“No one,” Mom replied. She gave her kids a glance that would freeze even the hardiest of sailors.
Luckily, they were Dvornakovs, which meant they could withstand that winter chill.
“What happened?” Sadie asked, sipping on her vodka champagne.
Roman’s sister began telling, in detail, the horrible affair.
It wasn’t Roman’s finest moment when his brother Jase got the upper hand in their last brawl. Roman was recovering from a stomach flu, so he wasn’t at his best. Jase licked him in about ten seconds—because, again, puking for days. To add insult to everything, Roman ended the evening hugging the refrigerator with rope tied around him.
He’d extracted himself in twenty seconds, but no one remembered that part of the story.
Now that he was back in Denver, he was waiting—oh boy, was he waiting—for Jase to catch some kind of bug so Roman could tie him to something.
By the time Anna finished regaling the story, everyone in the room had dissolved into stitches. Even his mother, who, up until recently, hadn’t found much funny at all.
That was thanks to Heather. She and Heather had gotten off to a rocky start, but they were now the kind of friends who talked almost every day. Since Roman had been back in town, his mother was substantially less stressed all the freaking time.
“I can’t believe you let him beat you,” Sadie said through her peals of laughter.
That, right there, was why he adored her.
“I beat him fair,” Jase replied, laughter still evident in his tone. “I could do it again, too.”
“Like to see you try, baby brother,” Roman replied.
“No.” Mom held up her hands. “Please.”
Well, since she said please. Roman gestured between himself and his brother with two fingers.
“Later,” he mouthed.
Was he imagining it or did Jase pale a little?
“You’re an attorney?” Mom asked Sadie.
She nodded.
“That must be so interesting.”
Sadie’s eyes stopped dancing from the Roman-versus-refrigerator giggle fest. “Not really.”
“Oh, come on,” his mother encouraged. “What’s something interesting that happened today?”
Sadie stared at her drink. “I am negotiating custody of a large array of fish. Today, I discovered that in a school of fish it’s not the fish on the outside of the school who steer the way. It’s the fish on the inside of the group. The others follow their lead.”
“I aspire to someday have enough fish that I need an attorney to negotiate their settlement in my divorce,” Jase said.
“Puh-lease,” Heather replied. “Like you’d get our fish in any kind of settlement.”
“Then I’ll just keep my own fish in the settlement, the ones I already have.” Jase pressed a kiss against Heather’s forehead.
“What are you talking about?” Roman asked.
“You know, my swimmers?” Jase pointed at his crotch.
“Do not point at your fly when we have company.” Mom narrowed her eyes at Jase.
“They’re not fish, dipwad.” Zach hopped up on the counter, crossed his feet at the ankles, and just dared their mother to get on his ass for bouncing his shoes against her prized oak cabinetry.
