“Hip hip!”
“Hooray!”
“Blow out your candles,” I insist, clapping my hands like a seal.
“This is a fire hazard,” Whit grumbles, but he does as I ask, blowing out theat leastsixty candles on his birthday cake. This is what happens when you leave someone else to light them. Someone like Brin. “I’m cutting you all off,” he adds as we all cheer. “Except you.” His hand hooks around my waist, pulling me to him. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Between my legs gives a little pulse at the way he looks at me the moment before he pulls me close.
“When can we send them all home?” His words are a hot whisper against my neck.
“Not for a while,” I trill, pulling away.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he grumbles as he catches El showing his date for the night his phone.
“You don’t know that’s what he’s showing her,” I say quickly, coming to his brother’s defense.
“Of course it is. He delights in winding me up because I, the better man, won the girl.”
“El was never interested in me,” I scoff, but he’s already stormed off.
“How many times do I have to pay to have this thing taken down?” he mutters. Whipping the phone out of his brother’s hand, he begins poking at the screen.
“Oi!” El complains, taking it back. “Get your glasses on. You nearly poked my eye out!”
El doesn’t confess that he’s the one who loads the video to YouTube as soon as Whit has it taken down. That’s the video taken at Speakers Corner when he recited his sweet poem to win my heart.Like he didn’t own it already.Some bystander (brother) loaded it to the platform, and it almost immediately went viral, and poor Whit touted (taunted?) as the Poet Banker. British humor being what it is, this soon morphed into the Poet Wanker. Needless to say, he hates when anyone brings it up. But as he says, the embarrassment means nothing because he won the girl.
“I thought people were supposed to be nice to you on your birthday?” Whit complains, standing in the middle of our new home in Belgravia. Four bedrooms, a huge family kitchen, a beautiful garden with a tree house, and a playroom.
Crossing fingers and toes. I send my silly prayer into the ether.
“Everyone here is nice to you. Look at all the presents you’ve received.”
“It would be nicer if they all buggered off home.”
“Looks like someone has been hanging around with Beckett too long.” Olivia, Beckett’s wife, laughs as she passes, champagne glass in hand.
“I’m nothing like Beckett,” Whit complains, his brows lowering. Just like Beckett. But then Heather arrives by my side, shoving a sticky two-year-old girl into my arms. “Aunt Mimi loves a hug.”
“Cookie,” the kid demands, pointing at the cupboard they’re kept in. Whit gets the jar out, takes little Dahlia, and thrusts her back into the arms of his sister. “Mimi is busy. She needs to help me with something in the cellar.”
Whit’s siblings are all doing well and mostly taking care of themselves. Primrose is studying to become a psychologist and has a long-term boyfriend. Lavender has become a bit of a renovation queen and is more likely to be seen wearing overalls and ripping down partition walls these days than smashing a love rival’s window. Daniel married his Balinese backpacking girlfriend last year, and Heather and Archer have little Dahlia and another on the way. That just leaves El and Brin, who seem to enjoy sampling rather than settling down. I have noticed that Whit has been very firm since the next generation of Whittingtons is on the horizon. He doesn’t exactly sound like afunclewhen he categorically refuses to babysit. Despite my telling him it’s okay and that I don’t feel sad when I hold other people’s babies, he’s still very protective of me.
“The cellar?” I answer.
At the same time, Heather quips, “Because you need help lifting something heavy?” The insinuation is strong in this one. “Come on, little flower,” she says, hugging her daughter. “Let’s go find Gigi instead.”
“Yes, do that. Your grandmother should be smothered in sticky fingertips at all times.”
“Like Doreen, you mean.”
I groan aloud at Heather’s words. “Please don’t tell me she’d been regaling you with smutty stories again.”
“Okay, I won’t say it. What I will say is that she’s a hoot.”
“Enough chatting.” Whit grabs my hand and pulls me out of the kitchen behind him.
“Wave bye-bye to Aunt Mimi,” Heather says. “It looks like Uncle Leif wants his birthday gift early.”
