“Well, isn’t this fancy?” Mom said again for the four hundredth time. Honestly, if she said fancy one more time…

“Tablecloths and everything,” Dad noted as I rolled my eyes and asked for deliverance. Why did they have to be so embarrassing? This might be the last time Jack invited us for supper if they kept this up.

“Shh, you guys.” Charlie frowned at them, holding her barely-there baby bump. She looked cute in her new maternity wear. Her clothes still had tons of room to grow, and it kinda freaked me out a bit, thinking how much more her stomach would grow as the baby grew.

My eyes scanned the room for Jack. We had just texted, and I told him we were minutes away, so he had proper warning. But with my parents, the only adequate warning would be flares or a foghorn. Maybe an alert from the emergency broadcast system?

I spotted him and lifted my hand to wave but stopped mid-air. He was speaking with a woman who had what Charlie and I called “The Works”. You know, fake everything—eyebrows, eyelashes, boobs—and I’d venture to guess she’d had other work done as well. Her lips were unnaturally plump, and there wasn’t a wrinkle on her.

Suddenly, Jack laughed, and my stomach wanted to empty at the sight. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, just talking with a customer, but I was the jealous type. She put her hand on his arm, and he delicately, yet politely removed it. I breathed a sigh of relief. However, it still bothered me that it bothered me. You know? I shouldn’t freak out every time my boyfriend spoke to someone.

Just because he kept his ex-wife and child a secret from me for weeks didn’t mean I needed to worry about him. Ahem.

“Oh, there’s Jack, talking to that fancy woman,” my mom said, and I growled at Charlie, making her giggle. She made a funny face that cracked me up, and soon we were an out of control laughing mess in the middle of Jack’s restaurant. This was why I couldn’t take these people anywhere.

“I’m so glad you all could make it,” Jack said as he approached us. I was still giggling, and he gave me the eye. “Come here,” he said to me, and I did as I was told. His arm wrapped around my back, and he leaned down to give me an innocent kiss. “Hi.” He stared at me so deeply my knees wobbled.

“Hi. Are you sure you still want us here?” I questioned sarcastically.

“No, but come in anyway. It’d be a shame to waste all that food,” he whispered into my ear and cracked me up all over again.

“Wow, look how these napkins are folded. So fancy,” Mom said. God help me. I was going to swat her.

“Mom, stop saying everything’s fancy,” I whisper yelled to her as I looked around at the other customers to see if she was annoying the hell out of them as well. It couldn’t just be me.

“Be nice to your mother. It isn’t every day we get to go out somewhere so—”

“Do not say it, or I’ll scream,” I said in warning.

“Fancy,” Dad replied, and the whole table burst into laughter. These people. My head fell forward onto my plate while they continued to laugh around me. Charlie cracked up the hardest, and I was happy to see her rosy cheeks again. She’d suffered with morning sickness for weeks, but I think was over the worst of it now.

Jack sat with us in between times of working and dealing with restaurant stuff. The food was fantastic as usual, and it gave me a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling to be all together again.

What didn’t make me feel nice and warm was when he informed everyone at the table why he bought me a new phone and had to change my number. Weeks ago, when I gave everyone my new number, I didn’t exactly elaborate. Too much shit was flying, and there was no way in hell I wanted to tell my family that Gabe had stalked me. I hadn’t even told them about “the incident” outside the restaurant with Gabe and the gun. But Jack filled them all in—minus the part about me finding out about his ex-wife and child.

There was collective shock, then hoards of name-calling: “That little asshole”, “What a prick”, “I’ll kill that bastard”...and the list went on. I guess it had to be done, but we hadn’t discussed it ahead of time. Needless to say, I was a tad pissed at Jack for taking the initiative. I mean, would it have killed him to wait say, a few more weeks or a year before telling them? Whatever.

He knew I was pissed. A bit later, in one smooth move, he put his arm around the back of my chair and whispered into my ear, “Don’t be upset. I had to tell them. If you were my child, I’d be mad as hell I didn’t know what happened.”

