“Right?!” Catriona said, and busted out laughing when Devlin tickled her side on his way over to Teagan.
He picked Teagan up from her stool, his hands resting under her bum and on the back of her knees. She held the hem from his black IVMC shirt, careful to not flash his siblings her panties.
“Okay, we’ll leave you to it,” Devlin said.
“See you later,” she said over Devlin’s shoulder to his brother and sister.
“Later, Teagan. Hope to see you back soon,” Catriona said with a genuine smile.
Teagan realized that all that good-natured ribbing between the siblings came from a good place. She got the feeling that Catriona worried about her brother.
Teagan didn’t know how to take any of the bombs that Catriona dropped. Devlin hadn’t shut Catriona up when she said he was head over heels over her weeks ago, or that he never brought a girl home before Teagan. Perhaps because he’d stuck to ‘skanks’ as Catriona so eloquently had put it.
He carried her upstairs and straight into his en suite bathroom, where he sat her feet back on the floor again.
“You okay?” he asked while spreading toothpaste on the toothbrush he’d grabbed for her last night.
“Thanks,” she said, accepting the brush.
His eyes held hers in the bathroom mirror.
“Sure. Everything’s fine,” she said around her toothbrush. She spat the excessive toothpaste in the sink, not caring he stood next to her, watching her closely.
It felt good to act like a normal couple, brushing teeth side by side. She’d made progress last night and today. However, she knew she wasn’t there yet.
All because of that dreaded three-letter word. It would take her some time to win over Devlin’s heart. But it did not discourage her. Not yet.