He lowers me to my feet, blowing out a breath of what I think is relief. Then…the background noise volume cranks up.
“Me? Your uncle is the one who blew up Chester’s tractor when he was twenty. Chester was like forty then, and he still hasn’t forgotten it. He’s the reason they couldn’t get challenges passed.”
“Do I want to know?” I muse, staring up at Liam as he drops his head back.
“I made the mistake of asking why Chester Perkins—who could second as Santa—hates George Malone. They’ve been arguing over it for three hours now.”
He says the three hours way louder than anything else.
I stifle a smile.
“Because it had nothing to do with the tractor. It was the barn getting knocked down by your daddy that one time some idiot gave him the keys to a backhoe. It was the same year, and Chester believed it was Uncle George again, and your daddy wouldn’t tell the truth, because he got in trouble for something else Uncle George had done. That’s why he hates Uncle George.”
“That was a terrible question,” I decide to point out.
“Bullshit!” Jason shouts at the table, not at us.
Liam arches an eyebrow. “You think? It led to them following me home, talking about all the ways multiple men somehow pissed off Chester, and had me cooking enough steaks to feed a small village. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll just ask you from now on, even if you do struggle to provide knowledge to non-locals who really are local because they now own two properties in Tomahawk.”
He holds up two fingers and mouths the word, “Two,” again, before grinning.
“You’re okay with all the kissing?” I hear Hale Vincent asking.
I roll my eyes as Liam turns to face my heathen cousins, who are crowded around Liam’s massive table that now looks small amongst giants.
Jason shrugs. “Uncle George said we couldn’t break anything yet.”
“So Dad did make a threat?” I ask, a smug sense of satisfaction rising.
Eric shakes his head. “Nah. Just said we couldn’t do anything unless he fucks up hard. We just wanted to haze him into the family, but since he’s sort of scrawny, we’re worried we’ll break something, which will break the rules.”
My smugness flits away like ash.
Liam turns away, shaking his head. He’s not scrawny at all. Well, next to normal people.
Jared, who is usually my quietest and most unpredictable cousin, and who is marginally smaller than the rest of them as far as bulk goes, just toys with his trimmed beard, not speaking.
Liam breaks up the silence by saying, “I tried to get your father out of jail, by the way, but Vick said they weren’t under arrest, just in a ‘time out’ until they could both calm down. Chester also got arrested and was locked in a bathroom.”
When people say this stuff out loud, it makes it sound much crazier than it is when you’re living in the moment.
Liam’s lips are curved in amusement, taking all this in a weirdly comfortable stride.
My eyes drift around the room, moving toward the living room, and I notice my sculpture is no longer in view. Frowning, I start to ask, when Liam answers like he’s inside my head.
“Jared almost broke it, so I moved it to the bedroom and locked it up.”
My lips twitch.
“Who puts something right in the walk way?” Jared asks absently, turning his drink up.
“It was off to the side. You just forgot how to walk,” Killian intervenes.
“Okay, that’s it. All of you out,” I say, pointing at the door.
“We swiped two pies from Aunt Penny,” Hale says as though that’s a suitable argument.
“I’m good with going. The pie comes with us, though,” Killian says, already carrying a pie out the door. Hale follows him with the other pie in his hand, not even lingering around long enough to tell anyone bye.
My cousins just give me a blank stare.
“Out!” I say again, much louder this time.
They just grin, not feeling the least bit threatened by me since I don’t have a gun on hand. A paintball gun, that is. Or Dad. It always helps to have Dad.
“Liam was just telling us how you two met earlier,” Jared drawls.
Ah, hell.
“Says you two went skydiving and you saved his life and stuff,” Jason adds.
“Does Uncle George know you went skydiving without us?” Heath asks, smirking at me.
“It was free! I couldn’t pass up free,” I state defensively, rolling my eyes.
“Yeah. Apparently it’s no big deal that my chute malfunctioned, or that I almost died, or that you saved my life and helped a complete stranger inside his home where you’d never been before. It only mattered that you broke some pact about never skydiving without them,” Liam states dryly, picking up his abandoned beer before dropping to sit in a chair near the back of the table.