Peering down at me, Logan says, “You look like you’ve just had an inappropriate thought.”

I laugh out loud. “I did,” I confess, and then answering his question, I say, “I’ve had the most distracted day of my life so far.”

“Me too,” he chuckles, leaning in to kiss me quickly. “So much so that I accidentally told someone else our news,” he confesses.

“Who?”

“Mercy,” he says. “I called to tell her that we’d love to give the puppy a home, and at the same time I was looking over my itinerary for Monday — my family and I are flying to Marseille in the morning, by the way, back on Monday night,” he interjects, reminding me of the business trip that he has to go on, “I was distracted and it just sort of slipped out.”

I grin at him, letting him know that it’s perfectly OK. Everyone will know soon enough, I think. “How happy was she?” I ask eagerly.

“Very, I think she cried more than you and I combined,” he laughs. “How did Amber respond?”

“Tears, screams, everything I expected from her and more,” I tell him happily. “Seamus noted the speed, but he’s thrilled for us too.”

“Will they be there tomorrow night?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“What’s tomorrow night?” my mother asks us loudly, she and Mary-Gene now watching us approach them.

“Uh, nothing,” I say hastily. “Mom, this is Logan. Logan, this is mom,” I introduce them and hold my breath. Be nice, I plead with my mother in my mind.

“Barbara-Anne,” my mother corrects me, holding out her hand to my secret-fiancé.

“It’s so good to meet you,” Logan smiles at her. I can tell that he’s totally thrilled to be here.

My mother on the other hand, doesn’t exudes the same amount of eagerness, though mercifully she’s already being more polite to him than she is to most other men. “Likewise,” she nods. I see her eyes roving his face, taking in all of his gorgeous features. “You’re just as pretty as Gem said you were.”

I roll my eyes. “I didn’t say pretty,” I’m quick to amend as Logan chuckles beside me, his hand giving mine a squeeze.

“Remind me, what was it you said to me over the weekend?” she says, winding me up. I narrow my eyes at her and she grins cheekily. Then, completely ignoring my threatening gaze, she blurts out, “What’s this I hear about you two having a sex-a-thon?” She looks from Logan to me and back again.

I stare at her in disbelief. No, just no!

“What’s a sex-a-thon?” Mary-Gene enquires, and I feel like I might burst into flames on the spot.

“Doesn’t matter, mom,” Logan says quickly.

But my mom steps in and informs her, “I believe it’s some sort of sexual marathon.”

Oh, fuck! I’m reminded of two nights ago when Mary-Gene commented on Logan’s father’s stamina, and I cross my fingers that she doesn’t add fuel to the fire by mentioning it again right now.

“Where did you hear that?” I ask my mom, trying my best to sound as if it’s the most preposterous thing that I’ve ever heard.

“I had a phone call from Seamus and—”

Immediately I blow my cover by saying, “I’m going to kill Amber!”

“We should really get new friends,” Logan jokes quietly, and when I look at him he stares back at me in a way that tells me that he finds this moment really rather funny. The humour in his eyes distracts me entirely. He is so, so good looking.

“Are you pregnant as well as Amber?” my mom then asks me out of the blue, evidently still trying to identify that something different in me.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter under my breath.

Mary-Gene gasps and spins around in her chair to face us. She looks a little too hopeful for my liking.

“No,” Logan confirms quickly, before laughing. “She’s not pregnant.”

If my mom suspects I’m pregnant without knowing we’re engaged, then I’m going to be hard-pressed to convince her once she does know, I realise. In an attempt to help out my future self, I let her know, “We don’t want babies.”

Mom’s eyes widen, and then she and Mary-Gene exchange a weighted look.

“They’ve talked about babies,” my mom says to her.

“They already live together,” Mary-Gene tells her in response.

Dammit, we hadn’t reached that point in our mother-daughter chat yet!

“We’re getting a puppy, too,” Logan tells them both for good measure.

“Really?” my mom says, sounding surprised. She then looks at Logan and I once more, and I don’t know whether it’s because of these revelations, or because of what I told her earlier, or because she just wants the chance to feel him up a bit, but she does something that she never did with Jerry, not in eight years of knowing him. She steps forward and gives Logan a hug. “Welcome to the family,” she mumbles over his shoulder.

I stare at them as they embrace, a little taken aback, almost suspicious.

Once they break apart and my mother spots the look on my face, she snaps, “Don’t look so surprised, I can be nice, you know.” She pulls out the two chairs next to Mary-Gene. “Take a seat, both of you.”

Over the next hour, while my mom goes up and down the lineup, giving each of us a fresher look, she, Mary-Gene, and Logan talk up a storm. I stay mostly quiet, letting my mom take full advantage of getting to know him and his mother. Lucie, Pedro, and Bianco joins us for a bit, but eventually they clear out. It’s Friday night, and I suspect they’ve got better things to do than eavesdrop on us.

By the time the four of us leave the salon, it’s very dark outside. I drive with my mom back to Logan’s apartment, following him and his mom in the car in front. Mary-Gene made it abundantly clear that she wants to spend the evening with us, even though one look from Logan confirms that his desires to be alone are a match for mine own. We try to worm our way out of spending the evening with her, but we fail. Miserably, as is evident because now my mom is somehow invited to join us as well.

I keep my annoyance under wraps as we drive. Instead I pester her to tell me what her first impression of Logan is. Halfway through our drive, she finally reveals, “He’s very dashing.”

“Dashing?” I can’t remember the last time I heard that word.

“Yes,” she nods. “He looks like a cartoon,” she adds. He…what? “Is there something wrong with him?” she then inquires. “Does he have a small penis?”

“Mom!” I blanch. “What the fuck would possess you to ask that?”

“Nobody is that perfect, sweetheart, he has to have a fault somewhere.”

I can’t stop myself — I roll my eyes at her. “Why can’t you just accept his nice qualities rather than trying to work out what’s wrong with him,” I say, mimicking her voice. “Do you like him?” I ask her.

“Oh, absolutely,” she says quickly. “He’s dignified and respectable. Most men aren’t respectable, they’re pigs,” she tells me, but I fail to care. I won’t stand in the way of her man-bashing, so long as she doesn’t include Logan.

Time to push the mother-daughter chat a little further, I think. “I’m glad you think that,” I say slowly, “because Logan is the one for me.”

We stop at a red light, allowing her to rest back in the driver’s seat and take a long look at me, gauging my sincerity. I do not waver under her scrutiny.

“That’s all well and good, Gemima,” she begins — oh, shit! She only uses my full name when I’m in trouble — and continues, “but you live together already?”

“We don’t really call it that, but,” I nod, “essentially, yes. If I was to go home in the evening instead of sleeping at his, I would be miserable,” I say honestly. “I’d just be thinking about him the whole time, and wishing we were together, so…” I shrug, “why not just be together? I’m sure about him, mom. He’s the one,” I tell her again.

She’s silent for a long moment, before saying, “Then I believe you.”