Page 85 of Crave

“Hi, Mrs. Etienne.” I’m stunned to see my mother standing directly behind me. Without saying a word, she grabs my hand and pulls me away from Jake, stepping between us.

“This is not proper,” Mama admonishes.

“This is my younger brother, Luke, Mrs. Etienne.” Mama offers Luke a smile as she looks him over. “I hope you don’t mind he’s here, Dee,” Jake says as he turns back to me.

“Of course not. I hope you guys are hungry. We have lots of food.”

“Big trouble and little trouble, welcome.” She steps closer to Luke and looks at him up and down. Luke stands there, amused by the whole thing. “Good thing Vivi is not here today to meet little trouble. Get them drinks, Deedee,” my mom says, kindly. “Come sit, boys.”

“Who is Vivi?” Luke asks.

“Don’t you worry about that, little trouble.”

“What did I do? I just got here,” Luke says, confused.

“Guilty by association,” Jake says.

After fixing drinks and helping Tash fill a cooler with water, we walk back outside to find Luke helping Chris put together a bouncy house for the kids and Jake sitting with my mom.

When he sees us, he rushes over and takes the tray of drinks from me as my mother just sits back and watches.

“Hey,” Luke says, running to me and his brother. “Jake, what do you think about Tristan and Emma coming to play? They’d love this. Would you mind, Dee?” He turns towards me, using my nickname. His eyes aren’t as red as when I saw him earlier today, and it’s obvious he changed his clothes.

“No. That’d be great. The kids will love it. I know Nia will love having another girl.”

“I’ll call Troy. Tell him I’ll come pick them up.” He pulls out his phone and holds it to his ear. “Hey, Troy,” he says. “Jake has something to ask you.” He throws the phone at his brother and walks towards the pitcher of margaritas I just brought out.

Jake throws a death glare at Luke, which didn’t go unnoticed by my mother, before he puts the phone to his ear.

“Troy.” His voice is clipped. He takes my hand and we go inside Tash’s house through the sliding glass door. Once he shuts the door, he puts the phone on speaker.

“Jake? You there?” Troy asks.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Luke and I are at Sandy’s, and we wanted to know if Tristan and Emma can come over. Dee has a niece and nephew and there’s a bouncy house here. The kids are twins.” He rolls his eyes at the last statement and blows out a breath.

“Uh, yeah. They’d love that. Is that okay with Sandy?”

“It’s okay with me, Troy,” I say.

“Hey, Sandy. Thanks. The kids will be so excited. Are you going to come pick them up? I can drop them off too, if you’d prefer.”

“Well, Luke said he’d come and get them, but he just sucked down a drink and is pouring himself a second.” He turns his brown eyes to me. “Lots of tequila?” he asks, and I nod.

“I’ll drop them off. Text the address and we’ll be on our way.” Jake ends the call and sends a quick text, which I assume is my address.

My mom comes in through the sliding door.

“Little trouble is like big kid,” she says as she walks through the kitchen towards the living room.

“Let’s get you that drink, baby.” Hand in hand, we walk out of Tash’s kitchen.

“Deedee, how come you’ve never shown me these pictures?” Jake asks as my mom explains each picture in the photo album she brought out. “The one with you in the communion dress is my favorite.” He winks at me as he flips to the next page, all the while taking pictures of my pictures with his phone.

“Deedee is only for me. Only I call her Deedee, trouble.” My mother doesn’t even bother to look up when she makes that statement.

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