She and her child should go and start somewhere new.
But then why did I buy her a bookstore if that’s what I want?
Why didn’t I take her money?
Keir walks into the kitchen and looks around before he sits at the counter. “You don’t have to marry either one of them.” I look at him, confused. I wasn’t planning on it. “You weren’t planning to anyway,” he says, shaking his head, reading my thoughts. “If I told you, you had to, would you?”
“No. I did it the first time. I won’t do it a second.”
“First one didn’t count.”
“I remember vividly standing at that altar with you by my side,” I tell him.
“Sailor likes her.”
“Sailor needs more friends.”
“Hmm…” He nods his head. “She says she doesn’t like outside people because she wouldn’t want to lie to them about who I am.”
“Everyone knows who you are,” I inform him.
“Touché.” Reaching for my bowl of grapes, he looks to the side where Jerome’s coloring stuff is set up and nods to it. “She gone?”
“Yep.”
“For good?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Hello, pretty ladies,” Lucas says as he enters, and I have to close my eyes and take a breath.
“I didn’t invite you,” I grumble.
“You didn’t invite me either,” Keir points out.
“Where is the blushing bride? She all better?” Lucas asks. He walks to the refrigerator, pulls out two bottles of water, throws one to Keir, then turns to me.
“I should cut off your fucking hand.” I shake my head.
“You could try…”
“He would, just so you know,” Keir warns Lucas. Then he says, “But the payback Lucas would deliver you would make you wish you never did.”
“You’ve missed out on two days of work. I had to do your stupid jobs, and your restaurants were not happy. One mentioned something about you trying a dessert,” Lucas complains. “The other swore at me in Spanish and told me to die in a ditch.” He laughs. “Took me a while to work out what he said.”
“I’ve built relationships with them. They pay, and we never have issues for a reason, Lucas.”
“Yeah, because you are a pussy.” Lucas laughs.
“You can hit him,” Keir tells me.
I reach for a knife and throw it, and Lucas ducks just in time as it hits the wall behind his head.
“Asshole. You almost ruined this pretty face.” He touches his face with his hands, making a show of it.
“Why do you even come here?”
“Because, cousin, you are my absolute favorite person…” he pauses, and I raise a brow at him, “… to annoy.”