A hand moved around Charlie’s waist, and Sebastian was right behind her. “Are you stealing Francine’s food, Daniel?”
“I offered,” the little lady beamed, spearing a meatball for him, which he happily ate. “Charlie brought too much,” she whispered as if they couldn’t hear.
Charlie smiled down at her mother indulgently, and Sebastian kissed Charlie’s cheek.
The Mavericks did know how to pick their women, even if it had taken Evan a couple of tries. The dark shadows Sebastian had once carried were gone now too. Charlie had banished them forever.
Matt suddenly broke up all the conversations with a clink of a fork against his champagne glass. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an announcement.” Taking Ari’s hand in his, Matt raised it to his lips, kissing the backs of her fingers. Both of them were almost sparkling they were so happy together, like two shining stars.
“I’m beyond pleased to let you all know that Ari has agreed to be my wife.”
A chorus of hurrahs went up. Rosie and Chi hugged each other, then group-hugged Matt and Ari.
“We’re planning the wedding for the summertime because we’d like to have it in the puppet theater at Noah’s favorite petting zoo in San Jose.”
Noah jumped off his seat at the dining room table and threw his arms in the air. “Yay! I love the zoo and the puppet theater. Daddy and Ari take me there all the time. They have talking parrots, and you can pet the animals, and the puppets are funny.” He turned to Jorge, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet. “This is awesome.”
Everyone laughed at his enthusiastic awesome as they surrounded the happy couple with good wishes. It was so like Ari, Daniel thought, to turn her wedding into an event just as much for Noah as for her and Matt. Matt was a lucky guy, no question about it.
“You, young man,” Francine said with a poke at his ribs, “are the holdout. When are you going to find your special sweetheart?”“You’re sitting right here.”
Though she blushed, she poked him again. “Answer the question.”
“I’m not looking right now.” And it was the truth. He enjoyed women, of course, but not all the entanglements that came when they inevitably wanted more than he did.
His parents were the blueprint. Unless he found what they had, he wasn’t interested in anything more than a sexy fling.
“That’s exactly when it happens. When you’re not looking.”
“Maybe,” he said, only to appease her. “But I’ll tell you what I’m really looking for.” He swiped a piece of chicken from one of her skewers. “Some time to get back up to Lake Tahoe to work on my cabin.”
The exterior walls were up, the roof was on, and with a space heater, he could work on the interior until the snow melted and the weather warmed up. He couldn’t wait to have a quiet space. A place where he could go to think. To get away from it all.
He loved his family, but he needed this too. Needed something that was all his own. Away from business meetings, away from women in clinging dresses. Just the sun and the sky and the lake and the mountains.
Francine meant well with all her talk of love. They all did.
But Daniel hadn’t yet found anything that matched his parents’ love for each other.
And he wasn’t sure he ever would.