Page 29 of If You Were Mine
We didn’t always have family dinner up in Cage Lake, sometimes we had it in Denver. At some point if anybody decided to move outside of the state, maybe we would have it there.
That reminded me. “Is Kyler going to be here?” I asked as we walked into Aston’s home without knocking.
Hudson shook his head. “He’s still on tour.”
“So now he’s coming to fewer of these than you are,” I said drily.
Hudson shrugged as he hooked his jacket on the rung and reached for mine.
I raised a brow. “I can take off my own jacket.”
He glanced at my leg. “You’ve been limping. Didn’t know if your ribs still hurt.”
Glaring, I handed over my jacket before stalking away. Hudson rarely came down to Denver, so he didn’t go to any of the family dinners in the city. And Kyler was a famous rockstar, which always made me laugh. Meaning he was out of town often. I didn’t even know if he had a place in Denver. That was shitty of me. My own sibling and I didn’t know where he lived. Then again, it wasn’t as if Kyler spoke up in the group chat. Or even talked to us often. He talked to his sisters, I knew that much. But I didn’t know him.
I didn’t really know any of that side of the family.
“Well, that makes five,” Aston said as he lifted up his lowball of whiskey in a toast.
“Let’s get this damn photo over so we can actually have a dinner without losing everything and having it tainted.” Isabella pulled out her phone, and before I could even get a drink, she snapped a photo of the five Cages as well as a couple of spouses.
I looked around the room and realized that yes, we were five. Now that Hudson and I were there, it added to Isabella and Aston, their significant others, and Sophia.
My lips curled into a smile as I looked over at my sister, and the fact that she couldn’t help but glow. She’d not only married the love of her life who cherished her, making her the center of his world, she’d gotten pregnant soon after the wedding. Now a new mother, she’d settled into her role with such grace, it was as if she’d only been waiting for her person to come along. My brother-in-law, Cale—yes, the man was named after a vegetable but spelled with a C—was a nice guy. He was a little quiet compared to the rest of us, but you couldn’t help but be quiet with so many Cages in the room. In fact, I knew the guy more than I even knew Kyler or Emily, my youngest sister. And how shitty was that?
But Emily rarely came to these dinners, since she lived the farthest away other than Kyler. And well, apparently, she had more of a life than the rest of us.
“Where are my favorite people?” I asked as I moved past the others without even bothering to say hello.
Sophia just smiled in answer. “They are sleeping upstairs in their cribs. Because why wouldn’t my sister-in-law build a nursery for them?”
Blakely moved forward and wrapped her arm around my waist. I couldn’t help but do the same over her shoulders. “Hi there, Dorian. Good to see you.”
“Hi,” I mumbled.
She just laughed. “I mean, of course I’m going to have space for them. My nieces need all the love and nurture. Plus, I’m sure that there will be more in the future considering how many Cages there are.”
I looked down at Blakely with a raised brow. “Oh? Something we need to know?”
She choked on air, waving her hand in her face.
Aston was there in a second, glaring at me.
I blinked. “Seriously? I was only kidding. Well fuck.”
My brother let out a dramatic sigh. “Of course we aren’t. We’d announce it better than this. You know my wife. She knows how to plan things.”
Blakely rolled her eyes. “And please, give me time before you start making me grow a football team.”
That made everybody laugh, and I nodded in thanks as Hudson handed me a beer.
“Actually, Ford was supposed to be here too, and he wanted to announce something,” Aston put in.
Ford was our younger brother and had married before all of us. In fact, the precocious asshole who I loved dearly had married not one but two people. His best friend and their favorite woman. Dad hadn’t been happy with that but fuck it. Fuck him.
“Really? Greer is pregnant?” Sophia asked as she clapped her hands.
Aston nodded. “Yes and he was going to announce it tonight at family dinner, and maybe even do a group text or something, but something came up.”
