasn’t even English.”
“Oh my God. You’re willing to have penis surgery just to make babies with me?” Sloane announced to the entire waiting room. She looked like she was about to faint.
I reached for her arm, determined to keep her upright.
“It’s more in the testicles,” a stranger in a golf shirt said, pointing to a helpful 3D model of a ball sack.
I waved a hand in front of Sloane’s face. “Pix? You in there?”
“I think she’s in shock,” the guy’s wife observed as she got out of her chair. “Come here, sweetheart. Let’s get you a drink of water.”
“Vasectomy. Babies,” Sloane murmured. “He’s going to unsnip whatever they snipped just because I want to have a family.”
The woman led her to the beverage center and pressed a paper cup of water into Sloane’s shaking hands. “Well, honey, some men surprise their wives with jewelry. Other men surprise them with surgery on their genitals.”
“Don’t be scared, buddy,” the husband said to me. “It’s in and out, bingo bango. You get to sit on the couch for the rest of the day icing the boys. Nothing to it.”
“Take it from him. This is his second vasectomy. Snippity-doo-dah,” his wife said, returning Sloane to me. “He’s a pro.”
“Say something, Sloane,” I ordered.
She was staring at me with glassy eyes and a dazed expression. I had never in my life seen her make that face before.