Brody straightened his glasses with a nod. “Are you?”
There were whoops and hollers and laughter as well as some deep shouts.
“I didn’t want anyone getting my cupcake. It’s mine.” She cradled it close.
“Well, it’s a mess out there,” Royal said as he slid under the table and sat with his legs crossed. “Ma just got Ink in the chest with a cupcake. So he’s down. Cupcake war rules. Pretty sure she intended to get him in the face but she’s always been terrible with her aim.”
To Brody’s amazement, Royal didn’t seem to have a single crumb of cupcake on him. How did he do that? Brody was covered in icing and bits of cupcake, and he didn’t even know how he’d gotten some of the stains.
Someone else slid under the table with a whoop and a laugh.
Baron.
“That is one heck of a cupcake fight going on out there.”
Unlike his brother, Baron was covered in cupcake and icing. It was all over his face, in his hair, and down his T-shirt.
“Good job, brother,” Royal said as he took a bite out of his spectacular cupcake.
“I thought so,” Baron answered. “Shall we get going?”
“We really should, or Zippy is going to start getting impatient,” Royal replied as he handed the cupcake over to his brother to take a bite.
“See you later,” Baron said with a wink as they moved to the other side of the table and then disappeared.
Brody stared at Autumn with wide eyes. “What do you think that was all about?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to know,” she said.
Someone else crawled under the table and ran his gaze over them both.
“Daddy!” Autumn said, moving to him.
“What are you two doing in here?” he asked as he drew her against him.
“Avoiding the food war going on outside,” Brody told him. “Who’s winning?”
“Oh, definitely the Littles. I just saw Sunny get Duke right in the face. Twice.”
“Twice?” Brody asked.
“Oh, all right, the second one might have come from an interested third party who noticed that she wasn’t sitting comfortably.”
“Wait, you got Duke in the face with a cupcake for spanking Sunny when you spanked both of us this morning?” Autumn asked.
“Hmm. Yes.”
“Don’t you see the hypocrisy in that?” Brody asked.
“Sure. But it was fun. Sounds like things are quieting down. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They all crawled out from under the table with the Fox holding out a hand to each of them.
Autumn was still holding onto her cupcake to keep it safe.
“Whoa, this place is a mess,” Autumn said, glancing around. There were pieces of cupcake, sprinkles, and glitter everywhere.
And when he said everywhere, he meant it. Because it wasn’t just on the ground or all over the table.
