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The Kiss

Page 19

by J.L. Perry

Mum turns toward Daisy, and her smile returns. “Your name is Daisy?”

Daisy shuffles uncomfortably beside me. “Yes.”

Mum’s eyes twinkle with what could best be described as amusement. “It appears my boys have a weakness for pretty women with flowery names.”

“I hate to burst your bubble again, but Dais and I are just friends.”

She arches an accusing eyebrow. “Yet you brought her to our family dinner. The only other woman you’ve brought home for dinner was that wench, Amanda.”

Daisy’s attention moves between Mum and me before she extends a marshmallow hand in her direction. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs Sinclair.”

My mother instantly notices Daisy’s bandages. “Oh my goodness. What happened to your hand?”

“Amanda,” I growl.

My Mum gasps. “That wicked woman hurt you?”

“She pushed her over,” I explain. “The glasses she was holding cut into her hands when she fell.”

“She pushed me because your son kissed me,” Daisy adds, and I tilt my head back and groan. I wasn’t going to divulge that information because my mother does not need any encouragement.

My Mum’s eyes flick between us. “Oh, so you’re more than friends.”

“No,” Daisy and I both say in unison.

A strange sense of deja vu washes over me. I distinctly remember Bennett and Poppy doing the exact same thing the day my brother flooded her grandmother’s kitchen.

I side-eye Daisy. Is my mother onto something? Are women named after flowers mine and Bennett’s kryptonite?

“Go and knock on your father’s office door,” my mother says to Bennett. “Tell him we’re about to sit down to dinner. Why he insists on working on a Sunday, I’ll never know.”

“That workaholic gene seems to run in the family,” Poppy says, eyeing her fiancé as he leaves the room.

Jonah’s currently cradled in her arms, and I’m not impressed. She and Mum have been monopolising him since the second we walked through the door, passing him back and forth while I haven’t even got a look in.

My Mum’s eyes immediately find me. “Where were you hiding when that gene was handed out, sweetie?”

“I don’t know, Mum. Since I was the size of a grain of sand in your uterus with an undeveloped brain, I can’t really say.”

My surprised gaze swings to Daisy when she chimes in with, “I’ve watched some of the videos on Nolan’s YouTube Channel⁠—”

“You have? When?” I ask.

“Earlier today, when you were lying down,” she answers with a smile before turning her attention back to my mother. “He may not be a workaholic, but he’s definitely a hard worker.”

“You have a YouTube channel?” Mum asks curiously.

“Yeah, Mum, I do.”

She leans forward, engrossed. “Since when?”

I lift one shoulder. “Eight or nine years.”

She gasps. “You’ve had a YouTube channel for that long, and this is the first I’ve heard about it?”

“I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“I’m interested in everything my boys do.” Ain’t that the truth. “What exactly do you post on your channel?”