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I had to.
Chapter Seven
Isabel
“Could you possibly be more of a bitch?”
Not a single person at the table blinked when Molly glared at me. I smiled because surrounded by the sheer chaos of our family, I was in my happy place.
“Because of this?” I lifted my fork, each tine loaded to the edge with rotini noodles. My gaze stayed right on Molly as I sniffed deeply. “Mmmm, the sauce smells so good, doesn’t it?”
Her eyes narrowed. I shoved the entire bite in my mouth and groaned. Molly picked up her own fork and stabbed her salad like it was a teeny tiny Isabel voodoo doll.
My sister’s fiance, Noah, rubbed her back and set a small piece of bread onto her plate. “You can have some carbs, Molly.”
“Yeah, Molly,” I said, “you can have carbs.”
She threw the bread at me, and I caught it with a laugh.
Paige sighed. “Isabel, don’t poke the carb-deprived bear.”
She set her jaw, my happy, kind, friendly sister who was so carb-deprived angry that she looked like she was plotting my death. “Easy for you to say, you work out for a living.” Then she glanced around the table. “Oh my gosh, half the people here work out for a living. This is bullshit,” she grumbled, spearing a piece of asparagus.
She wasn’t wrong.
Logan held up his hand. “Don’t include me in that. Coaches don’t have to be in shape.”
“You sure expect your players to be, though,” Noah grumbled between bites of his own pasta.
Logan exhaled happily. “Great conditioning today, wasn’t it, Griffin?”
Noah gave him a long look.
“Speaking of people working out for a living,” I said, “where’s Bauer?”
Claire sighed. “He’s up in Vancouver for some training thing that he couldn’t miss.”
I held my fist out across the table. “Hey, now I’m not the only single one at the family dinner.”
She bumped my fist. Our nephew, Logan and Paige’s ten-year-old son Emmett, scoffed. “I’m single too. Thanks a lot.”
Claire fist-bumped him, and I reached across to do the same.
Paige grinned over the rim of her wineglass. “This is the closest we’ve had to the whole zoo at one table in like … a year.”
“Is that why it’s so loud?” Logan asked.
“Yes,” Claire and I answered.
From the kitchen, Lia walked toward the table, balancing two plates in her hands. Behind her was her boyfriend, Jude, carrying a sound asleep Gabriel. He glanced around the table. “Anyone want a sleeping baby?”
Paige, Molly, and I all raised our hands.
Jude cast a skeptical look at all three of us, then lifted his chin at Molly. “You’re up, then.”
“Rude,” Paige muttered.
I frowned. “You’re just picking her because she’s got that look in her eye like she’ll cut you.”
