“Yes, mom,” I offer dryly.
Skylar decides to make her presence known now that I’ve said her second favorite word. “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom,” she calls over. We all turn to look at her, decked out in a Christmas dress with a red bow in her dark hair. Seeing she has out attention, she gives us a little grin and waves.
“Hi, Skylar,” I offer back.
Her tone decidedly more pleasant than I’m accustomed to, Carly gushes, “Skylar, you’re ready for Santa to bring you presents, aren’t you?”
Now Skylar notices the tray of cookies, so she throws the red block she was just chewing on and crawls as fast as she can over to Carly. Laurel smiles as Carly grabs Skylar and props her on her hip. Skylar eyes the plate the whole time, and once she’s settled on Carly’s hip, she grabs one and starts going to town on it.
“Just one, though, okay? We have to save some for Santa,” Carly reminds her.
Sin appears out of nowhere, as he’s wont to do and flashes Skylar a stern look. “Cookies before dinner?”
Skylar takes a bite of cookie, then babbles sweetly, “Love dada. Love love love.”
I can’t help laughing. Manipulative little shit—she’s definitely a Morelli.
Sin shakes his head, leans in and kisses her cheek, but leaves her to her cookie and walks over to rub Nicky’s hand. “Want me to take him?” he asks Laurel.
She shakes her head, smiling. “I’m good.”
“You are supposed to be resting,” he states, nodding his head at the couch.
Flashing him those big blue eyes, she says, “Sin, it’s Christmas.”
Unimpressed, he says, “And you just had a baby.”
Laurel shakes her head and rocks, petting Nicky’s hair. “Two days ago.”
“Exactly. You just expelled a human being from your body two days ago. You deserve some uninterrupted couch time.”
“I’ll rest when Virginia gets here,” she assures him.
My gaze shoots to her. “What did you just say?”
All innocence—bullshit innocence—she looks back at me, then down at Nicholas, kissing the side of his head before casually informing me, “I invited Virginia.”
“Tonight?” I demand. “And you didn’t think to ask me first?”
Now she flashes the big blues at me, but that shit doesn’t work on me. “Rafe, I just had a baby. I need help.”
“My ass,” I mutter.
She invited me a fucking date. Vince has Carly, Sin has Laurel, so Laurel invited Virginia for me.
I wonder if Virginia told her about the other night. I’m aware of their friendship, but I don’t know if they would have had a chance to talk about it since Laurel has so much going on right now. I’m not completely sure Virginia even wants to see me, but the last thing I want to do is invite any weirdness to everyone’s holiday.
“You shouldn’t have invited her without asking me,” I tell Laurel.
Rather than backing down, Laurel sticks her stubborn nose in the air. “It wasn’t your decision to make. She’s my friend too, and she didn’t have any plans for Christmas. There’s no reason we can’t have one more here to even out the numbers—plus, Virginia is a great cook, and why should Carly have to do all the cooking? Carly doesn’t even like you. At least with Virginia here, you know there’s one person in the house who would never poison you.”
Yep, she definitely hasn’t heard about the club. Oh well, this is clearly happening now. “Did you invite her just for dinner tonight, or is she going to be here tomorrow morning, too?”
“Tomorrow, too. The whole Christmas holiday. I told you, she didn’t have any plans. I couldn’t just let her sit at her apartment alone on Christmas, Rafe.”
“Goddammit, Laurel.”
“I don’t see why you’re so worked up about it,” she says. “You like Virginia.”