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Also, you know, not be subject to the never-ending teasing I was going to get from all my female relatives. I could practically hear it already.
"You so are," he said, reaching for my hand, sliding his fingers between, then pulling upward so he could kiss the back of it. "But we have no choice. Gina needed me to bring the ice."
She totally didn't need him to bring the ice. Her freezer had an ice maker. She just wanted to be able to contact him directly. And she hadn't asked me for the number. My mother, though, had her ways. I imagined it involved stopping over at Cash's townhouse to bring him some kind of baked good to butter him up, then casually asking him for Cy's number for some reason that was absolutely not what it seemed. And because Cash loved my mom - and likely wanted to see how it played out - he had given it to her.
"Alright, well, let's bring it in before it melts," I declared, taking a deep breath as I reached for my door.
"Bunny rabbit, relax," he said, putting his free hand at my lower back as we made our way up the driveway. "They are going to love me. I mean, have you met me? I'm fucking lovable as hell."
He was that.
I felt it down to my toes, up to the tips of my hair.
Love.
I mean, of course, I hadn't told him that.
I wasn't that psycho.
I would tell him in a reasonable amount of time. Or, you know, after he said it first. Yeah, that seemed about right.
But regardless of when I would say it, I felt it. I felt it more deeply than I even knew I was capable of.
And it wasn't sappy. As I knew it wouldn't be. As I couldn't stand in those cheesy, over the top stories I was never able to finish.
I could live without him.
He could live without me.
But, good God, it was so much better not to.
"Uh oh," I laughed as Alex appeared out the front door, looking annoyed. "What happened now?"
"I have a new skill," she declared, throwing out an arm. "I now also make it so that bread doesn't rise. Oh, yeah. I was just told that."
"As if your ability to make lettuce wilt wasn't enough!" I teased.
"The guys are out back," she told Cy. "But the women want to get their claws into you first. So gird your loins and get ready to lay that charm on as thick as we all know you are capable."
She reached to take the ice from him, and he rubbed his hands together like he was gearing up.
"Alright, show me to the women!"Cyrus -"So," Kenzi said, coming up beside me where I was leaning against the wall, watching Reese throw her head back and laugh at something Breaker and Alex were bantering about.
I liked seeing her like this.
I liked it more than I ever could have anticipated.
Because Reese wasn't often this laid-back, this un-self-conscious, this quick with a witty comeback.
Sure, she was that way with me a lot as she got more comfortable with our relationship, but outside of the times when we were alone, there were always shields, always a wall of uncertainty about her that made her come across as standoffish or shy.
She wasn't like that around these people, this ragtag group of various criminals and ex-criminals that made up her extended family.
I had never heard her laugh as much as she did in just the couple hours that we were in her mother's house. Hell, she even laughed at the none-too-subtle ribbing her mother was giving her about bringing a boy over.
"So?" I asked when she didn't go on, just kept watching me watch her baby sister.
"I've had longer to come to grips with this little plot twist," she went on. "But I think I was probably even more skeptical about it than Paine and Enzo. All those years they were off living their little criminal lives, I was right there with her. I watched her go through all her shitty relationships. I watched unworthy guys steal her time. I watched her settle and never truly be happy with anyone. Which was why she was so deeply buried in those books of hers."
My gaze moved away from Reese, an act that actually took effort. My eyes just always seemed to drift in her direction no matter what we were doing or where we were.
"So when I heard she was going out with a Henchmen, well, you can imagine what I thought."
"That we are a family-friendly, mismatched group of immensely good men?" I suggested.
"That every last one of you has a reputation of being a slut."
"Kenz..."
"Until you find your girl," she cut me off. "I mean, Reign adores Summer. Wolf and Janie are relationship goals for anyone. Then there's Cash and Lo, Repo and Maze... the list goes on and on. The problem was, I didn't know what Ree was to you. If maybe she was just one of those stepping stone girls until you found your diamond, or if she was it for you. I can see now that she's it. Every woman should be so lucky to be looked at like you're looking at my sister."
