Page 75 of Seven Year Itch
“Hey, Evie-girl,” I call back over my brothers’ greetings.
“How’s it going?” she asks, her eyes bright and cheery as I hold the phone up to show her to everyone.
“Great. How’s it going for you?” Wyatt replies, not taking his eyes off the road.
“I’m amazing!” She pulls a silly face as I look at her a little closer, clocking the heavier makeup and hooded eyes.
I glance at my smartwatch that shows the time in Dublin right now. “It’s late there. Have you been out partying?” I ask, as Luke leans over the back seat to squeeze his face into the frame.
“I thought you’d still be recovering from Mexico,” he adds with a big, cheesy smile as he twists his baseball cap backward to see better.
“The Irish know how to have a good time,” she answers and giggles, revealing just how tipsy she is. “Actually, they call it thecraic.”
“You should not be doing crack, Everly,” Wyatt thunders, nearly jerking the car off the road. “What are you thinking?”
“Yeah... even I’ll judge you for that one,” I add, frowning back at her.
She erupts into more giggles. “Not crack cocaine, you guys. Jeez. I mean the craic. C-R-A-I-C. It means a party. Like, the craic was ninety tonight,” she says, doing a nice job at an Irish accent.
“I have no idea what you’re saying,” I deadpan, feeling like an old fuck. “I can’t handle Gen Z lingo.”
“This isn’t Gen Z... this is old Irish stuff. Maybe you guys should come out and visit me sometime. I have a feeling you’d fit right in here.”
Wyatt grumbles like the negative ass he is, but my brows lift. It could be a good Dark Night–bonding experience for us all in the fall when she goes back next year. None of us have ever been to Europe, but I doubt Wyatt will want to go with Stevie being so little. He only said yes to Mexico because our mom came with the baby and he was marrying the love of his life. Everly ranks high on his list of priorities, but I’m not sure if a trip across the pond is in his near future.
“So what have you guys been up to since Mexico? How’s my baby cousin?”
“She’s good. Home with her mama,” Wyatt says, and I catch the proud smirk on his lips. God, he’s such a happy fucker.
“Wyatt is working us like dogs,” I grumble, and the sicko’s smirk grows even wider. “He made me stay late last night to finish some sheet rocking on my own.”
He harrumphs and I harrumph right back. I’m picking up all the slack these days because he’s got to get home to the family. Luke usually has bookwork shit to do for the business, so that leaves me: the muscle, the trained monkey, the hired hand. They depend on me to not have a life and get the piddly shit done that no one else wants to do. It’s getting old.
“Well, hopefully you can relax tonight,” Everly says, her bright and happy tone piercing through all the way from Dublin.
“We had to hurry back to the mountain tonight because Calder has a date,” Luke sings like an ass from the back seat so I swing my elbow back, connecting with his shoulder.
He laughs and rubs his arm while I reposition the phone to see Everly again.
Her eyes are saucers, and I think I can see the molars of her teeth as she grins back at me. “An actual date, Uncle Calder? With who?”
“No one.” I clench my teeth and shake my head. “Luke is full of shit. It’s not a date.”
“It’s with Dakota,” Luke coughs out and slides across the back seat so I can’t swing at him again.
“Would you shut the fuck up?” I bark and turn back to our niece. “It’s not a date, Everly. Dakota and I just have a project we’re working on together.”
“What kind of project?”
“Yeah... what kind of project?” Luke repeats in a mock high-pitched voice.
Wyatt glances at Luke in the rearview mirror with a knowing smirk that I would punch off his face if he wasn’t driving. “I’m building some custom display shelves for her store.”
I can feel Luke’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head as I refuse to look at him. I didn’t want to tell anyone about me and Dakota, but like a dumbass, I decided it would be a fun idea to be fucking neighbors with my nosy-ass brothers. When it’s just random women I bring home from the bars, no one asks any questions. But I knew they’d see Dakota at some point, and Trista, Luke, and Wyatt would be like dogs with a bone until I cracked. So I did something shocking.
I told them the truth.
Well... part of the truth. Thecasual friends with benefitstruth. If I showed them my list of kinky shit I plan to do to that maddening woman for the next couple weeks, I’d never hear the end of it.
