Page 4 of Buckle Up, Buttercup

“Or as good-lookin’,” shouts Jasper from the porch. “Get your hands off my damn sister! You know the rules!”

As I set Bluebell down, we share a playful eye roll. We’ve been friends since the twins and I were twelve and she was seven. I’ve hugged her about fifty million times at this point.

Snickering, she reaches out and wiggles her fingers all over my stomach and side. It tickles and I arch away from the touch, but she’s fully focused on Jasper.

“Oh no! I’m touching your best friend!” she shouts at him. When she grabs my leg and humps it like a chihuahua, I roll my eyes again.

“Stop that right now!” Jasper shouts. “I’m supposed to protect you from men, not men from you!”

Glancing down, I thump Bluebell on the tip of the nose. “You done fuckin’ with your brother yet?”

She releases my thigh and shrugs and I try not to notice the pretty blush across her high cheekbones.

“Get in here, Hay!” shouts Jasper’s twin from somewhere inside the house.

Gesturing for Bluebell to go ahead of me, I smile as I follow her through the Tuckers’ front door. Inside, a tall ceiling soars above us as we dump into their living room in a tight group. The twins, Jasper and Jack, talk over one another, Bluebell shouts for her mother, and Jace paces quietly past us to the kitchen where the scents of beef and onion saturate the air.

Elena and Bill Tucker stand at the stove, ignoring the raucous shouts of three of their children as they discuss the dinner seasoning.

“Alk’s here!” announces Bluebell.

Elena turns, wrinkled face breaking into a huge smile as she pulls Bluebell in for a hug. I wait patiently for Bluebell to untangle herself from her mama, then I dip low and haul Elena into my arms. She kisses my cheek as she squeezes my neck.

“Saw that win, Hay. You kicked ass, son,” says Bill from his spot at the stove.

Son.

“You look hungry,” Elena says. “Help Bluebell set the table, and we’ll get you fed. Lord, you've packed on some muscle, honey. Need to feed you less, or more, depending on how one looks at it.”

“Shouldn’t his parents do that?” Jack snarks. He loves to remind everyone how the Tuckers more or less adopted me since my folks are always traveling for work.

“Hard to feed me when they’re on a long-term expedition in Brazil,” I say back, setting Elena down and slapping Jack on the head with my tail spade. “Not to mention I’m a grown-ass man and can feed myself. You might wanna try it sometime, Jackhole.”

He rolls his eyes and disappears toward the dining room back behind the kitchen. Bluebell’s nowhere to be seen, but the fast beat of her heart thuds somewhere behind him, so I trail it to the dining room. She’s there, up on her tiptoes as she grabs a stack of plates from the giant wooden armoire where they keep everything.

Stacks of receipts and files.

Two dozen mismatched coffee cups.

Tons of frames filled with pictures of all of us. I’m in pretty much every photograph and that makes me smile.

“Allow me.” I reach over her, grab the stack, and hand them to her as she rolls her eyes.

“Must be nice to be seven feet tall.”

“I do get to see the top of your space buns,” I say with a snort. “Cute from way up here, although there’s paint on both of ‘em.”

She elbows me in the gut, then turns and deposits the plates in my hands. “Do this, would ya? I’ve got to go send a couple invoices before dinner ‘cause I’m ninety-nine percent sure the boys didn’t do it.”

“We didn’t,” Jasper says as he comes into the room with a tray covered tall with biscuits and toasted bread.

She and I share an eye roll before she disappears down the long hall behind the dining room. She’ll be gone a solid half hour, I’d bet, missing the first part of dinner like usual. I wish I could help, but I don’t know how the Tuckers do their invoicing for Tucker Greens, their green witch services business.

Jasper and Jack sit at their usual seats. Jace comes in from the kitchen with a tray of lasagna balanced in each hand. Elena and Bill follow him, Elena carrying an enormous salad bowl and Bill with two pitchers of beer.

Stalking back into the kitchen, I grab three pitchers of ice water and follow them back into the tall, round dining room.

“Where’s Bluebell?” Elena asks, glancing at Jack.