Page 119 of A Deal with the Bossy Devil

Oh god.

“Not when you’rethatloud,” his sister said. I could hear the eye roll in her voice.

My cheeks flamed, my body temperature spiking as my ears began to itch.

“Sorry. I’m a screamer,” Adrien said smoothly, offering me a comforting wink.

Anthony and Julie laughed, and Alice made a face.

I stood frozen and embarrassed, my hands tucked awkwardly at my sides. I should have left. This was karma biting me in the ass.

“At least Gampy had the option of turning his hearing aid off,” Alice went on, entirely unaware of how badly I wanted the ground to fall open and chew me whole.

“Alice, that’s enough,” Julie chided. She was still smiling.

“FYI, Mom spent over an hour this morning brainstorming nursery themes.”

“Alice.” Anthony this time. He was also smiling.

“Dad helped pick out a crib. It’spine.” She stuck out her tongue and gagged.

Her father flicked her arm, and she snickered, plopping a blueberry into her mouth.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wasn’t sure what to say or where to look. And just as it felt like I might burst into flames, Adrien walked over to where I was standing, threaded his fingers through mine, and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “They’re just teasing, it’s not a big d—”

He cut off when the rubber end of a wooden cane shoved itself between our stomachs. Gampy—who’d appeared straight out of thin air—started to maneuver his walking cane back and forth, separating our bodies until a very confused Adrien and I were standing approximately three feet apart.

“Now, Lice,” he said.

And then, grinning evilly as though she’d been waiting her entire life for this exact moment, Alice whipped out a spray bottle and aimed it directly at Adrien’s frowning face.

“Don’t you dare,” he threatened, releasing my hand.

She dared. Four sprays of ice-cold water hit her brother’s tanned, shielding arm while I stood there with my mouth hanging open.

Maxwell hopped off Gampy’s shoulder, squawking gleefully as he flew right into the line of fire.

“New house rule,” Alice declared loudly, continuing to hold the bottle up as a weapon. She didn’t seem at all scared, even though Adrien looked like he was going to punt her right into the afterlife. “The two of you are to maintain four feet of distance at all times. You’ve lost all PDA privileges as a direct consequence of being disgusting and gross.”

“No,” Adrien responded easily, catching the small towel Anthony tossed him from across the kitchen. Maxwell had landed on his head and was eyeing the spray bottle like he was waiting for it to go off again. “And you barely even heard anything.”

“I heard enough!” More sprays.

Adrien squeezed his eyes shut, a laugh bursting out of him as Maxwell once again dove gleefully for the water.

“Stop blocking my aim, you little twat! It’s not your bath time!” Alice complained, trying to maneuver around his flapping wings.

I found my embarrassment slowly thawing until I was smiling and laughing along with them. Adrien kept trying to grab a hold of my hand again—probably to pull me into battle and use my body as a shield—but kept getting intercepted and blocked by swats of Gampy’s cane, excited flaps of Maxwell’s wings in his face, and sprays of Alice’s water.

Chaos.

“All right. Enough, enough, enough,” Julie interjected at one point, snatching the bottle from her daughter’s hands. “Mop this up. Now, please. Before someone slips and breaks something.”

“Worth it.” Alice smirked, smacking her grandfather’s raised palm on her way to grab the mop. Up high, down low, and in perfect sync. Maxwell flew after her.

“You need to stop encouraging her behavior,” Julie told her father pointedly.

“I can hear you!” Alice called from the other room.

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