My eyes flicked from my daughter to Aella to my mother to Silver and back.
“We want to go on a girls’ weekend,” she said. “Just the four of us and whoever else wants to go.”
“Where?” I asked at the same time Chevy popped the top off a beer bottle. The soft whisper hiss of it momentarily distracted me enough to say, “You have any more of those?”
He popped the top on a second beer, though this one a can, and handed it to me.
I took a healthy sip before looking back at to Eedie.
“Um, Mexico?”
Chevy snorted. “You don’t even have a passport, Aella.”
“That’s true for all of us, but Silver said Apollo could expedite it all. He could get us a passport lickety split,” Eedie rushed out.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “What, exactly, are y’all going to do? Where are you going? Is the hotel you’re staying at safe? I want to know all of that.”
So that was how we spent the next hour.
We discussed an impromptu trip to Mexico.
We discussed where they were going, why they wanted to go, and who all would be going.
And, apparently, it was all of the old ladies, sans kids.
Well, sans every kid except Eedie.
Searcy, Aella, Baker, Silver, Brittnie, and Eedie.
Oh, and Jasper.
“Why Jasper?” I questioned.
“Because he’s in need of some serious rest and relaxation,” Eedie said. “And he was there when we planned this impromptu trip.”
I looked at Silver because she hadn’t said much through all of this.
“What are your thoughts on all of this?” I asked.
Silver swiped some of the stray hairs that’d escaped from her ponytail from her face before saying, “I think it’d be a good bonding trip.”
She flicked her glance at Eedie, and then back to me, and I understood.
Silver didn’t necessarily want to go, but Eedie was so excited about the prospect of spending time with Silver, the woman that I’d fallen in love with, that she was willing to quit her job to do it.
“I don’t think you should quit your job, though,” I pointed out. “Ask them if they’re willing to accommodate you and then go from there.”
“We can go?” Eedie squeaked, clapping her hands excitedly in front of her.
“As long as Apollo can get you into a hotel we all approve of, and you don’t leave the resort,” I countered.
“Done!”
Aella moved to Chevy, who was a lot more easygoing about them springing an impromptu trip to Mexico on us the moment we walked through the door of his place.
“You okay with this?” I asked when Silver walked toward me.
The moment she was close enough, I pulled her into my arms, my eyes once again studying the faint bruising around her eyes.
