“Hey, what are you all doing in here?” I glanced around as all eyes swung my way. Maeve and Scarlett were sitting at the table, while Claire sat on the table and Sheila leaned against the counter. Maeve, Claire, and Sheila each had a glass of rosé wine in their hands. “I kind of expected there to be cooking going on.”
“Oh, the dinner is done.” Sheila waved my comment away. “This is our girls’ time to chat while the guys talk about sports and cars and construction.”
She grabbed another cup from the cabinet and poured a glass of wine for me.
“Thanks.” I took the wine from Sheila. “So, what are we talking about today?”
“You,” Scarlett said.
My brow raised. Color me surprised that the hot girl club was talking about me behind my back.
Maeve’s eyes rounded, and she non-covertly kicked her friend under the table. “Scarlett,” she hissed. “Nothing bad, I promise.”
“No, we were just curious about you, that’s all. But we didn’t want to pull you away from spending time with your family,” Claire added, tucking a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear.
“But you’re here now. So, what’s your story?” Scarlettasked.
All eyes in the room were on me, waiting for me to… what? Tell these women the most intimate secrets of my life as some sort of girl-bonding time? Ha. As if that was going to happen.
“Just a small-town girl living in a big city,” I said.
I caught Sheila’s eye. She looked back at me with understanding and quiet support. “And it’s nice to have our small-town girl back.” She smiled. “I better get the guys in here for dinner before they come to check on it and find us all blabbering while their food gets cold.”
Maeve and Claire set the table while Sheila called the guys in. A fold-out chair was added to the corner of the table. Wyatt grabbed the high chair from where it was tucked next to the refrigerator and dragged that to the table, too, as ten people tried to cram themselves around an eight-person table.
I went to take the folding chair since everyone else would have their usual spots, but Wyatt snagged it out of my hand and sank into it before I had a chance. Everyone found a seat around the table, paying no mind to who they were sitting next to.
“Dad. I think you need a bigger table,” Reid grumbled after getting elbowed in the ribs by Maeve.
She pressed her lips together and shot him an apologetic look. “Sorry about that.”
“Just move over,” Wyatt huffed.
“There’s nowhere to go,” Reid volleyed back.
“Ow,” Scarlett said, rubbing her arm where Wyatt connected with her.
“Fuck off, Wyatt. She’s pregnant,” Luke complained.
“It was an accident, fuckface.”
“Shut up, all of you. Sheila’s been working on this dinnerall night, and all I hear is grumbling,” Dad yelled.
I had to bite back my laugh. I didn’t realize how much I missed this. Even with the elbow to the gut or the armpit in my face as Claire stretched across me for the salt. Family dinners were bigger now, louder, somehow more chaotic than when we were kids, but they were something special. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to stay around for another couple of days.
3
Sebastian
I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of leather and ink for just a second.
“Do you think this looks good? Yeah. Yeah. We’ll leave it. It’s fine… Right?”
“We can move it around as many times as you want, Kels,” I said. Kelsey Mitchell, the twenty-three-year-old waitress from Harpoon’s Tavern, was sitting in my tattoo chair, staring at the three single-line designs meant to represent birds in a minimalist aesthetic in purple ink on her wrist.
“No, it’s fine,” she said, completely unconvincingly.
“Kels, I’m not letting you walk out of here with something that isn’t perfect. I don’t care if you want to change it. Bigger, smaller, a bit to the left or right. Whatever you want. Remember, it’s on your body forever.”
