Crazy about Tara (Hastings Brothers Book 3)

by Mallory Funk

  “I’ll be right back,” my dad and brother both say at once and leave as fast as they can. It takes a second to click and then all the blood drains from my face. “Oh fuck,” I whisper.

  Paige, Courtney and Claire look at me with curious expressions and my sister and mom laugh at the look on my face.

  “What?” they all ask in confusion.

  “Oh, sister, you are fucked,” my helpful sister says on a laugh and my mom snickers quietly.

  “What, why do you say that?” Paige asks looking a little scared.

  “My brother and my dad just ran to help the men. Call Thomas over here before they brainwash him!” I say almost in a yell.

  Claire looks at me like I’m joking, but she does it anyways.

  “Hey Thomas, can you come over? Oh, they did? Well, Tara wants to see you- are you really going to deny the pregnant woman what she wants?” Claire says with a smile and I can’t help but laugh. I could see the up side to this pregnancy if it means that we get to keep Thomas on our team.

  Once she hangs up, she looks at me proudly. “He will be right over.”

  We all let out a laugh, and it’s not long before Thomas is coming through the back door.

  “Ok Tara girl, I’m here. What do you need?” he asks as he comes to kiss the top of my head and sits down beside me.

  “No matter what happens, you can’t help the guys. You were on our side first, and you can’t just switch teams like that. Well you can, but you shouldn’t because- because we are your women and you don’t want to leave us to fend for ourselves. There are more of them and, now that my dad and brother are over there, they have two more people to help them for a next couple weeks, and you can’t abandon us too because then we will be seriously outnumbered, and you wouldn’t do that to pregnant woman, would you?” I say and, before I know it, my eyes are filling with tears. I really don’t know why this is making me so emotional, but when I look at Thomas he’s trying to hold back laughter.

  “Tara, you girls really think that I would all of a sudden choose the men’s side because your brother and dad are helping them? I wouldn’t do that. You know how I love helping you ladies prank those men,” he says with a smile, and I nod my head at him and wipe the tears that have fallen away.

  I look at everyone else and they are looking at me with amused expressions. “Wow, Tara, I’d say that was your best rant yet,” Courtney says with a laugh.

  “I think it was the tears that made it the best one I have seen,” Paige says smiling.

  “Oh, shut up. I cannot wait till you girls are pregnant and have to deal with these stupid hormones, and the brothers watching your every move every day. Sometimes, I swear, I just want to punch them in the face when they tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. They wanted me to quit at the salon and stay at home like some kept woman. No way no how, that isn’t me and it won’t be. Just because I’m carrying a baby doesn’t mean that I can’t work for as long as I can,” I tell them going on a ramble.

  “This is just the first baby of the family. I’m sure they will calm down once more babies come into the picture,” Paige says with a small smile.

  All I can do is shake my head. I have a feeling that the brothers will be like this with every single one of us that gets pregnant. They are already over protective as it is.

  Derek

  All the men came over to Cole, Liam, and Sam’s house. It used to be all of ours, but Trevor and I had moved across the street to be with our women.

  The only person not here is Thomas, and I have a feeling that the girls called him just after we did and that’s why he isn’t here. We wouldn’t be able to get him on our side anyways, so I don’t know why the guys bothered trying. He loves helping those women prank us.

  Now it seems that Tara’s dad and brother are in on this while they are here for two weeks. They came over with a look of excitement in their eyes. All I could do was watch them in shock while they asked us what we had planned, or if we had any ideas. They seem to be really into it. It’s not every day that we would come across a dad who would want to help us prank his pregnant daughter.

  When all we can do is stare at him and Richard in shock, they roll their eyes. They then explain that they had spent lots of time pulling pranks and jokes on each other growing up and then we understood.

  You could always tell that Tara acted like she didn’t love it, but she did. There was always excitement in her eyes and huge smiles. I wanted to see that all the time.

