I helped her pull it up, lifting slightly to remove it out from under my prone body, then turned so that I could pull her in tight to my body.
She curled into me even more, resting her head on my bicep, and then pressed a small kiss to my nose.
“’Night, Lock.”
“’Night, baby.”
The last thing I thought before sleep started to drag me under was that I really could love her.
Chapter 10
Before you marry someone, you should always play Monopoly with them. That way you know how they’ll react when you put a hotel on every single space and ultimately ruin their life. If they stay with you after you cheat like an asshole, then they’re keepers.
-Saylor to her parents
Lock
I knew she was nervous, which was why I pulled her hand into mine and tucked her body in close.
“It’s going to be okay,” I promised. “You’ll know people. Jonah and Piper will be here.”
She made a rude noise underneath her breath.
“I’m nervous because I’m meeting your family for the first time,” she said. “What if they don’t like me?”
“Like your dad doesn’t like me?” I challenged. “And don’t worry, you’ll always have someone that likes you when it comes to Rune. But she’s actually under contract out of state right now as a travel nurse. She won’t be home for weeks yet. But, she’s always gonna be pro-you because I’m her favorite out of everybody. Big brother can do nothing wrong in her eyes.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward.
“You’re silly. And, just sayin’,” she snickered. “My dad doesn’t like anyone. But my mom calls every night and asks if you’re there, and when I tell her you’re not off work yet, she gets all ‘okay’ and thinks that I’m hiding you from her. She asks to talk to you all the time.”
I frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve talked to her.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I said that, but she’s so busy getting her classroom ready that she barely has time for our nightly chats,” she told me as we made our way up the front walk of my parents’ home.
“Nightly chats?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She scrunched up her nose. “I talk to my mom every single day when she’s leaving work. Or when I’m leaving work. It depends on who’s the last one to leave that day. Most of the time it’s me, seeing as she gets out at four-ish in the afternoon.”
“What could y’all possibly have to talk about?” I asked. “And how long do y’all talk?”
She shrugged and came to a stop when I opened the door, blinking at the dog that was laid out in the middle of the front walk, not moving.
“We talk about what happened that day, what our plans are for the weekend. Whatever.” She bent down to her haunches and looked at the dog. “Pretty.”
“That’s Mocha,” I said.
“Mocha’s a cute name.” She smiled as she swept her hand down the length of Mocha’s coat. “How did y’all come up with that? It’s very unique.”
“I didn’t.” I paused. “Or we didn’t. We got her from Trance.”
She looked at me.
“Ahh,” she said. “The name sounds familiar.” She scratched Mocha behind the ear. “She’s really old.”
That didn’t even begin to describe it.
I shrugged. “Very, very,” I agreed. “She’s on the decline fast. Dad’s denying that it’s time…and we’re helping him prepare because it’s inevitable.”
But before I could explain any more, the door was flung open and my mother was there, practically jumping up and down in excitement.
“Come in, Saylor!” she cheered. “We have wine!”
Saylor gave Mocha one last pat and stepped over her, as did I.
“What about me, Mom?” I asked. “I’m here, too.”
My mother rolled her eyes and then tugged Saylor by the hand before leading her into the kitchen, leaving me to roll my eyes at her lack of caring toward her only son.
“Looks like you were replaced.”
I looked up to see my uncle Drew standing there, leaning against the fireplace with a beer in his hand.
“As the favorite?” I guessed.
Drew grinned. “Yep.”
“I’m sure I’ll win back the spot once Saylor’s been here for a while. When the new wears off,” I teased.
“I heard that!” Saylor said loudly from the kitchen.
I grinned and took Drew’s hand and shook it before gesturing toward his beer.
“Can I get you another one?” I asked.
He shook his head. “This one is full for now.”
I gave him a chin lift and disappeared into the kitchen where the majority of the others were surrounding the island.
My mother had her arm around Saylor’s waist as she was introducing everyone to my girl.
“And this is my daughter, Ares. But you’ve met her before, right?” my mom asked.
Saylor nodded. “Briefly.”
Ares grinned. “Briefly, as in when she nut-punched that guy.”
Saylor covered her face as a blush overtook it.
“I’ll never live that down as long as I’m alive,” she muttered.
I tugged on her ponytail and walked to my dad, offering my hand.
“Heard you had a hostage call a little before shift end,” I said. “I thought for sure you weren’t going to make it.”
Dad grinned.
“Actually, I handed that job off officially as of today,” he answered. “No more negotiations for me. I’m also being replaced as the spokesman for KPD, too. I’m now backup if I’m ever needed. You’re looking at a man that no longer has to live by the sound of his pager.”
“They’re not pagers anymore, Dad,” Ares said as she offered Saylor a glass of wine. “They’re phone calls. Or alerts through an app.”
“Whatever,” he muttered. “Drink your wine and shut up before I remember that you ate all my cookies today.”
“I didn’t eat all of your cookies,” Ares denied. “Mom did.”
