Mac (Riders of Apollo #8)

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Mackenzie Grant

(A/N: started making it, had a breakdown, bon appetit)

The wedding is tomorrow so the house is in tatters, the place is a mess and Lexie is shouting orders every ten minutes as people finish their tasks as quickly as they can. I've been on heavy lifting since seven o'clock this morning and I am not happy about it. Lexie is like a drill sergeant, just like she was when she was planning Marielle and Hunter's wedding. I really hope we don't have to do this many more times, if we have to I hope we get a few year break between them.

"Is Eva here yet?" Lexie asks me, still staring down at the clipboard in her hands. She has me lifting heavy benches with Bear and she's trying to get me to talk to her at the same time. 

"No, she's not." I grunt out, my body aching from the overuse. Bear and I lower the bench to the ground and Lexie nods in agreement. She taps the pen against her chin as she thinks about what she wants us to do next. 

"Fine, take Riley and go to hers." I take the order with relief, I don't want to be here anymore and I haven't seen her for a while so I happily do as I'm told. Riley follows me out with a bounce in her step. She hasn't been to Eva's place yet and she's excited to see it, lucky for her she has escaped all of the inane tasks because she's the bride and Eva has escaped them by not turning up this morning. 

I flank Riley's car and direct her to Eva's house, the ride taking around twenty minutes. "This place is nice." Riley looks up at the house with squinted eyes. I just open the door as she doesn't lock it, Riley gives me a look that I pretend I didn't see as I walk into the main part of the house. 

"Eva!" I shout, listening for any movement. 

"Is she even here?" Riley asks, looking at the pictures of her, Lucia and Saviour on the mantlepiece and on the sideboard. I hear a scuffle upstairs and tell Riley to wait where she is before heading up the stairs. I find Eva asleep, wrapped up in her duvet and her upper body covered in silk. 

I move to wake her up, placing a hand on her waist to shake her slightly but her gun is then levelled at my head. This has happened before so I don't even flinch, just stare back at her with an amused look as she comes to. "Oh, hey." She smiles tiredly at me, putting the gun back under her pillow and bringing my hand to rest on her head. I stroke through her hair as she starts to close her eyes again. 

"You know the wedding is tomorrow, right?"

"Shit!" She flies into a sitting position, her eyes wide and her hair a mess as she regards me with stress on her face. "I'm a bad mother, I completely forgot about that." I hold her cheek in my hand and she relaxes slightly, her head falls forward to rest against mine before she rolls out of the bed to get ready for the day. 

I can hear Riley downstairs going through all of her things and I chuckle at her, she's a nosey one. "Is that my daughter rummaging around in my things?" She comes falling out of her bathroom, her hair now tamed and her pant suit back on. I watch as she digs through her jewellery and selects the pieces she wants before she walks around to me and wraps her arms around my neck. "Good morning, darling." 

"Oh now I get a good morning?" Eva just smiles at me, biting her bottom lip and staring at me. I pull her lip from between her teeth and kiss her gently, enjoying the feel of her against me. "We should probably go downstairs before your daughter thinks we're up to something." 

"It's a shame we're not actually up to something." She winks and then leaves me with a dropped jaw. Well now I want to be up to something but she's already downstairs. I follow her there feeling a little grumpy as I watch her hug her daughter and apologise for not being there this morning. 

"It's not me that's gonna kill you, Lexie is. She had a whole list of tasks she assigned to you and she had to rejig the whole schedule to fit it around your absence." Eva cringes, knowing that she's going to get brutally murdered by the Queen for not doing her part in preparation. 

"We best get going then, if we're any later she's actually going to kill me. At this point I may have a chance to talk her out of murder." I watch as Eva slips onto my bike with her sunglasses over her eyes and waits for me to get on in front of her. My heart literally stops at the sight. I've never had a woman on my bike before so when she wraps her arms around my waist and tucks her body in tight my whole body just melts. It feels fucking good. 

I am so fucked.

The place is still in complete disarray when we get there, Lexie is still barking orders and there are Riders hauling things on their backs and looking ready to keel over. "Evangeline!" I watch as Eva slips her sunglasses onto her head and faces the Queen down with a neutral look on her face. 

"I swear I meant to be here but I was out really late last night." She defends, raising her hands in defence and I find my skin heating up at the idea of what she could be doing out so late. We haven't had the exclusivity talk so I can't exactly be mad about it but the idea does sting. I shake myself out of it as Lexie asks the question spinning around in my head, 'what were you doing?'. "Running down some contacts, if this whole Russian thing comes to a war I need all of my friends on side. I was out with Rachel until gone four and then I had to meet with Aleksi after that." 

"Fine, I forgive you because you did pay for most of this to get me out of trouble with Bear and you're like a mother to me. But that does mean you have to do Riley's hair and makeup tomorrow so the rest of us can have a little bit of lie in." The agreement is struck and Eva relaxes immediately.

"I thought my punishment was going to be terrible, I've been doing Riley's hair and makeup for years." She tells me as Riley sprints inside to Boulder, who catches her without flinching. I kick one leg over so I can face her and she wraps her arms around my neck again, this time matching my height with her heels. 

"You got off lucky. She misses her mom a lot and you have that feel about you." 

"A motherly vibe?" I nod, tightening my arms around her waist causing her to basically fall on me. "It's sweet, really. I think the girls have taken to me well."

"You're basically their mother." Eva laughs beautifully, her nose crinkling as she shakes her head, her hair flying everywhere.

"Wow, I got here with two daughters and now I have seven. I think I'm good at this parenting thing, you know." I move to slip my hands under her shirt but pout when my hands can't get under it. "This is a corset, darling. You aren't getting your hands in there unless you rip it open." I move my hands to pretend to do so and she grips my wrist, "this corset cost five hundred pounds, if you rip it I will murder you and bury you in my garden."

"Cruel." I drag my fingers along the lace applique and down the fastenings on the back, she watches me with rapt attention but doesn't say a word. "You wouldn't actually kill me, would you?"

"I plead the fifth." 

"You're not American." 

"Thank God for that." I pinch her waist at that, just below the corset, and she squeals. "Sorry, damn."