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“Don’t raise your voice with me, Dennis McAllister Baldwin.”
Low blow.
“Don’t call me that.”
My middle name is my mother’s maiden name.
“It’s the name your mother gave you,” Dad says.
“Oh, dear Lord,” Kat whispers. “Does everything have to be an argument in this house? Can we take a minute to be thankful that we have each other? That we’re all here under one roof for once. And in the middle of the hockey season, of all things.”
“Speaking of hockey,” Dad says. “The Flyers are on in an hour. I thought we could watch the game together.”
Kat smiles. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“With modern technology,” Dad says, “you can’t hide this for long. News outlets have zoomed in on the videos to read Duke’s lips. They know that Duke and Dean were talking about a baby.”
“They don’t know he was talking about Kat,” Austin says.
“Eventually, someone will figure it out,” Kat says. “My stomach will get too big to hide it. And I’m going to be living in the same apartment as Dean.”
Kat pulls her cell phone from her pocket to read a text message. She looks up at me and mouths, Thank you. Dean must have waited to tell her I apologized.
“I’ll order the pizza,” Austin says, reaching into his pocket for his cell phone.
“I’ll get the beer.” I head toward the kitchen and mutter, “I’ll need a lot of it to watch this shit.”
“I heard you, jerk,” Kat yells from behind me.
I snicker in response. “Trav, Theo.” They look up, and I point to the kitchen. “We need to talk.”
I promised Lila I would make more of an effort, and helping Dean out with the twins seems like a good start.
Chapter Sixteen
Duke
Lila looks good today. She’s dressed in a black pencil skirt that molds to her thighs and makes her legs look much longer. Her red top scoops low enough to give me a decent view of her cleavage. She has nice tits when she shows them. Most of the time, she’s covered up like a nun.
“Isn’t that what you want for your sister? A man who loves and supports her?”
Since the start of our session, Lila has been harping on my apology to Dean. She considers it a breakthrough in my recovery as if I have an addiction. Can you be addicted to being angry? Who knows.
“Yeah,” I retort. “Of course, I want that for Kat.”
She smiles. “I’m happy with your progress, Duke.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Okay, I guess.”
“Is that why you married that asshole? Because he knocked you up?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and frowns. “My personal life is none of your business, Duke.” Her anger seethes through her. “We’re here to talk about you.”
“I want to know the woman I’ve been telling all my secrets.”
“You’ve told me very little,” she snaps. “I understand that you’re upset about your sister and feel like you failed her, but there’s more to your story. You have a history of anger issues. And it’s my job to determine the source of that anger.”
