“Sorry,” she says, already stepping back. “I have to?—”
She turns away, wiping beer off her chin.
“Hi,” she says into the phone, then coughs. “Sorry, I just shotgunned a beer. It’s—no, it’s fine. Yes, I know what time it is.” A pause. “Derek, it’s just a harmless little tradition.” Another pause, longer. “Okay. Give me a minute.”
She moves around the corner of the porch, out of earshot.
Tanner watches her go. The smile is still on his face but his eyes are doing something different, something unhappy and complicated.
“Doctor fucking Dickface,” he mutters.
Chapter 42
Sugar Fiend
LILA
My family’s Thanksgivings were nothing like this.
That’s the thing I keep coming back to as I look around the wreckage of Rosemont’s dining room: the decimated turkey, the empty dishes and wine glasses, everyone now thoroughly stuffed and equally thoroughly relaxed.
My mother had our staff cook and serve and clean while the family sat in the formal dining room drinking heavily and eating sparingly and sniping at each other with increasing passive aggressiveness as the evening wore on.
This is two dozen people crammed around a table that seats half that and everyone talking over everyone else and laughter and noise from every corner.
We cooked all day. We ate everything.
At one point Slade had Jonah balanced on one knee and then Walker handed him both baby girls, one in each arm, and Slade took them without hesitating, adjusting his grip with acompetence that suggested this wasn’t new to him. I watched as Jonah was explaining something very seriously to his uncle while Lucky pressed her head against Slade’s knee and panted up at him adoringly.
“Get in there, Lila,” Sadie told me. “We need an auntie and uncle picture.”
So I draped myself behind my gorgeous, serious, incredibly adorable cowboy husband, my hands on his shoulders. And then a teeny little baby fist closed around my finger and my heart melted all the way through the floorboards.
That’s the moment Sadie snapped the picture of us, me no doubt looking besotted and deliriously happy as I smiled into the camera.
Now the sun has set and Lucky is passed out on the couch, very pregnant and content and snoring. And somehow I’ve ended up sitting on my husband’s lap on an armchair by the fire while he plays with my hair and we both stare idly at the football game playing on the flatscreen.
Slade’s body heat warms me from beneath while there’s a fuzzy blanket draped over me on top. It’s heaven.
“You sleepy?” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear.
“Post turkey tryptophan coma,” I sigh. “And the pie. So much pie.”
A kiss pressed to the sensitive skin behind my ear. Below earshot, he says, “Can I have you for dessert next?”
I shiver at the sensation of his stubble against my neck. “Thought you didn’t like dessert.”
“I do now. Can’t help it, when my wife goes around smelling like marshmallows. With that pretty candy pink hair. Lips tasting like cinnamon. You’ve turned me into a sugar fiend,” he whispers in my ear. “You got me craving my fix.”
He kisses my cheek. Beneath the blanket, out of view of anyone else, his hand slides to cup my ass.
“Don’t expect much,” I tease, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I don’t have an ounce of energy left.”
His fingers squeeze me. “I’ll take care of you,” he says. Like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like he would love nothing more than to do just that. “Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about sneaking you back home since at least noon.”
“Oh yeah? To do what, Mr. Rhodes?”
Before he can answer, Tanner appears in the doorway rubbing his hands together.
