Page 5 of Tangled Weeds

Liam’s hand went to the back of his neck, and he looked down at the floor. “I’m not sure. You know how they are.”

“Yes, I do. But we’re going to keep inviting them until they finally say yes.” I pulled him in for a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. “Come on then, we’ll buy enough for a small army and what we don’t cook we’ll freeze.” He smiled at me then and the two of us hurried out the door.

“I’ll invite them, but I really have no clue if they’ll show up.”

“Baby, it’s okay. Like I said, we’ll just keep inviting them. They’ll get tired of us bugging them eventually. Why don’t you see if Rory and Kai want to invite their families.” He was on the phone then sending text messages to all of our friends and family. As soon as he had sent them, he was getting replies and only stopped looking at his phone long enough to get into the passenger seat.

“Kai and Rory are in, and they’re asking their parents. Glenn is in and he’s bringing all the kids, fuck,” Liam grumbled. We all loved Glenn’s family, but his kids were crazier than the four of us were when we all got together. And there were so many of them. Every time he was home for more than a day it seemed like they’d be pregnant again. “My parents say they have otherplans.” He rolled his eyes as another message came through. “Drake and Enid say hell yes free food.” We both laughed at that.

“Kai’s dad says he’ll take care of the barbecue if we buy the supplies,” I said as I glanced at my phone. “Thank god.”

“Yeah, we don’t need to call the fire department today,” Liam said, and both of us laughed again just before Liam’s phone rang. “Hello?” He put the phone on speaker so we could both hear as we continued to sit in the car.

“Liam, this is Dale. Rory invited us to go to your barbecue, but I know for a fact none of you can cook all that well. Now while Kathleen and I would love to go, neither of us want to get food poisoning. How do you feel about the two of us taking care of the food? If you want, you can go out and get some side dishes, snacks, and whatever you want to drink. We’ll go get the meat and main dishes.”

Liam looked at me and shrugged his shoulder. “Hey, Dale, this is Easy. We would LOVE to have you help us. We were just saying how we didn’t want the fire department to need to come out today.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good,” Dale said and laughed. “Are you going shopping?”

“Yep, we were just leaving to go to Costco. We can get the meat and everything there. I don’t want you to have to pay for it if you gotta cook it.”

“That’s fair. How about if I send you a list, would that help?”

Liam’s eyes lit up. “That would be great. Otherwise, we’ll end up spending a small fortune on a bunch of crap we’ll never use,” he said and settled his hand on my leg.

“You got it, Kathleen and I will figure it out and text it to you before you get there. Oh, and what time are you wanting to eat?” Liam and I once again stared at each other. We really were more the throw some alcohol and chips on the table and call it good, kinda people.

“How about we plan on being at your house around four and eating around six or maybe a little before that?”

“That sounds great, we’ll tell the guys to be here so they can help,” I said.

“It’s a plan, and I’ll get your list to you.”

“Thanks, man,” I said and watched as Liam hung up.

“Well, looks like we don’t have to worry about poisoning anyone,” he said with a smirk.

“Thank god for that, let’s do this.” I tried to muster up the same enthusiasm I had when we were on stage as I started the car and drove away from the house, just as a text came through.

“We got the list.” Liam smiled and waved the phone at me.

Five

Rory

It was around noon when my phone rang waking Kai and I up. We were both tired and it felt so fucking good to have him next to me as we slept. I ignored it for a while until Kai’s persistent tapping on my stomach with every ring made me answer. “This better be good, asshole,” I said, knowing it was one of the guys in the band.

“Rory?” Liam said. I couldn’t be as mean to him as I could to Easy.

“Hey, Liam, sorry, I thought you were Easy or Glenn. What’s going on?”

“I know Shamus invited you to our place later for dinner, could you bring whatever you want to drink and some chips?”

“Sure, that’s easy enough,” I said, and waited to see if he’d say more.

“Your parents are taking over the cooking for us so we’re just out shopping for everything else,” Liam said.

“Did they give you a list?” Kai asked.

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