Page 24 of Reeve

“I’ve been warned,” I say, grinning at him as I unbuckle my seat belt. “Dinnertime?”

When I don’t shoot him down, his eyes sparkle, and he smiles back at me with so much hope and happiness, it squeezes my heart.

“Yeah. Dinnertime. Let’s get some chow.”

***

Carrying a very heavy, still-hot green bean and toasted onion casserole up Parker and Quinn’s icy driveway in a sleet shower means I need to be careful not to slip.

“Reeve!” calls Quinn from the front door of their house-converted-from-a-garage. “Wait there! Let me come and get the hot plate!”

“Did you run out of salt?” I grouse.

“I salted it an hour ago! Already iced over!”

My sister’s husband, Quinn, is not my favorite person on earth, owing to the way he teased Parker ruthlessly throughout elementary and middle school. But since becoming a husband and father, I have to admit, he’s growing on me.

The clink of his spiked boots cutting through the ice gets closer and closer until he’s relieved me of my burden. I follow him into the house feeling a lot more balanced.

After he takes the casserole into the kitchen, he comes back to help me with my parka, hanging it on a very full coat rack by the door.

“Reeve!” calls Parker from the family room, handing two-month-old Emily Anne to my father and coming to the door to greet me. She gives me a big hug, dusting snowflakes from my hair. “How are the roads?”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Thought so. Sorry to make you drive in it.”

“I’ve driven in worse,” I tell her.

In the living room, my grandparents, father, Harper, Joe, Wren, Tanner, McKenna, Madden, Sawyer, and Ivy are all sitting around a giant coffee table laden with cocktails and appetizers. A gorgeous Christmas tree is decorated with white lights and silver tinsel in front of the sliding glass doors, which double the lights in the reflection. Christmas carols play on Bluetooth speakers, a fire crackles in the hearth, and delicious smells waft from the kitchen.

“Looks great in here, Park.”

“The tree was Quinn and Dad,” she says, her eyes full of love as she watches her husband joke around with Sawyer. “They cut it down together, and Dad came over to decorate it. I’m so glad he’s not mad at me and Quinn anymore.”

“You named your firstborn after Mom,” I say. “Hard for Dad to hold a grudge.”

But Parker barely hears me. She’s still staring at Quinn, who’s caught her eyes, and stares back at her, mouthing, I love you, baby.

Gross.“Get a room.”

“Someday you’ll understand,” says Parker in a sing-song voice. “Quinn’s the best.”

“Wasn’t always,” I mutter.

“Is now,” she counters. “What can I get you to drink? Ginger ale? Eggnog?”

“A beer.”

“Only one now, little sister,” she says, heading for the kitchen. “You’re still under twenty-one.”

Here we go, I think to myself.

There’s nowhere to sit, so I perch on the arm of the couch beside Harper, who looks up at me with a shit-eating grin.

“Something on your mind?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “Something onyours?”

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