Page 56 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

“I know what I am,” he said.

“Don’t do that to yourself,” she said.

“Do what?”

“I’m not sure what it is exactly, but you put yourself down when I’m trying to be nice. Maybe I should be more serious.”

“No,” he said. “I think I need something less serious in my life.”

“Good,” she said. “But tell me if I’m too goofy. I can rein it in. I do it enough daily.”

“Which is probably why you let loose so much when you’re not working?” he asked.

“Could be,” she said. “But my brother is the serious one of us. I’m used to grouchy puss-faced men.”

He let out a cough after he sipped his beer. “Puss-faced?”

“You know,” she said. “Sour puss.”

She puckered her lips, sucked in her cheeks and crossed her eyes.

“If you keep doing that it’s going to freeze that way,” Duke said.

She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. That was odd, as she always felt his presence. Guess she was too drawn into the hot man across from her.

“You’ve been saying that for years,” she said to her brother. “It hasn’t happened yet. Van, this is Duke. Duke, Van.”

The two men shook hands and neither smiled.

“Nice to meet you,” Duke said.

“The same,” Van said.

“Back to your corners, boys,” she said, clapping and shooing her brother away.

He didn’t give her the ditch-it look and that was something.

Duke grunted. A noise close to what Van normally made and it just occurred to her why she had no problem with that kind of personality.

“What’s so funny?” Van asked her when Duke left.

“I just had an aha moment.”

“Are you going to share that with me?” he asked.

“You’re Jell-O,” she said, laughing.

“What?” he asked. The look on his face was so comical that she started to giggle.

“That is what I tell Duke all the time. He’s Jell-O. Firm on the outside but all squishy and jiggly in the center. He even gave Hadley her engagement ring in a Jell-O mold.”

“You’re joking,” he said.

“Nope, I’m not. I bet you couldn’t get a woman to hang onto you because you’re moody and sarcastic. You don’t like to show the softness to many, but I bet you did to some. I’m used to dealing with that. I shared a womb with a person like that. You’re just like my twin.”

“I doubt he feels that way and I’m not so sure myself,” he said.

“Notjustlike him,” she said. “But in that particular aspect. That’s how I can handle you so well.”

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