Mom makes a face. “Aw, how sad. Tell him I’ll be his mom.”
“Ew, no. I don’t want to date my brother.” I gag, and she gives me an exasperated look.
“How old are you?”
I smirk as Sadie rolls her eyes at me. “Are we still doing a Galentine’s thing since you are on the cusp of having a boy toy?”
Now I’m the one rolling my eyes at my sister. Before I can answer, my mom says, “I don’t even know why you’re doing that. It’s like a hate against the traditional holiday, which is highly celebrated here.”
My sisters and I all share a look before Sadie snaps, “For one, Valentine’s Day was created by the greeting card industry to make people spend money.”
“Second,” Willa adds, “since we don’t have valentines, we are allowed to hate on it together and spoil one another since we don’t need a man.”
“And third,” I say with a grin, “we need something to do since none of us are getting laid.”
“I don’t know what went wrong with you girls,” Mom says on a sigh. “You used to be so sweet.”
“Yes, then men happened,” Sadie says blandly. “You gave us the best dad and expected us to find someone even remotely good enough?”
“I used to call Dad to ask questions about things, with my husband right there,” I say, and Willa snorts.
“I did the same. Hell, he came over and fixed the fridge one time, made Garrett hand him tools.”
We all snicker at that.
“So, really, it’s your fault we are the way we are,” Sadie announces, and before my mom can protest, she looks at me. “But I have a feeling our Galentine’s will be canceled once Dr. Do-My-Body-Good finds the balls to ask you out.”
I shrug. “Probably.”
Willa groans as Mom laughs. Sadie’s brow furrows as she snaps, “I don’t know what your obsession is with him all of a sudden. He’s been next door to you for like a year.”
“I have always found him attractive but haven’t gotten him to notice me.”
She gives me a blank look as she sets down the scissors. “And it took getting knocked in the head by a stone dick to get you to ask him out?”
“I didn’t know if he was interested,” I tell her once more.
“I still don’t think he is,” Sadie sings, and my blood boils.
I glare back at her. “Don’t you have the hearts of young children to go eat?”
She snorts. “I do.” Then she screeches, “Where are the children I call my nephews? I am ready to eat their hearts to keep myself young!”
“Noooo!”
Adam and Wyatt scream as Dad yells, “Damn it, Sadie. I was kicking their asses!”
“Language!” Mom yells just as Sadie takes off after the boys, and then Dad comes into the kitchen. He’s wearing a ratty-ass Assassins tee that I think he’s had since he was eighteen, but my mom looks at him like he’s in a suit. “Such a dirty mouth.”
“You like my dirty mouth.”
Willa and I groan as they kiss, very passionately for the kitchen. Or maybe I want passionate kisses. In the kitchen. Hell, anywhere. I just want to kiss Dermot. Badly. When we walked Kip together, it took twenty minutes of waiting for him to hold my hand before I finally just took his hand in mine. His large hand enveloped mine, and I felt that same tingle I got when he helped me up. He gave me a shy smile, and I beamed up at him while Kip trotted like a champ.
It was perfect, it was everything, and I want more.
Doesn’t he?
“Dad,” I say, and my father’s kind blue eyes fall on me. His lips curve, the wrinkles around his eyes gaining purchase on his handsome face as he looks at me with that expression he always has when he looks at his daughters.
