Ah.
I chivvied, “You’ll always be my love bug.”
He gagged, but I saw the sparkle in his eye. “You’re lucky I love you.”
“Don’t I know it.” My tone was light as I brushed my fingers through his hair before settling my hand at the center of his back. Like usual, he wriggled his shoulders and released a sigh at the simple touch. “What’s with the scowl anyway?”
“I wasn’t scowling.”
“Sure you were.” I peered at his screen, unsurprised when he slammed it down before I could catch much more of a glimpse than a blank document and a cursor that tolled like a death knell. “No inspiration, huh?”
He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Why can you always read me like a book?”
“Because we’re cut from the same cloth.” Wishing I could make this better, I pressed a kiss to his temple. “You need help with this essay, just tell me.”
“Victoria’s already finished her term papers,” he complained. “She didn’t even really want to attend Oakwood, and she keeps up with the work like a boss. Me? Even though I’m not, it’s as if I’m slacking all the time. I know she only chose Oakwood so we can be together.”
An amused smile curved my lips. “She’s a sociopath.”
“Mom!”
“She is. I’m telling you.”
“Her attending the same college as me does not a sociopath make.”
“There are many, many reasons that I know I’m right…” Like the fact that the head of the Russian faction routinely sent her goddamn severed body parts and Victoria remained as chirpy as ever. No therapy required. “…but the fact she got her term papers finished this early is definitely sociopathic.”
“You’re surrounded by enough that you’d know.” Declan strolled into the kitchen with that swagger of his, which made me melt.
It helped that he had Cameron on his hip.
What could I say?
Declan and I reproduced to perfection.
Honestly, our kids were better than my works of art. And being surrounded by my family, in our kitchen, in ourhomenever stopped giving me the squigglies.
For so long, what we had would have been an impossibility. Now, it was my life. My normal.
Until Shay departed for college, of course.
He was only here to help me decorate the tree and he’d gotten sideswiped by a professor changing the deadline on a term paper.
“Victoria isn’t a sociopath.” Shay sniffed. “If anything, she’s a psychopath.”
Though I hooted out a laugh at his surprise concession, Declan frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“She’s a headcase, Dad. She might look like butter doesn’t melt?—”
“I will never understand that saying.”
Ever patient, Shay explained, “It means her perceived innocence hides a thousand sins.”
“What kind of sins? Sins that Brennan needs to cover up?”
“Not yet,” Shay intoned grimly, but his smirk only widened as his father’s eyes bugged. “I’m teasing. She isn’t a psycho. Plus, she has Maxim for that now.”
I shuddered. “She’s something with a -pathic. That we can agree on. But I’m glad. You need someone to keep you out of trouble. Your heart’s too big.”
