Page 87 of Anything To Be With You

"So you chose to throw a party instead. Why would you think that was a good idea?"

He shrugs. "I don't know."

"You don't know. Were you dared to throw a party?"

"No."

"Were you threatened?"

He shakes his head.

"Then how did a night at Clay's turn into a party with thirty kids?"

"Me and Axe came back here and we invited Spencer over, who was already hanging out with Kyra, Chase, Mack and Skye, who then invited a couple more people over—"

A soft feminine voice speaks up from the entryway to the kitchen, cutting Mason off.

"M, are you coming back to bed?"

My eyes widen and I turn around, finding a rainbow haired girl with a septum ring, wrapped in Mason's blanket standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Excuse me?"

She looks me over, cocks her hip out and says, "I wasn't talking to you."

"I don't care who you're talking to. Did you just ask my son to come back to bed?"

"Yeah, I did and it's none of your business."

Oh, the attitude on this little girl.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "Well, he's not coming back to bed."

"You don't speak for him." She snaps back.

This little girl is trying my patience.

"Sweetheart," Luke calls. "Do you have two more helpers in the kitchen with you?"

I smile to myself. "In fact, I do."

"Send them my way. Their friends could use some help."

I look between Mason and this girl. "You heard the man, get moving."

I grab Mason's arm on his way out. "We're not finished talking about this. Back in here once you're finished."

He nods and heads towards the rest of his friends, grabbing a garbage bag on his way. I drop onto his vacant chair and rub my forehead. This was not how I pictured my night ending. I was hoping to come home and go to bed. Instead, I have Luke blocking my front door like a guard dog, making sure the kids who trashed my house, clean up my house.

I'm not used to this. I'm usually the one doing the cleaning. Mason cleans his room, does his laundry and the dishes but I do the rest. I stand and walk into the living room, finding it partly cleaned.

"You're halfway there," Luke announces to the kids. "Keep it up and you'll be out of here in the next twenty minutes."

Luke walks over to me and I wrap my arms around his waist. "Thank you."

He kisses the top of my head. "Anything for you, Sweetheart."

I press my head against his chest and listen to the steady thump of his heart. He watches while the kids clean, catching a few who try to sneak out, including Axe. By quarter to two, my place is spotless—well, cleaner than what it was.

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