“Hey!” Mom said. “I didn’t eat them all, either. Aspen had some, too!”
“Don’t blame that on me, Memphis!” Aspen, my aunt, challenged with her own half-filled glass of wine. “I was just eating one because you handed it to me.”
“And it begins,” Dad muttered. “Where the hell is Drew?”
“In the living room talking to my husband,” Piper said as she came into the room. “Apparently it’s quieter out there.”
Without another word, Dad took another full beer from the fridge and left, leaving only the girls and me watching him go.
“You didn’t even save me one cookie, Mom?” I batted my eyes owlishly at her.
My mother’s mouth twitched, then she walked to the cabinet where she kept her wine and extracted one single cookie.
My mother’s cookies were to die for, literally. There was a point in time where Ares, Rune, and I had fought to the death over them. I was fairly sure I’d actually been executed by Ares once while she was on her period when I’d tried to eat the last one. Luckily my mother was always there to revive me.
Splitting the cookie in half, I winked at Saylor and handed it to her before also getting a beer and exiting the room.
I left silence in my wake.
***
Saylor
“Wow,” Ares said, causing my eyes to move to her. “I never would’ve guessed had I not just seen the evidence.”
I took a bite of the cookie, and Memphis started to speak.
“There was this one time,” Memphis began. “That there was one cookie left.” She started to laugh. “Ares was about sixteen. Lock eighteen. He was being shipped off to the military the next day.” Her eyes saddened. “I made him cookies for the last time, and he shared them with Ares and Rune. Ares was in a really shitty mood because she’d failed her driver’s test, hadn’t gotten her driver�
��s license like she’d wanted, and couldn’t go out with her friends that night as a consequence. Well, she could go out, but she couldn’t drive them like everyone had planned.”
“Thanks for sharing this embarrassing story, Mother,” Ares said dryly.
My eyes flicked to her.
She didn’t look embarrassed, she looked amused.
Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun on top of her head, and tendrils of it were falling down into her face and tickling her ears.
I wished I could perfect the messy bun look like her.
She really had it down pat.
And God, she was so beautiful.
She looked like Ariel.
For real, if I had to imagine a life-like Ariel, Ares would be it.
She had bright flaming red hair that most people could never hope to achieve even after hours at a salon. Her skin was creamy and blemish-free, and staring at her now, I knew without a doubt that she didn’t have an ounce of makeup on.
“Anyway,” Memphis continued, pulling my attention back to her. “So, they’re divvying out their cookies. Ares starts eating hers. And throughout the night they’re almost completely eaten. Then their dad comes home from a SWAT call and eats three. One of Lock’s and two of Ares’.”
I could guess where she was going with this.
“They get up the next morning, and everyone is running around like a chicken with their heads cut off.” Memphis paused. “I’m like completely useless because I’m sending my baby off to bootcamp. Downy is trying to pick up the slack, but he was running on two hours of sleep. Ares is still pissy and hormonal and a general teenager about the night before. And Lock’s trying to get his shit packed because like always he forgot to do it the day before.”
“And then, I found out that my cookies were gone.” Ares started to giggle.
“And then she finds out that her cookies are gone,” Memphis agreed. “And she loses her fucking mind. She tackles Lock, and shit gets heated. She demands to know where the cookies are. And Lock has no fucking idea what she’s talking about. But like always, he’s always up for a fight with his little sister, so he wrestles her off of him. This goes on for freakin’ ever, and it’s only then that we realize that the power had gone out in the middle of the night around twelve, making all of the clocks close enough to the actual time that we don’t realize we’re late until Downy’s alarm is going off for him to go to work.”
“Yet at that point, Lock is pissed because I scratched his face and he’s going to have to go to his swearing-in ceremony with claw marks on his face, so he won’t stop even when both of our parents realize how fucking late we are.” Ares shook her head.
I’m giggling so hard I’m laughing.
“What happened then?” I asked, taking a bite of the cookie.
“Downy took Ares, started bellowing at Lock that it was time to fucking go, and we all leave with almost zero shit at all.” Memphis shook her head. “I didn’t even bring my phone. Couldn’t get pictures of them taking my baby away. Ares was grounded from hers so we made her leave hers there. Downy got called out for a SWAT call during the middle of it leaving halfway through. It was a disaster.” She paused. “All of it over a freakin’ cookie.”
Aspen brought her wine glass to the half-empty bottle and poured herself another healthy dose.
“I don’t think that Downy thought he was going to use his hostage negotiator skills on his own kids,” Aspen said dryly. “Man, I remember that one. Ares was in fine form.”
Ares buffed her nails on her shirt.
“What can I say,” she said. “I took cookies seriously.”
I took another bite of the cookie that Lock had handed me.
He’d never had any problem sharing with me.
None.
The doorbell rang and everybody’s laughter silenced.
“I ordered food to be delivered,” Memphis said as she refilled her cup. “Anybody else need anymore?”
I finished off the cookie and held out my cup.
