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“Lucky me,” he said. “Anything you want to do next week for New Year’s Eve?”
“I’m taking care of dinner. You cooked last time. I’ve got a few ideas of things to do too.”
“Then I’ll let you deal with it all,” he said. “Crap, I’ve got another call coming in. It’s my mother. I should go.”
“Talk to your mother. If you don’t take it, she might ask why and we don’t want you lying about talking to a woman.”’
“See, you get me. Night.”
“Night, Ivan.”
She hung the phone up and put it to her chest. A man that loved his mother too. Just about perfect.
11
Heads Up
At eleven thirty on Wednesday, Ivan walked into the pub and saw Brody’s wife, Aimee, behind the bar setting up. “Are they still meeting?”
“I think they are done. Brody came here a few minutes ago and then went in the back for something. I heard him talking with Aiden, so that is two of them down here.”
Aimee ran the bar with Brody, but she only worked days and not weekends unless it was needed. She had two young kids that went to daycare part time and he wouldn’t be surprised if there was another baby in their future too. At least his Aunt Jolene had been bugging them like crazy about it.
“Thanks. I’ll go up then,” he said.
Ivan went to the back and through the pub kitchen, saw his cousin Liam that waved him over. “After you left the other day, Aunt Jolene commented to Ella that she’d heard you’d be here today. Heads up.”
He shook his head. Nothing got past his aunt. “Thanks. I’m taking a page from your book on this.”
“So you’re seeing someone? Is it Kendra?” Liam asked, grinning.
Shit, he’d put his foot in his mouth on that. There was no reason to ask how Liam guessed it was Kendra either. His aunt had a pattern and he was the idiot that didn’t see it right away. He could only blame it on the fact he wasn’t here often nor did he see his aunt as much as the rest of them did.
“No comment.”
Liam slapped him on the back. “Then I don’t need to lie. Good luck with her, and remember, we’ve got your back. The family can keep quiet when needed.”
He knew that. The Five had known that Liam was dating Margo and they kept it from his aunt for quite a while. That wasn’t easy to do when they worked in the same place.
At least with Kendra and him, they didn’t work together.
When did he start to think of it as Kendra and he?
He went upstairs and saw Cade walk out of his office. “They are in the conference room. I’m on my way down too.”
“Are we at the legal point?” he asked. He had no clue. To him they were only going to talk about the costs and everything he’d forecasted and projected. He needed to know what Mason planned on doing, but this wasn’t going to be a fast endeavor.
“No,” Cade said. “I want to hear what they think. We talked about it in the meeting and it will help me in terms of marketing and timeline. I know where Mason is leaning, but we need to see all the numbers.”
“Brody and Aiden coming back up?” he asked.
“Nah. They are going to work. They said they didn’t need to be here. Ella will fill them in.”
He went with Cade down the hall, saw Kendra sitting at the table already with Mason, Jessica and Ella.
“Hi,” he said. He looked at Kendra, nodded his head and purposely focused his attention back on his family and set his laptop down.
“Thanks for coming in on your vacation,” Ella said. “You don’t need to do that.”
