Page 112 of Driven Daddy

Dammit.

I collapsed back into the couch cushions.

How the hell could I say no while I was literally next door to Travis?

“Fuck.”

Rita gave me an arched brow around a bite of crusty Italian bread.

“Travis just pulled an SOS to help decorate for Halloween.”

“Have fun,” she said with an unrepentant smile.

“You’re a cruel woman. Sure you don’t want in on the fun?”

“I’m good.”

“Larsen?”

“Oh, man. I gotta go.”

“And where do you need to be?” I stood and put my hands on my hips.

“Anywhere but where your brother lives.”

“Next door, remember?”

Larsen tossed a towel over his shoulder. “Have fun. I’m actually going to put together a more comprehensive folio for Asher. Pesky details for the printer and see if we need to do a change to your layouts and that kind of thing.”

“Always thinking ahead.” I leaned down and gave Rita a kiss. “I’ll be back in…I don’t know. Sometime.”

She laughed. “Maybe we’ll set up the television for later.”

“Sounds good.”

At least I got out of cleanup duty.

There were a few things in the plus column today.

NINETEEN

I escapedout the back door and climbed the semi-secret path that led between the two houses. Vista Lane had been built up over the years as more people looked for lakefront properties. It was more like a cliff’s edge so the property edges were wonky at best.

My brother’s house was gorgeous and surprisingly large. He’d snapped up the land before Crescent Cove had really blown up.

Shockingly, the yard looked tended to since the last time I’d checked on his house. Trav was always working—or, in my opinion, outrunning his past. I can’t say I was overly surprised he and Bridget had finally found their way back around to each other.

I just hoped she stuck around this time.

Neither one of them would really talk about what happened, and I’d been in the city when things had imploded between them. The only problem with living in Chelsea was that I tended to be out of the loop of the details of my crazy family.

The monthly dinners kept me from being completely cut off, but there was only so many details you could get when there were kids running around and all of my siblings were now pairedoff. Travis missed as many dinners as I did with his insane schedule.

Maybe that was why I was meant to come back here for an extended time too.

I missed my big, crazy family.

When I got to the top of the path, I wandered around the house to the front. There was a whole lot of decorating going on. Moose and Christian were trying to corral some sort of blow up…pumpkins maybe? They were only half inflated and looked more like dripping wax.