“Oh, well, in that case, carry on.” Georgina squeezed me one last time and walked over to Jay, kissing his cheek. “Hello, darlin’. How was your date last night?”
“Jay had a date?” Betsy questioned. “Poor girl.”
I clapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing.
Jay side-eyed his grandmother as she stirred spaghetti in a big pot on the stove. “It went well, Mom.”
Georgina pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge. “Are you seeing her again?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” Jay repeated.
“Why not?” His mom quirked one eyebrow as she poured three glasses out. “You just said it went well.”
He sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair. “It did go well, but I don’t see it going anywhere. She was nice enough, but yeah.”
“Probably too nice to put up with your crap,” Betsy said brightly.
“I cleared four perfectly safe snakes from your yard today and put up three shelves.”
“Yes, and you had to be guilted into visiting me in the first place.” She sniffed.
Jay looked at me. “Remind me again why I came?”
I shrugged, taking the glass Georgina handed to me. “You made me come. Don’t look at me like that.”
“You came because your mother said so,” his dad shouted from the living room.
Jay muttered under this breath. None of us caught what he’d said, but that didn’t stop Betsy jabbing her spoon at him through the air for his insolence.
The back door nudged itself open, and Alice announced herself with a tiny yip that made me grit my teeth. The Yorkshire Terrier and I had a tempestuous relationship, mostly because her so-called barking made me cringe, like nails on a chalkboard, and the damn creature knew about it.
The tiny dog trotted through the kitchen, stopping right in front of me. She looked up at me with big, black eyes before turning her back to me and trotting off into the living room.
I watched her as she went until the sound of Betsy chuckling pulled me back into the kitchen. “What?”
“You’ll get along one day,” she said, dipping a teaspoon into the spaghetti sauce to taste it.
“I doubt that,” Jay said, stepping up behind her and peering over her shoulder. “She barely gets along with herself.”
“Remember who sleeps in the room next to you, jackass,” I shot back. “I’m also a writer. I could kill you and dispose of your body, and nobody would ever know.”
“Ah, but if you did that, you’d never know the pleasure we’ll get on his wedding day when we post the picture of him using a submarine as a pseudo-penis in the bathtub.” Georgina grinned, her green eyes sparkling the same way Jay’s did whenever he teased me.
Jay groaned, slumping against the counter. “Can we not?”
“Oh, but you were so cute!” she cooed, using her wine glass to hide her smile.
I sipped my wine to stop myself from smiling. Oh yeah. This was why I loved family dinner at the Cooper’s.
It was the one night in my schedule where I didn’t have to be the sole troll designed at getting under Jay’s skin.
It was the best.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – JAY
The Liquor Cupboard Should Always Be Stocked
Tipsy Shelby was a fucking hoot.
Let that be noted. She was a total party after three glasses of wine, but tonight she’d had four. After the disaster that was Grams bringing out the old photo albums after dinner, Shelby had finally had enough wine to tip her over the edge of the stress she’d been holding tight in her shoulders the last few days.
Now, sadly, it was my job to get her into the elevator and into bed.
And I was stone-cold sober.
She was currently giggling in the passenger seat while looking at her phone. It could have been anything from cats jumping onto other items of furniture to people falling over or even the general news. She needed this downtime. She worked so hard for so little, so much for other people that I didn’t begrudge her this giggly time at all.
She’d be fine when she woke up tomorrow.
Still, I had to get her out of this truck.
I pulled up into my usual parking space and glanced over at her. She was still giggling, and she typed as she did so. I frowned at her for a second before I got out of the truck and walked around to her side.
“All right, you, come here.” I held out both of my hands for her to grab so she could jump down from the cab. “Let’s go.”
Shelby looked up from her phone, her eyes wide and ever-so-slightly glazed. “Are we at home?”
“We’re home, Chardonnay-girl,” I replied, gripping her wrists and guiding her down from the truck. “And you need to write tomorrow, so it’s time for bed.”
She jumped down from the truck, her flats silently hitting the sidewalk. “Really? It’s bedtime?”
“Sure is. Mom and Grams opened a bottle too many tonight, huh?” I wrapped one arm around her body and held her against me, ignoring the way she seemed to slot against me like she was made for me.