“So, where’s this wife of yours, Austin?”
Stella’s watching Carter drive a toy car in circles around a sleeping Buckley, but she’s talking to me.
“Oh, she, uh-” I dart a look at Kyle and he shrugs sheepishly.
“She knows.”
I sigh and throw my hands up as Stella laughs.
“Hey, I’m not judging, Austin. She’s cute! Not-” Stella leans closer, lowering her voice. “Not like some of those s-l-u-t’s I keep reading about you being seen with in trashy magazines. She looks like she might even be out of high school, too, and she hasn’t made you crash into any Starbucks yet.”
Stella winks at me as I roll my eyes. “Really never going to let that one go, are you?”
She shakes her head as she reaches out and pats my cheek patronizingly. “No, honey. That one is way too good.”
“Well where is Nat, anyways? I thought you were bringing her.”
I shrug, downplaying it and trying not to think about the way I acted like a jackass this morning. “Eh, it’s not like there was going to be media here anyways.”
Stella and Kyle share a look.
“Oh, what.”
Kyle shrugs and takes a sip of his beer. “Nothing, man. I just thought maybe you’d gotten past that.”
I frown. “Gotten past what, that she’s just an employee of mine?”
“Still telling yourself that, huh?”
I glare at him when Stella cuts in. “Kyle says she’s one of the good ones.”
I wrinkle my brow as I stare at the sibling inquisition sitting across the bow from me, both of them with that token, “Austin, you’re being an idiot” look on their faces.
“Oh, c’mon.” I frown at them, raking my fingers through my hair. “You know it’s not real.”
“I know you keep saying that,” Kyle says, shaking his head.
“It’s an image thing,” I say, ignoring Kyle and turning to his sister. “I’m in the spotlight, and I need to clean up my act a little bit. Natalie gets what she needs I get what I need, and it is what it is.
“Uh-huh.” Stella clucks her tongue, shaking her head.
“Marriage tests really well with target demographics, actually,” I say, cringing at how much like Derek I sound like.
“He’s trying to be David Beckham,” Kyle murmurs to Stella, like I’m not sitting right there.
“I am not-”
“Didn’t he marry a Spice Girl?”
I drop my face into my hands, groaning. When I look up, they’re both still shaking their heads at me.
“Will you quit looking at me like I’m an idiot?”
Kyle laughs deeply. “Well quit acting like one!”
I glare at him, but I’m grinning too. Hell, only my best friend could talk to me like this.
“Austin, you know you’re my friend, and you’re like family to the two of-”
“You need to quit your bitching,” Stella butts in, giving me a stern look.
“Mommy said a bad word!”
Stella’s stern face falls as we whirl to see Carter shaking his head at us. I grin as I get up and monster-stomp over to him, picking him up and tickling him again as he giggles.
“Naw, buddy, Mommy said fishing.” I eye Stella over Carter’s shoulder. “Mommy wants Uncle Austin to stop fishing all the time, right Mommy?”
Stella smirks.
Carter squirms out of my arms, trotting back to his cars as I slump back in front of the Kyle-Stella jury.
“You know man, sometimes I don’t think you get how lucky you are.”
I roll my eyes. “Kyle, believe me, I get-”
“No, not the money, or the fame or all that, I mean Natalie.”
I groan as I reach up to rub the bridge of my nose. “It’s arranged, Kyle. You get that, right?”
“I get that I’d kill to have a girl that looks at me the way she looks at you.”
I laugh. “Like she wants to push me down a flight of stairs?”
“It’s not an unheard of reaction, honey,” Stella says, grinning at me.
“You’re too wrapped up in your own-” Kyle’s eyes dart to Carter before turning back to me. “You’re too wrapped up in your own b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t,” he mutters, spelling out the word.
I frown. “Try being in the spotlight like this.”
He rolls his eyes. “Cry me a river, buddy. You’re so wrapped up in your crap that you can’t even see how that girl looks at you. Hell, you’re so inside your head that you forgot that I did tell you Stell and Carter were going to be here today.”
I wince.
“Hell, you haven’t even asked me what my new job is.”
I cringe a little. “Look, I’m sorry man.”