Page 39 of Dirty Ginger

Maisie cringed, slowly raising her hand. “I might have something to do with that.”

“Why?” Amelia asked, suspecting she wasn’t going to like the answer.

Maisie twirled from side to side, nibbling her lip. “I met up with Hayes and the guys at their lunch earlier. Hayes and I were going to do some shopping after they were done.”

“Okay, and…” Amelia pressed.

Maisie winced and said in a rush, “Well, I was annoyed that Luka was here talking to you for so long, and Beckett was having lunch with Hayes and I just blurted out that it bugged me you and Luka were talking.”

Amelia sighed, calculating the time from when Beckett left to when Maisie met up with him at lunch. She and Luka had talked… for hours, in fact. “I wish you hadn’t said anything,” she told Maisie. She probably only added fuel to Beckett’s irritation. “Was he upset?”

“I mean, not really, but kind of,” Maisie said.

Clara snorted. “That is not an answer, Maisie.”

Maisie shrugged, unable to meet Amelia’s gaze. “I just mean that he didn’t look thrilled you were speaking to Luka still, but he wasn’t all in your face angry about it.” She hesitated then looked up at Amelia through her lashes. “He kind of took off.”

Amelia sighed and took her cell from her back pocket, waving it at her sister. “Maybe angrier than you know since he’s not returning my texts.”

“Maybe,” Maisie said, hunching her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I was just venting. He said that he knew you were with Luka, so I didn’t think I would ruffle any feathers.”

“He did know that Luka came over today,” Amelia explained, catching hints of the cocoa extract lingering in the air. “He was here when Luka showed up this morning. He just didn’t know that Luka had stayed that long.”

Clara crossed her arms, pinching her expression. “Well, what happened?”

Amelia rubbed at that continuing ache in her back and gave a small smile. “I think this conversation needs some margaritas.” Their go-to drink whenever a talk got heavy.

“I’m so in for that,” Maisie said, and took off toward the house.

Clara and Amelia followed her inside. When they made it to the kitchen, they’d also discovered that Mason had indeed raided her fridge and tore through the house, making messes wherever he went. The fridge was left open, the cupboard where the crackers she kept stocked for him was ransacked.

“Mason, get in here right now,” Clara snapped.

Loud footsteps came thundering from the family room where the Avengers movie they’d watched a thousand times together was playing. “Yeah?” he asked with a full mouth.

“Are you a tornado?” Clara asked firmly.

His little dark eyebrows furrowed, and he looked so much like Sullivan when he said, “No, I’m a human.”

Clara pointed to the cracker cupboard. “Then clean up the mess you made right now.”

As fast as he probably entered the kitchen, he had cabinet doors slammed and was heading back to watch his movie.

Clara sighed and shook her head at her son. “Little boys are exhausting.”

Amelia laughed, definitely feeling for Clara. Mason was more than a handful and seemed like his power switch was on lightspeed mode. Amelia reached for the margarita glasses in the cupboard as Maisie mixed up the drink. Once Maisie poured them, they headed out to the back deck where Amelia had recently bought some updated patio furniture to have a seating area that was shaded by the mature tree next to the house.

She took a seat on the couch and took a long sip of the margarita. First hit by the sugary sweetness on the rim of the glass, followed by the tangy lime juice with a hard hit of the tequila. Maisie always made the drinks strong. “I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted, resting her glass on the armrest.

Clara took the spot next to her. “How about at the beginning?”

Maisie flopped onto the big couch, crossing her ankles onto the coffee table. “Or at least where things got interesting.”

Amelia laughed softly, thinking back to her conversation with Luka this morning. “Is telling Luka that he was right to call of the wedding interesting enough?” Both her sisters’ mouths dropped open, and Amelia laughed again. “Guess so.”

“You’ll have to explain this to me,” Clara said, breaking the thick silence, “because I can’t see beyond him being a total asshole for what he did to you.”

Amelia tucked her legs underneath her, noting the calmness in her heart. “Okay, sure, the way he called off the wedding was horrible, but I get why he did it. We did get wrapped up in the wedding, all of that. The truth is, I should have ended things with Luka long before he did, and that’s on me.”

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