“Connecting my phone. Between you and work, I haven’t had a chance to listen to Lily’s podcast. And I’d like you to hear it.” She shrugged, giving me a smile that shot right between my legs.
I was fucked. Because I had a premonition I would be unable to say no to this woman, from what we listened to in the car, to where we lived, to where we spent our holidays. She only had to smile at me, for fuck’s sake, and I was ready to give her anything. Still, I needed to at least pretendnotto be wrapped around her finger. “I don’t know if I’ll like that kind of thing.”
“It’s the podcast I created. It’s got a shit ton of followers. I told you my wee cousin Lily took it over.” She flicked through her phone, her long hair falling across her face. “Just listen to it. For me.”
I absentmindedly reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear and she smiled, and this time, it hit me square in the chest.“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, before pulling out of my parking space.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. So, Lily’s your cousin?”
“Well, pseudo-cousin. I told you my parents have this really close-knit friendship group and all of us kids grew up calling our parents’ friends aunt and uncle and each other cousins.”
It sounded nice. A big family like that. Maybe also a pain in the arse. How did you keep up with everyone? I asked the latter out loud.
“With great difficulty lately,” Beth answered. “Maia, who we met at the nightclub?”
“The really bonny lassie Baird fell in love with?”
Beth snorted. “Aye. That’s Maia. She’s my uncle Logan’s daughter. He actually didn’t find out she even existed until she was fifteen. She showed up on his doorstep one day.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Aye, exactly. But Logan started seeing his neighbor,” Beth said, chuckling, “something we know a little about. She’s now my aunt Grace. Anyway, Grace was there for them both and kind of helped bring them together. Maia had a shitty home life with her mum, so she moved in with Uncle Logan and Aunt Grace. They have a wee boy too. My cousin Lachlan. He’s twelve now, which is hard to wrap my head around. Anyway, Maia is technically the oldest of us all, but since she came to us a bit later, I still feel like the eldest. Like I should be the one constantly checking in with everyone to make sure they’re doing okay. And I’m failing miserably.”
I hated her hang-up over this failure nonsense. But I knew it wasn’t nonsense to her, so I could only do so much to remind her she wasn’t failing anyone. “Princess, you’re not responsible for all your cousins. I mean, how many do you have?”
“Cousins? Thirteen. I mean, biologically, only two. But in actuality, thirteen.”
“You can’t keep track of them all, run a successful business, and have fantastic sex every night.”
“I could if I cut out the sex.”
“I’d like to see you try. Of the two of us, who wakes the other up the most during the night for another go?”
The woman had woken me up multiple times with her hands and mouth, and I wasn’t complaining. I’d sleep when I was dead.
Beth harrumphed at that, and I tried to soften the smugness from my grin and failed.
We hit traffic and suddenly, Beth’s old podcast blared through my speakers.
“Welcome toSeek and You Shall Find. I’m Lily and both SierraandMadison are joining me because we have a special episode today. After weeks of our podcast being used as fodder in thePotterrow Blokes’ attempt to profit off our success, I called them out last week and dared them to come on the show. While it turns out they’re too cowardly to come into the studio,oneof them has agreed to chat to us via Zoom. And for the folks listening at home, we’re not staring at one of thePotterrow Blokes’ faces right now. We’re staring at a screensaver of the Hulk taking Thor up the arse. If the expression on the Asgardian’s face is anything to go by … he’s actually really into it.”
Both Beth and I snorted.
A male voice, American by the sounds of it, interrupted, “I’d like to say that the screensaver is not mine and I have no idea how to change it.”
“And to whom are we speaking?” Lily asked with a bite in her tone.
“Fill me in?” I asked Beth.
She explained about this group of blokes who’d started a rival podcast at the university and were always taking shots at Lily’s podcast.
“Really?” I grimaced. “Who has time for that shit?”
“I wish I had time for it. I know it sounds immature,” Beth continued, “but the podcast helped a lot of people when I started it, and Lily is one of them. She is so shy and body conscious, but she was brave enough to put herself out there on the podcast. And people relate to her. Not everyone is cocky and confident like you and me, Captain. She tells people what it’s like to be on the dating scene when it’s difficult to be social, to be sexy, to be outgoing. She’s helped way more girls than I ever did. I’m proud of her.”
I got it and reached out to squeeze her knee.