So what if he was right? I was still angry. I glared at him, and he chuckled. The big, fat jerk thought this was funny. “Is something funny? Because you can’t have found this funny.” What else was maddening as hell was that he smelled so damn good, and he looked so damn good, I still wanted to jump him even though I was pissed. And when he put his red-hot hand on my thigh and squeezed, I nearly self-combusted.

“I find you funny, Harper. But this whole situation is anything but funny.” He grabbed my chin between his thumb and index finger and pulled it toward him. “You are cute as hell, though,” he said as he moved in to kiss me. In front of my parents. At the table. Where my parents were sitting three feet away. Oh my God!

For some reason, I kissed him back because, how many times was I going to make out with my boyfriend in his restaurant in front of a bunch of people? A few times, apparently. I got into it, too, wrapping my hand around the back of his neck and playing with his hair. When we finally came up for air and looked around, everyone was staring at us, jaws wide open, forks suspended in the air. Nice.

Shortly afterward, dessert was served. There was more ooohhing and ahhhhing while everyone dug into their cakes, pies, and sorbets—all made in-house. Charlie informed us of her last doctor’s visit, which may have been a tad on the TMI chart, when we were interrupted by a, “Daddy!”

Can you say déjà vu?

Holy crap. Ava ran right toward Jack, and Brooke clicked over as bitchily as humanly possible. “She wants that other white bunny. It wasn’t packed in her bag when you dropped her off.”

“And you decided the best thing to do would be to come down here? You couldn’t have called?” Jack asked, rocking Ava back and forth while she wrapped her arms as tight as she could around his neck.

“I called both of you, but there was no answer. We went to Harper’s apartment and your place. If you don’t want to see your daughter, just say so,” she said, hand on her hip, chip on her shoulder.

“That’s not what I said. Look, we’re having a nice evening out. Can we discuss this later?” he pleaded.

“Fine,” she barked at Jack, then turned to Ava. “Come with Mommy. Daddy is too busy for you,” she said, and I nearly rolled my eyes. Nearly. It was a close one, I had to admit.

“Nooooooo, I want Daddy,” Ava screamed, and the entire restaurant went quiet.

“What do you want, Brooke? Do you want to take her or leave her here with me?” Jack gritted out between closed teeth.

“She wants to stay with you, but if you don’t want her,” the wicked witch spat out.

“Of course, I want her,” he said, placing Ava on his lap.

“Fine. Here’s her bag. Say bye to Mommy,” Brooke said in the fakest sugary tone I’d ever heard. Blah. My teeth hurt from it.

She clomped away, swinging her ass and her control around wherever she damn well pleased.

All eyes were glued to Ava. “Sweetie, this is my family,” I said and introduced everyone by name.

“Harper, you never told us Jack has a kid.” Dad cleared his throat and loosened his tie.

“Well, he does, and here she is,” I said, more than a little uncomfortable. Charlie’s all-day sickness had been a great excuse not to get together with everyone. I’d meant to mention it during our phone calls, but if there was one thing I was good at, it was avoidance.

“What do you like to do, Miss Ava?” My mom started chatting her up. She loved kids and could talk to them for hours about nothing at all. Ava cuddled in closer to her dad.

“Ava likes ponies and bunnies, right?” I helped the conversation along. Ava nodded.

“Ah, I see. Do you like stickers? The lady at the grocery store always hands these to me, but I have nobody to give them to,” Mom said, digging through her purse. I wasn’t surprised—she had everything except the kitchen sink in there. Ava’s curiosity got the better of her, and she slid off Jack’s lap and walked over to my mom.

Thus began a beautiful friendship.

Because there hadn’t been quite enough drama this evening, I gazed over and spotted Elaine staring at us from the front doors. Oh boy. Her eyes practically burned a hole right through her son.

She sauntered over and said, “I see my invitation must’ve gotten lost in the mail.”

Jack put his arm around her and made the proper introductions.

The two mothers somehow ended up sitting beside each other, gossiping to beat the band. Elaine told everyone that she and John were separated, which garnered even more sympathy from my mom. After ten minutes, I pronounced them BFFs and looked at Jack.

“Anyone else going to pop out of the woodwork?” He smiled and leaned over and kissed me. Although I knew I was going to catch shit from my family for not being completely upfront with them, I also knew everything was going to be just fine.