“We are not assholes,” they reply. “Besides, how much more fun is it to watch him strike out tonight?”
“You ready for this?” Frannie says from the next table. “It’s so weird that Laney’s not joining us, isn’t it?”
“Laney hasn’t been here in three years anyway.”
“I know, but I thought she’d have her year after her bad breakup and then be back. Instead, we get you. This is fun.”
“Gentlemen, line up,” Iris calls. “And, go!”
Three-quarters of the men swarm the room, looking for an open table.
Decker slides into the seat across from me.
“We’re cousins,” I remind him with a smile.
He winks. “Not by blood, apparently. That makes you fair game to the powers of my irresistible charms.”
I crack up, despite the sentiment making me throw up in my mouth a little.
If I were watching this from the outside, that would be hilarious. And so, I’m happy to let every other woman in this place think that my cousin is a catch.
I’m not the only person in the family with zero intentions of settling down.
He lounges back in his seat with a broad grin, threading his fingers together as he rests his hands over hisDon’t piss off the writer or he might kill you in a booklong-sleeve T-shirt. “Jack and Lucky are gonna be so jealous that I got a crack at you first.”
The fact that I’m not laughing right now speaks volumes to how worried I am about whatever Grey will have to say when he finally corners me. “You are ridiculous.”
“And you’re stressed.”
“Never.” I am so stressed.
“Where’s Jitter?”
“Mom came and got him. Too many people tonight.”
“First timer has started,” Iris calls. “You have three minutes.”
I glance around the room and spot my other two cousins.
Jack was apparently a slowpoke. He has a look ofthese three minutes might kill meon his face as he leans back and Addison Hunter leans forward, drawing something on the table with her finger.
Probably explaining to him that since she’s in finance and he’s an engineer, they’d make smart, competent, beautiful children.
“Ew,” Decker mutters.
Lucky, on the other hand, is on the opposite side of the room, actively engaged in an animated conversation with Viola Hammerbach. She’s twenty-five years older than he is.
And she was his kindergarten teacher.
“Are they catching up, or is he flirting with her?” I ask Decker.
“I asked him yesterday who his favorite teacher of all time was, and he named her, so it’s anyone’s guess. Shame about her husband. Good for her for getting back out there though.”
I look back to where Grandpa was headed to sit along the wall.
Not there.
Grey’s noticed too.