  We spend most of the afternoon planning our attack on the women. It’s around dinner time that we decide that we have the perfect plan in place.

  We head over across the street to find out what the women want to do for supper. The house is empty, and all the lights are off. I grab my phone and text Tara to see where they are at.

  Me: Hey babe, where did you guys go?

  Tara: Oh, we went out for supper. I was starving, and you guys have been ‘folding laundry’ ‘having a shower’ ‘shaving’ and ‘mowing the lawn’ for over six hours, so we decided to go out to eat.

  Me: lol, okay did all of you go?

  Tara: All of us women and Thomas. We will be home sometime later. They took me to a buffet, so we might be here for a while.

  Me: Alright love. Enjoy your food.

  Tara: Oh, you have no idea.

  I laugh as I put my phone away.

  “They went and took Tara to a buffet, so it looks like we’re on our own tonight,” I tell them and Trevor and Sam nod in agreement. I guess they were messaging their women too.

  “Alright, Tara at a buffet is bad enough, but Tara pregnant at a buffet is too scary to think about. They might not make it back to play board games,” Hank grumbles.

  “Well, that might not be a bad thing,” Luke mumbles.

  “Why?” Richard asks.

  “Well Paige is… well, rather competitive,” Kyle says making the rest of us snort. She’s more than that, but it’s best if they find out for themselves. Paige has proven to be quite scary when board games, or any games really, are involved.

  Since the women went out for the night, we decide to put our plan into action. We spend the next couple hours setting up our prank. It doesn’t take long since there are quite a few of us. It weirdly feels like a bonding experience with Tara’s family.

  Chapter Seven

  Tara

  We make it back after supper around eight. It was nice to get out with the girls and Thomas without the guys telling me what I should eat. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time it’s sweet that they are looking out for me, but sometimes I just can’t stand it and don’t want anyone telling me what to eat. The girls seem to understand because when we are at the salon they order whatever I’m craving.

  We had made a plan to play games in the evening, so we head over to Paige’s where most of us live. Her house had seemed to become the place where we spend the most time hanging out.

  When we walked in, I had realized our big mistake. We left the guys unattended for hours.

  I looked left and right. We could barely enter the house. It was covered with balloons. How did they get so many balloons so fast? The whole house was literally covered in balloons.

  My mom and sister give chuckles. “This has your dad written all over it,” my mother states. I couldn’t do anything but nod my head. Yes, it really did. My father always pulled pranks with balloons. He kept a huge box of them in the basement at home for when he wanted to pull pranks.

  My sister and my mother pulled pens out of their purses to start popping them and I did the same. We had done this many times and the other girls followed behind also popping balloons.

  Thomas laughed and helped us get at least the downstairs done. It just seemed like more and more kept popping out of nowhere. I have no doubt that some balloons escaped while they were setting this up.

  We had half of the balloons popped before we realized that some of them were filled with confetti. It turned out to be one hell of a mess when we realized it
, so we tried to be more careful popping them avoiding the confetti ones as best we could.

  The guys come back after an hour of hiding out after we spent a great deal popping. They laugh when they see that we haven’t bothered to go upstairs.

  “Well, shall we start playing games?” my brother asks with excitement in his tone. No one says anything for a moment before we reluctantly agree, and I can practically feel Paige glaring daggers at everyone.

  We decide to play Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. We divide everyone into teams since there are so many of us. While we are getting everything ready, setting up in the kitchen for Trivial Pursuit, the living room for Monopoly, and grabbing drinks (mine non-alcoholic of course), Thomas goes to pick up Stephanie. He has never hung out with us on a game night before, but I think it’s because my parents are here that he wanted to join in on the fun.

  Paige, Hank, Thomas, and Caroline all decide to play Monopoly. Paige’s team have never played with her, and I think that’s why everyone was pushing to put them together.

  Trevor, Claire, and my mom are on a team. Sam, Courtney and Stephanie are on a team.

