“Noted,” Donovan said, hugging his dad.
Brady waited his turn, then did the same before entering the house.
“Happy Birthday!” everyone shouted in unison, smiling like idiots as they stood shoulder to shoulder as though they’d been waiting for the guests of honor to arrive.
Stone looked at Reilly. “We’re good, right? That’s it?”
Reilly nodded. “I’m good if you are.”
CJ nodded. “Cool.”
Before Brady could say anything, everyone scattered. Donovan’s parents, Owen and Deborah, took seats on the couch. Reilly, Chelsea, and Chelsea’s husband went to the dining room and started playing cards. Donovan’s aunt and uncle, Lorrie and Curtis, sat on the loveseat and turned their attention to the television while his uncle Mitch and aunt Janice perched on the ends of the couch. Tate—who was also a guest of honor—flopped into Owen’s recliner and kicked his feet up. Stone and CJ disappeared toward the kitchen.
“Well, I guess that’s it then,” Donovan said, clapping Brady on the shoulder and turning back to the door.
“I think I’ll grab that beer with you,” he told Donovan.
“Get your butts in here,” Deborah called as she got to her feet, smiling merrily. “Come here and give me hugs.”
“Just out of curiosity, how many years in a row do you plan to do that?” Donovan asked his mother.
“As many as we want,” she said with a lift of her chin before she hugged them both. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” Brady told her.
He was as at home at the Jamesons as any of their children. He’d spent a good portion of his life here, so he didn’t consider himself a guest so much as family. He couldn’t count how many dishes he’d cleaned over the years or how many bags of trash he’d taken out. Owen and Deborah treated him like one of their own.
“Beer?” Owen offered when he joined them in the kitchen.
“Sure, thanks.”
Owen grabbed two bottles from the refrigerator, then used one to point toward the ceiling. Brady looked up in time to see a sprig of mistletoe dangling just a few feet to his right. Brady skimmed the rest of the ceiling and grinned. Reilly had certainly outdone herself. You could hardly move ten feet in any direction before encountering another.
Brady took the mistletoe as a sign, which he figured was Reilly’s intention. For years, he’d endured Donovan’s baby sister flirting ruthlessly with him. And fine, maybeenduredwasn’t quite the right word. He’d been flattered. And in recent years, flattered had shifted to interested. Not that he was willing to admit to that. Dating his best friend’s little sister was a surefire way of ensuring his friendship with Donovan died a slow, agonizing death. Brady wasn’t willing to risk that.
“It was Tate’s turn to pick the food,” CJ noted.
“Tacos?” Donovan and Brady asked at the same time.
The kid loved Deborah’s taco salad, and since the rest of them usually turned their noses up at anything with leafy greens in it, they got tacos instead.
“You two take a seat,” Deborah said. “I’ll make your plates and bring ’em to you.”
Brady followed Donovan into the formal dining room at the front of the house, both of them careful to skirt two more sprigs of mistletoe dangling overhead.
When he walked into the dining room, he saw Reilly looking at the ceiling, likely checking to see if one of them got stuck in her trap. When she realized they hadn’t, her gaze shifted to him.
Like every time she looked at him, he was momentarily speechless. In all fairness, that hadn’t happened until recently. Last year, sometime, he figured. Brady didn’t know what had caused the shift, allowing him to see her as a woman and not a kid who was fifteen years younger than him, but it had happened all the same.
Not that it mattered. Reilly was Donovan’s baby sister, and therefore, she was completely off-limits. The age gap only helped to keep him from wanting something he could never have.
“Who’s winnin’?” Donovan asked as he dropped into the seat beside Reilly.
“Me,” Reilly said as Chelsea and her husband pointed at her.
“Are they lettin’ you win?”
“Never,” Chelsea said at the same time Reilly said, “Don’t underestimate my ability, D. I’ll kick your ass at poker any day of the week.”
