He kissed me.
People around us started whooping and cheering again.
And for the first time in my life, with not one thing dragging on it, weighing it heavy, I was happy.
Oh, I’d won.
Yeah, I’d won.
Spectacularly.
Mrs. Swanson was in my chair and I was sectioning a piece of her hair to put a roller in, doing this wearing a She Told Me So T-shirt with an arrow pointed in a way that, where I usually stood by my chair, always pointed to Lou.
Lou had given it to me in the back room the day before.
I’d laughed my butt off.
This being after we’d hugged for a long time because my bestest bud had given it to me and then promptly burst out crying.
Needless to say, Lou was happy that Hix asked me to marry him.
Lou had told me the shirt was a joke. I didn’t have to wear it.
I totally wore it.
I looked up from Mrs. Swanson’s hair to see Joyce standing close to me.
“Told you,” she said softly, “that man never struck me as stupid. He knew, the good that dropped in his lap, he’d be fool to let it go. He knew, Greta.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, staring in her eyes.
“I cannot say how happy I am,” she shared with me, still talking quietly. “Don’t know if I’m happier for Hixon, he got a good girl like you, or you, that you got what you deserved. But I’m happy. Whole town’s happy, darlin’. Watchin’ you two find each other through all that garbage was like watchin’ a dream come true.”
“You’re gonna make me cry, Joyce,” I warned.
“None a’ that,” she dismissed, stared at me some more then nodded her head sharply. “Right,” she stated briskly. “I’m off. Six weeks, Lou?”
Lou had to clear her throat before she replied, “You’re in my schedule, Joyce.”
Joyce said nothing.
She just took off.
I looked to Lou.
She grinned at me.
Mrs. Swanson sniffled before she asked, “Greta, sweetie, I forgot my hankie. You got a tissue?”
I looked at her in the mirror to see she had tears brimming in her eyes.
I gave her a gentle smile and went for the tissue box. “Right here, Mrs. Swanson.”
“You’re a dear,” she murmured, taking the tissue I offered.
I sectioned more hair thinking how odd it was, a girl who didn’t dream, living a dream come true.
Then I rolled Mrs. Swanson’s hair and tried to do it well, even if my engagement ring kept taking my attention.
“I cannot be-freakin’-believe this day,” Hix groused as we walked into the mudroom from the garage.
I tried not to burst out laughing.
Instead, I murmured, “Hey, boy. How’s your day been, boy?” to Rocky, Andy and the girls’ dog that we rescued from the shelter, a mature pup, eight years old when we got him last summer, part lab, part they didn’t know what. A dog we said was Andy and the girls’ but he was Hix and mine and not only because we were the ones around the most to take care of him.
“And I cannot freakin’ tell you how much I need a bourbon,” he went on.
I could imagine.
I still found it funny.
I let Hix help me off with my coat. He took it and hooked it on the hooks by the door before he shrugged off his own.
I wandered into the kitchen to get him his bourbon with Rocky doing what Rocky did whenever Hix and I separated.
He stood there uncertain whether to hang with one or follow the other.
I’d thrown my beaded clutch on the island and was in the process of walking to the cupboard where we kept the liquor when Hix and Rocky joined me.
“Porch?” I asked, raising a brow at him.
“Gin?” he asked back, glaring at me.
I kept trying not to laugh. “For me, it’s not a gin night, darlin’. I didn’t deliver a baby on a dance floor. It’s a wine night though.”
He went to the wine rack in the pantry and decreed, “Donna’s fired on Monday.”
I barely suppressed my giggle.
“Greta, this shit isn’t funny.”
I pulled down his bottle of bourbon and looked to him.
“Ashlee gave birth on the dance floor during the reception at Bets’s wedding,” he told me something I knew.
My body jolted as I chased the laughter back into it, which wanted so desperately to bust out of it.
He recounted the whole thing. “Hal lost his mind. Donna couldn’t stop laughing long enough to help. And I think Larry went somewhere and puked.”
I couldn’t help it, I started sniggering.
“I’ve never seen a baby come that fast,” he declared.
“She’d told me earlier she was feeling strange. I think she was in labor,” I shared.
“That’s insane.”
I shrugged, smiling hugely at him.
“What woman dances while she’s in labor?” he asked me irritably.
“Well, obviously, Ashlee,” I answered.
His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t help either.”
“I was busy holding her hand,” I pointed out.
“Thank God for Andy or I think Hal would have passed out,” he muttered, turning back to the pantry.
I smiled, turning back to his bourbon, and I finished with it thinking he was right. Hal had descended into panic and Andy had jumped right in and calmed him right down.
I waited until he opened a bottle and poured my wine.
He handed it to me, murmuring, “Go on out. I’ll get your sweater and be out in a minute.”
I nodded. “Thanks, baby.”
Rocky and I went out with my wine and Hix’s bourbon (Rocky was never uncertain about porch time, he always came right out with me). I settled myself in an Adirondack chair and Rocky explored the front yard long enough to do his business before he came back and laid down on my high-heeled feet.
Hix joined me carrying my sweater, but he’d changed into jeans and a thermal, which I thought was a good call, considering his trousers, shirt and tie had newborn baby all over them.
I pulled on the cardigan as Hix sat down beside me, tipping up his chin toward the street at the same time Rocky’s head came up and also turned toward the street.
I shifted my attention that way and called, “Hey, Nicki.”
“Hey there, Greta. Hix.”
Rocky woofed softly.
Nicki’s dog strained at the leash to get to Rocky.
Hix said nothing but he adjusted his scowl long enough for Nicki to pass with her dog.
“Uh, you know, since you’re in a bad mood . . .” I began.
Hix’s scowl returned full force as he turned his eyes to me.
I beat back my smile. “Corinne and I chatted at the wedding. She’s broken up with Jake.”
Hix looked back at the street. “Good. That kid’s a tool. Never liked him.”
Since the boyfriend she got her sophomore year, and with Corinne now into her senior one, she’d been through three, Jake being four.
Hix never liked any of them.
“Okay, well, that wasn’t bad, as such, but . . . uh, Donna shared a little bit about Becker talking to the Feds about a deal.”
He threw back some bourbon then declared to the street. “Woman’s totally fired on Monday.”
“Hix—”
He looked to me. “She shouldn’t be talking to you about that stuff, Greta.”
“She didn’t say much. But she’s worried because you’ve been moody.”