  Everyone else buddies up after that leaving Derek and Richard on a team, Liam and Luke on a team, Cole and Kyle on a team, and Noah and I on a team.

  We have an open living room and kitchen, so once everyone was ready, we had a view on the living room and all four of them around the coffee table beginning their game. We also pull out a bunch of chairs and divide the teams. I’m glad we have a huge kitchen so that it’s not so squished in here.

  I can already tell that tonight is going to be a good night.

  Derek

  I wake up this morning to the sound of the birds chirping and the sun in my face. There is a gentle breeze blowing across my face and I take the time to open my eyes and stretch out. When I do open my eyes, I am immediately looking at the morning sky. I look at the blue sky and clouds in confusion and, when I stretch out my arms, I realize I’m in the pool. I’m floating on an air mattress in the middle of the pool at Paige’s house.

  I lift my head up and take a look around to my left to see Luke, Noah, and Cole passed out on chairs on the deck. Kyle is also passed out on the table with what looks like lime wedges stuck to his body. I take a glance to my right and see Trevor passed out on the lawn on his stomach. Paige and Caroline are a few feet away from him cuddled up together.

  I let out a groan and roll into the pool. The jolt of the cold instantly wakes me up and takes away from some of the heat that has come from the sun already. I can already tell that it’s going to be a hot day.

  My splash has woken up Kyle, Noah, and Trevor. They all start groaning in pain. I can feel the headache already forming. Tara was the only one sober last night, so I’m taking a wild guess to think she got to be the only one to sleep in bed.

  “What the fuck happened last night?” Kyle asks climbing off the table and peeling a lime wedge off his chest.

  “Fuck, I don’t remember much after Paige lost her shit in Monopoly,” Noah says grumbling.

  Trevor wakes up Paige and Caroline, and Noah wakes up Luke and Cole.

  No one seems to remember much from last night. I decide to head into the house to get the coffee started and some pain killers for my head.

  When I walk into the kitchen, Tara is cooking breakfast and dancing around the kitchen singing to herself. Sam is asleep on the table in the kitchen. The smell of bacon doesn’t make me sick like I thought it would. It actually makes me glad that I’m going to have something greasy in a bit. I look, and the two coffee pots are already brewed along with Tara’s mini coffee pot.

  When she looks up and sees me, she smiles wide- too wide for my liking. “Morning baby, how did you sleep?”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “Well, I woke up in the pool, so you could only imagine.” She nods her head like she understands.

  “What I’m wondering is why my darling girlfriend, who was sober, left me to sleep outside with the rest of them,” I ask making my way to grab painkillers and a glass of orange juice from the fridge.

  I didn’t bother trying to get a kiss from Tara or go near her until I had a shower and brushed my teeth, especially since her nose is extra sensitive lately.

  She shrugged. “Well, you seemed so peaceful and told me you wanted to sleep under the stars. and when I told you I was going to enjoy our nice comfortable bed all by myself, you just waved me off, so I left you there since you put yourself on that air mattress like it was the best idea you ever had,” she said with a small laugh.

  I shake my head. That does sound like something I would do while drunk, and it has been awhile since I was all out drunk like that. I hope that is the most embarrassing thing that I did last night.

  “Alright baby, I’m going to head up and shower and then I will be down for some breakfast,” I say before I head upstairs and hear her mutter “good, because you stink.” All I could do was shake my head.

  On my way upstairs, I see that there are people passed out all over the living room. Tara’s dad is sleeping on the couch with her mom on the coffee table pushed up to the couch to act as a bed. I look and find Claire and Liam asleep in front of the TV with the game Boggle in between them. Richard is sleeping by the shoe rack hugging people’s shoes.

  On the stairs, Courtney is laying there covered with three jackets. When I finally make it up the stairs, I breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t see any more of my family randomly lying around the house.