“I’m glad you don’t give me wussy fills,” I said as I brought it back to its original resting place on the counter. “Why bother filling a wine glass half-full?”
Ares started to laugh.
“Oh, you’ll fit in here well,” Ares said as Lock appeared in the doorway with what looked to be food from a Chinese restaurant.
“Mom, you ordered the whole store,” Lock said dryly.
Memphis made room on the counter for the box.
“I didn’t know what Saylor liked, so I ordered a bit extra of everything,” Memphis answered.
I felt my cheeks heat.
“That was very nice of you, Memphis,” I said. “I usually eat anything, but given the choice, I’m going to get green bean chicken or vegetable chicken.”
Something that most people wouldn’t bother with getting. I was weird that way, though.
The kitchen went silent.
“That’s what Lock likes, too,” Memphis said. “I didn’t order any extra of that because Lock’s usually the only one that eats it.”
I smiled at Lock who was winking at me devilishly.
“We have superior tastes,” he teased. “You can have some of mine.”
“You never let me have any of yours,” Ares countered.
“That’s because you only like eating the chicken,” Lock countered. “And you smell.”
Ares flipped him off. “I do not smell.”
“You smell like a perfume factory,” he countered. “It offends my nose.”
Ares scoffed. “That was when I was a teenager. I don’t smell like that anymore.”
“Then you must’ve permanently damaged my olfactory nerves.” He touched his nose and began handing out food.
“Just to say, but Saylor wears the same scent as me,” Ares suddenly said to her brother. “So, if my scent offends you, then Saylor’s will, too.”
I had noticed that.
My lips twitched into a small smile as I tried to keep the grin off my face.
Lock’s eyes turned to me. “She smells good. You don’t, Ares.”
The way his eyes twinkled when he said that made me want to burst out laughing.
“You’re impossible.” She huffed, taking her food and leaving.
Aspen and Memphis took their husbands’ food and their own and left shortly after.
When everyone had their food, they walked to the kitchen table. Lock waited until they were gone to say, “You smell great. In fact, I could smell you all day long and not get tired of it.”
Laughter built in my throat, and this time I didn’t hold it in.
***
Lock
“I gotta admit,” Saylor said quietly. “I really do only like the chicken sometimes in the green bean chicken.”
I watched her bite into a green bean with a grimace.
“What’s wrong with it?” I wondered.
“They don’t always cook them enough for me,” she answered. “These are too hard. I hate hard green beans.”
I started divvying up the chicken, pushing it to one side of the plate and the green beans to the other.
“There,” I said. “Don’t eat them if you don’t like them.”
She pressed a kiss to my shoulder and started eating only the chicken off of my plate.
When I looked up, it was to find Ares staring at me in disbelief.
“What?” I challenged.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
I knew why.
She was flabbergasted that I was allowing Saylor to do the things that I would never allow anybody else.
I took a bite of a green bean and raised a challenging brow at her.
She narrowed her eyes.
“Hey, Saylor,” Ares said, eyes aimed on me. “Did you know that Lock wasn’t potty-trained until he was almost six?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Rea
lly?” Saylor said. “That’s funny. Neither was I.”
Saylor’s hand found my thigh underneath the table and squeezed.
“He also didn’t kiss a girl until he was twenty-one,” she continued. “He was a late bloomer. He actually used to be fat before he went to bootcamp.”
That, unfortunately, was true.
Jonah started laughing.
“You were pretty chunky,” Jonah agreed. “But you grew tall as fuck while you were gone.”
That was true, too.
“I was the same,” Saylor said. “I was a chunky, cute baby. Sweet, fat little toddler. And I just kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I was way overweight as a kid.”
“I remember that,” Piper said. “You were always self-conscious about it, too. Then between one party I saw you at and the next, you’d bloomed. Slimmed-down.”
“My mom and I went on a diet.” Saylor laughed. “I learned the art of exercise and eating right. And I also found out that I had a thyroid problem. Once I was on meds for the thyroid problem, I slimmed down a lot.”
“Wow,” Ares said. “You’d never have guessed that you were overweight as a kid. I wouldn’t have even believed it about Lock, to tell you the truth.”
She grinned when she looked up at me.
“Me, neither.”
I looped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into my chest.
“I don’t take meds anymore,” she said. “But I also am very conscious that I likely will when I’m older. The doctor told me that my hormones were throwing everything out of whack.”
“Wish I could blame mine on anything other than being lazy.” Aspen laughed.
Drew, who was sitting next to his wife, curled his arm around her neck and buried his face into her hair.
“You had my babies,” he said. “It’s understandable that you’re going to not be a tiny little stick anymore.”
Aspen smiled softly.
“And I’d do it again. All day and every day,” she said sweetly.
I normally would’ve gagged over their syrupy sweet words, but then Saylor nudged a piece of chicken my way, and I finally understood.
I’d be the same exact way with Saylor.
Had been, actually.
I wasn’t normally a food sharer. Ares was right. It was odd for me to be doing what I was doing.
Sinners are Winners Page 14
