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Chapter Four
“No eating anything,Violet. We’re meeting Dad’s friend, Jonas, for brunch,” Sera Lovely told the eight-year-old on the stool at the island, as if the little girl cared at all about who the man was.
Jonas. Even his name sent Buzz’s body into lust mode that morning. But then again, it had been less than twelve hours since she’d had the best sex of her life with him. She could still feel his hands all over her body; then there was his mouth.
He was probably the reason she was just sitting in the kitchen on a stool like a lump, unable to even pretend to be a part of the conversation. So, she just let her sisters talk around her. Buzz had six sisters and a stepmom, and they didn’t even notice.
“So, you’re finally seeing the client?” Harper asked as she pulled divine-smelling cinnamon rolls from the oven. Harper was almost always making something, but Lucy always made the cinnamon rolls.
“Yes. He’s in a hotel for the week, and Harrison wants us to meet him before the wedding. Something about him being his best friend once. He’s invited to the wedding also,” Sera said with a grin, mostly at the cinnamon rolls, but maybe a little at the stuffed pork chops Harper took out next. Or maybe because in a few days, she would be married to the man she was so in love with. It was mostly that—Sera hadn’t stopped smiling in months, and it was all because of Harrison.
Seraphina had married Buzz’s dad years before when the woman was just nineteen and pregnant. Bradford Lovely had split almost instantly, leaving the woman behind with five girls ranging in age from ten to fifteen, never looking back. So, the woman Buzz considered her mom was only ten years older than her.
“Pork chop?” Harper asked her stepmom, who was eyeing them. Buzz knew the only thing Sera would miss about living in the house full-time with her five stepdaughters were the leftovers from catering jobs. Since Harper and Lucy had started it three years before, the family had been eating very well.
“No, Harps. We’re going to brunch,” Sera protested, not looking at the blonde but at the food on the pan in front of her.
“Are you sure?” Harper dropped one on a plate and pushed it over to Sera.
“Sera, are you enjoying your last days of sweet freedom?” Maby asked from another stool that earned her a side-hug from Sera.
Buzz’s sister had gotten married not two months before, beating her stepmother to the alter.
Since then, Harper had also fallen in love and gotten married a few weeks before. Each of her stepdaughter’s weddings had been Sera’s way of having practice weddings. Each had made the woman change her actual wedding just a little, which meant no doves and no limos anymore, and definitely no Christmas decorations despite the wedding being in December.
“Where’s Lucy?” Sera asked Maby since they were twins.
“Not my sister’s keeper. I don’t even live here.” Maby took a roll from her sister and yelped as she burned her fingers on it, then licked the hot icing from her fingers.
Maby sucked on her burned fingers and looked around the room with sadness in her eyes. She had recently moved into a large house across town with her husband, a house everyone knew that Maby hated, which caused her to miss the Lovely house even more. But she loved Cliff, so she said nothing, though Buzz was sure Cliff knew as well.
Harper had followed suit not a week later, moving in with her fiancé, a man who happened to be Sera’s brother and now lived near Maby and Cliff. So far, she was happier with the move, but she still worked out of the Lovely kitchen for her catering business, so she was home a lot.
Both would return to the house every Saturday morning for breakfast, an accidental ritual that had caused everyone to return home for years. Though until recently, it was from dates and not living arrangements. So, Saturday mornings were designated sister time. Or Thursday, as today was.
“Buzzy, do you know?” Sera turned her attention to her.
“Her door was open. I don’t know.” It was open at 2 a.m. when she came home and had still been open that morning. She could have slept there because Lucy hadn’t. Both Harper’s and Maby’s beds might have been open also, but they sometimes stayed over the night before breakfast. So instead, she had slept on the couch in the living room, which was why she was up so early this morning. Harper’s mixer was as loud as a freight train.
She desperately wanted to be cocooned under the covers and sleeping, letting her body recover from the multiple orgasms from the night before. But no, she was here, talking to all these people. So many people.
“Buzz, where were you yesterday that you couldn’t help out?” Harper asked, putting a roll on a plate and handing it to Sera’s eight-year-old, Violet. Sometimes, Mom was ignored.
“I was working on a story.”
“Did you get it?” Sera asked in excitement, turning her blue gaze toward her.
“No, I just kind of messed it up. I’ll probably get fired for it before you even get married, Sera,” Buzz admitted as she got up and grabbed a cinnamon roll and took a big bite of the pastry. Really, she didn’t want to talk about it. She wasn’t a bad reporter; she just couldn’t get any good stories. It had been her last chance, and it was gone.
“What are you going to do now?” Maby asked, not even trying to pretend to be optimistic. She was a literature professor at the university. Maby would never know what it was like to be fired—she was too perfect for that.
“I don’t know, buy a paper and start looking for a job? Any openings for a liberal arts degree anywhere?” She plopped down on a chair at the table.
“Let me look for something. I have nothing else going on. I took this entire week off for Sera,” Maby said from her stool, which earned herself a smile from their stepmom.
“Remember, I have no experience in anything,” Buzz pointed out from the table.
“You have a little experience in everything,” Sera argued as she finally grabbed the plate of pork chops from Harper. Sera loved it there. She also didn’t let her kids get down on themselves. Her glass was always full and running over.