  After a quick shower, I head downstairs and I hear a knock on the door that wakes up Courtney and Richard. I can’t help but laugh at Richard when he’s got a footprint on the side of his face and Courtney has a line through her forehead from the stairs.

  When I open the door, I see Thomas and Stephanie’s smiling faces.

  “I see you guys didn’t find a random place to fall asleep last night,” I say with a grin when everyone starts to wake up and look at their surroundings in confusion.

  Thomas chuckles and shakes his head. “Nope, we actually left after Paige had her freak out over Monopoly and called it a night.”

  I let them in and start walking to the kitchen for some much needed coffee.

  The first thing I do is give Tara a kiss and hug her to my chest. I lean down to whisper in her ear, “What the fuck happened last night? You’d think this was some college party with how everyone fell asleep last night.”

  She lets out a laugh before she moves out of my arms to finish breakfast.

  “Well, I took some videos if you guys want to see. I’m surprised I made it so late, but I didn’t want to miss the drunken fun you all seemed to be having last night.”

  “Holy fuck, I feel like I was ran over by a truck,” Claire says coming into the kitchen. She shakes her head when she sees Sam climbing off the table. “Glad to see you found a place to sleep, baby. It looks like I fell asleep kicking Liam’s ass in boggle.”

  Liam lets out a laugh. “Fuck, we got trashed last night. I only remember bits and pieces.”

  People start making coffees and then Tara makes two more pots since we don’t seem to have enough for everyone. Some grab orange juice and Hank grabs the chocolate milk from the fridge. I had no idea why Tara bought it, and when I asked she said that it was for her dad.

  When he opens it, he chugs down a good amount and lets out a loud burp. I’m pretty sure we are all standing there with shocked expressions on our faces.

  He looks as us and smirks. “Best hang over cure ever,” he says which makes his wife shake his head and take the carton from him to finish off what milk he didn’t drink.

  “All I need is some bacon and I’ll be good in no time,” Trevor says as his stomach growls.

  “So, does anyone remember what happen last night?” I ask everyone as they start making plates.

  Noah lets out a laugh. “I’m pretty sure we have never been that wild before. It all started with Paige freaking out during Monopoly.”

  “Oh wait, I recorded it!” Claire says
with a smile. She hooks up her phone to a lap top so that we have a bigger screen to watch.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re cheating! You should have let me be the banker!” Paige yells looking directly at Thomas. Hank and Caroline look at Paige with horrified expressions on their faces.

  “I did not cheat. You lost fair and square. Now take your piece off so that the rest of us can play,” Thomas says with a twitch of his lips.

  “I am awesome at this game and never lose, so that means you were all cheating! I will find a way to prove it!” she yells, and her face turns red with anger.

  “If you were so good at this game, you would have bought better properties instead of spending your money like crazy,” Hank says trying not to laugh.

  “This game is rigged!” she says before pushing the board off of the coffee table and storming off, causing everyone to laugh.

  I can’t help but laugh when the video ends. Paige puts her head in her hands and lets out a groan.

  “God, I’m never drinking tequila again,” she mumbles which makes us all laugh.

  “Sure, that was the problem,” Courtney mumbles which earns a glare from Paige.

  “Well, what happened after that?” I ask. I seriously want to know why no one ended up in their beds.

  “Oh my god! We played shot roulette after that! That’s why we were all wasted!” Claire says, and now it all starts coming back. We didn’t play just one round of that game we played several since there were so many of us.

  We talk over breakfast about everything that we did and spend a great deal of time laughing.

  Claire, Caroline, Noah, and Kyle spent a great deal of time singing karaoke since no one wanted to join them until more shots were done, and then it was a sing off which explains the word ‘winner’ on Sam’s chest when he woke up. I guess Claire wrote that on him after he got the loudest cheers.

  Afterwards, Trevor, Paige, and Richard decided that we needed a dance off. The winner of that appeared to be Hank, believe it or not, because we had the videos of him dancing and winning.