She chuckles with a toss of her dark-haired head, before leaning in for a kiss. “You smooth-talker, you.”
I glance away, but the woman from before is long gone, of course. Not that it matters much. You catch one, you lose one—was that what Dad used to say after he and Mom called it quits and he embarked on his epic dating spree that culminated in some Victoria’s Secret model, and that the rest of us have yet to match?
Not that my other brothers are really trying. Greyson, the eldest, is married and has a kid. Even goddamn Landon, who I had pegged for a forever bachelor like myself after his university love debacle, ended up engaged to said university love debacle—hence the whole reason for this dinner—and with a kid. Emerson is still loyal to the bachelor cause, but who knows for how long, with this new Polish girlfriend—Monica, Molly, Maude—that he won’t shut up about.
Landon’s started on me too, lately, with the odd suggestion I find my own ‘Kyra’ here, the Dad-esque comments that I can’t be a bachelor forever there. Weird.
Hell, Landon has always been the ‘Responsible Twin’, but now that he knows he’s a father it seems like that’s translated into him as the ‘Responsibly Annoying Twin’. Jesus. I can’t even remember the last time all of us brothers went out on the town together and got shitfaced.
“The place is looking good for being under renovation,” Emerson says, with a look around.
I swallow back the urge to point out that this front restaurant area is the only one we’ll be keeping open for now, and strictly by necessity. And that once we’re finished with it, the yawn-worthy stucco walls and cement parking-garage-esque floor will be replaced by something unrecognizable. Something my overzealous and overpaid designer Melinda assured me would be ‘WOW’. She did show me a bunch of pictures of her ‘mood board’ for the area that didn’t make me want to vomit, so we were a go.
“You should see the back,” I grumble instead.
“That bad, eh?” he says, all sympathetic connivance.
That’s the thing about my little brother, God bless him. He isn’t good at pretending he cares—he does one better: he actually cares.
“We’re months behind and will probably be months more behind, thanks to fucking Gerard’s mishaps,” I mutter, eyeing the bar warily.
That asshole spent more time here drinking than he did working, and it came across in his completely fucked measurements for every room. Tool didn’t even apologize, either. I finally fired the idiot, but not before his fuck-ups cost us months, at least. Dickwad.
I give my head a little shake. “Anyway, it’s good to be here with everyone.” I gesture at Landon and Kyra. “And look at those two lovebirds.”
“Picked where you’ll be heading for the honeymoon?” Emerson asks the happy couple, smiling over the rim of his wineglass at them. I’m pretty sure that’s his third glass.
For all his mooning over this M chick, he has started drinking more since he’s been seeing her.
“We’re just trying to get through the wedding first,” Kyra confesses with a happy little laugh.
Landon gives her an even happier kiss. Christ, I know they’re in loooove, but how many times can you feel like kissing the same person in a matter of consecutive minutes? “By ‘we’, she means ‘her’. One quick visit with the wedding planner was all it took for us to figure out that I have zero taste.”
He says that like hemming and hawing for hours over napkin shapes and doily fabrics is anything other than an elaborate 20th century form of male torture.
“Babe,” Kyra says, a smile cracking on her red lips, “you were going to have our color scheme be gray and silver.”
“I stand by what I said,” Landon states stoutly. “Sensible colors, both of them.”
The rest of us chuckle. I try to keep my face lighter than my thoughts: that what Landon’s doing is anything but sensible. Yeah, Greyson and Harley make the whole marriage thing look easy, but they’ve been at it a little over a year. And sure, Landon has been in love with Kyra since forever, but when was that ever a recipe for marital bliss?
What he should be doing is what I’m doing: taking a page out of Mommy and Daddy dearests’ marriage handbook and see the whole thing as the losing game it is.
I nudge Greyson and ask him in an undertone, “Chosen a gift yet? I call dibs on that panda onesie for that kid.”
“Her name’s Madison,” he grumbles. “And she’s eight. That link you sent me could fit a five-year-old, maybe.”
“I know what her name is,” I grumble back. “I’m her favorite uncle, remember? And anyway, that’s what zippers are for: squeezing into outfits that aren’t a perfect fit. Plus, when she gets like, I don’t know, sixteen or something, she can donate that beauty of an outfit to Dakota.”