Page 127 of Pucking Tangled
FORTY-FOUR
Mia
Somehow she gotWaylon into the shower,alone.
Now she was scrubbing the kitchen island for the third time.
The quartz sparkled, but she couldn’t stop.
Maybe she should have taken Waylon up on his offer for an orgasm. Probably would have calmed the nerves that seemed to get worse with every second that the clock ticked down.
It wasn’t like they lived in filth. The house was virtually spotless a good chunk of the time.
Behind her, Owen was clanking around in the fridge again now that he restocked it with things from the grocery store.
“I swear to God,” she muttered, “if you rearrange the condiments one more time.”
“Just trying to make space,” he grunted, holding up a bottle of sriracha like it was the enemy. “What kind of house has three open bottles of this stuff?”
Casey walked over and took the bottle from his hand. “It’s the kind of house that has five adults buying groceries at any given time. Now, back away from the sriracha.”
“We may be of age, but adults? More like chaos,” Luca chuckled from where he was folding towels fresh from the dryer into perfect thirds.
Mia exhaled, planting her hands on her hips. “My parents are going to walk in here and think I’m running a commune.”
“Aren’t communes trending right now?” Waylon walked in, shirt in his hand and his hair still wet from the shower.
“Put. the. shirt. on,” Mia groaned, covering her face with her hands. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“Leave the shirt off. Might distract the moms and win us some bonus points,” Owen joked.
“I’m a little young for them, don’t you think, Old Man?”
Owen playfully lunged at Waylon and knocked over a stack of neatly folded wash clothes.
“Hey, assholes,” Luca huffed, hurrying to fix what they’d just messed up.
“Oh my God! STOP!” Mia finally yelled.
All four guys looked at her.
“Pull it together, please. I’m begging you.”
Casey wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. “Mia, my mom is used to a houseful of boys. She expects chaos, burps and fart noises.”
Her eyes went wide and she pointed at all of them. “You better not burp or make fart noises.”
“No promises,” Waylon winked.
“It’s going to be fine. They love you, Mia. Mine. Yours. They’re just processing.”
“I’m not worried about them lovingme.I’m worriedabout them lovingthis.” She motioned around the kitchen—at all of them.
Ateverythingthey were.
“I think,” Owen said, joining in with a hug from her other side, “they’ll see what we do.”
“What’s that?” she dared to ask.
