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Think half-pound patties and an entire basket of fries. Per person.
Plus, she’d gotten a milkshake because…milkshakes were life.
And did she drink that first and possibly ruin her dinner?
Yes.
But it was Nutella flavored with chunks of cookie dough and a huge mound of whipped cream, slops of Nutella spooned over the top—all of which were melting and threatening to drip down the sides of the glass.
So, she had to take one for humanity and the dishwashers and bus people.
She’d had to save them from a pile of melted ice cream and Nutella.
Just doing her duty here, folks.
But all that duty meant that she’d barely had a quarter of her burger and certainly hadn’t made a dent in her fries, aside from those she’d dipped in her shake, like any sane person would do.
“You’re off,” Anton, her eldest brother said, setting down his burger and doing his best to fix her in place with a look.
“I’m immune to that”—she said, waving a hand at his glare—“so just wipe it away. I’m off because I’ve had a long week, I’m fighting with a friend, and I saw Mom and Dad on Wednesday.”
“Who?” Gabe snapped.
“Who am I fighting with?” she asked, not bothering to pretend she didn’t know what he was asking.
A nod.
“None of your business,” she told him, ignoring his scowl, the way he glanced at Anton, and silently solicited their older brother for help corralling their younger sister.
Anton—well, she and Anton were in an okay place at the moment.
He was still pushy.
But he’d hit up against her limits a couple of years ago, and she’d pushed back. Since then, she wouldn’t say that he necessarily saw her as a capable equal. And yeah, that still stuck in her craw, but she’d long since learned that she couldn’t change other people’s opinions of her, could only control how she felt, where she found her worth, and who she spent her time with—the last of which Anton understood, because she’d made it fucking clear that would not behimafter he’d showed up at her work and threatened Rafe about some stupid interaction with an a-hole of a client (not that her big, tough, protective boss had gotten upset, since they both spoke caveman, but thankfully, he had respected her enough to let her handle her own shit—AKA her own family).
Regardless, he’d gotten the message, and he’d backed off then, just as he did now when she shot him a look.
“I’m just saying you’re off, T,” Anton murmured. “Not that you owe me a verbal accounting of every thought and interaction of your week.”
“Says who?” she grumbled.
He stole her spoon, scooped out some of the dredges of her milkshake.
“Hey!” she snapped, reaching for the spoon.
“Says me,” he said, not giving it to her, still working on her shake.
Brothers.Seriously.
“What did the parentals do?” he asked.
She sighed, picked up a fry. “Nothing. They were their normal selves.”
“So, they drove you an inch away from crazy,” Anton quipped.
“Yup.” She waggled her manicure, which, miracle of miracles, had survived mostly intact up until this point. “But at least Mom and I have nice nails.”
Gabe leaned back, crossed his arms. “You know they mean well.”
