Page 52
“Uncle Sully, sit still!” Mia demanded, standing on the ottoman like a miniature general while armed with a glittery brush.
“I am still,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Your face isn’t,” Lily chimed. She held a tube of sparkly lip gloss with the confidence of someone who’d already remodeled three dolls and a cat earlier in the day.
He sighed and gave in. “Fine. Artistic freedom, right?”
Both girls squealed and got to work, brushing, patting, and misting his hair with something that smelled like strawberries. Somewhere in the chaos, Sully realized his nieces had achieved the impossible—they’d made him forget about his worries. Specifically the chaos at the mansion, and the many ways he might have said the wrong thing to Amy that morning. Interactions with women he was attracted to were not his forte. He was well out of practice.
“Uncle, you look beautiful!” Mia declared.
“I look like I lost a bet,” Sully muttered, but grinned anyway.
They laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks, then insisted on taking several blurry pictures with his phone “for Mom.” He could already imagine his sister’s face when she saw them. Perfect blackmail material, he thought.
The clock nudged toward six. “Pizza man should be here any minute,” he said, wiping a streak of lavender eye shadow from his cheek with a towel.
The girls clapped and dashed to the living room window. “We’re starving!”
He was about to follow when the doorbell rang.
“Showtime,” he said. He stood—and froze halfway. The shadow on the porch wasn’t the pizza delivery guy.
It was Amy.
He blinked, then opened the door.
“Hey,” he said, quickly running a hand through his disheveled, glitter-sprinkled hair. “You’re not carrying a pizza.”
She smiled, holding out a small box tied with a pink ribbon. “Nope. But it could be dessert. A thank-you from me and Marissa’s bakery. I missed you at the house, so I thought I’d bring them by.”
Sully’s grin widened before he could help it. “I love her cookies. You didn’t have to drive all the way out here.”
“After the night and morning you had, it felt like the least I could do,” she said. Then her eyes flicked upward, amusement glinting there.
He frowned. “What?”
Before she could answer, two small faces appeared at his side.
“Amy!” the girls squealed. Of course they would know her; her nephew was in the same third-grade class.
Amy crouched to greet them. “Well, look at you two. Aren’t you supposed to be causing trouble somewhere?”
“We already did!” Mia chirped proudly. “We gave Uncle Sully a makeover!”
Amy’s eyebrows arched as Sully groaned softly behind them. “No kidding,” she said.
“It’s… uh… experimental.” He motioned vaguely toward his head.
“We used real eye shadow and three kinds of sparkle spray!” Lily added helpfully. “Do you want to see the pictures?”
Amy’s light and genuine laugh filled the small foyer. “Absolutely, I do.”
Sully tried to intercept his phone, but the twins were too quick. One swiped to a photo and handed it over. Amy bit her lip, trying—and failing—to hold back a grin.
“Oh, Sully,” she said, laughter in her voice. “That’s actually… kind of impressive. The butterfly clip really ties it together.”
“Wait. Butterfly clip?” He patted his head frantically until his fingers found something plastic nestled in his hair. He pulled it out and held it between his fingers. The thing sparkled pink under the light.
