Page 13 of A Very Addicted Christmas

Kinney shakes her head. “Dad.Please. I want to be with Moffy. What if he needs a sibling right now?”

Lily whispers something in Lo’s ear.

“What’s the last point?” I ask.

“I’m glad you asked, Uncle Connor.” Winona clicks the remote, and the slide makes a mosaic into the next.

REASON 6: YOU LOVE US DEARLY. YOU WANT US TO BE HAPPY.

I smile, knowing my daughter made this absurd slide.

Rose is also smiling. “Pulling at our heartstrings?”

“Do you have any of those left, Cruella?” Lo asks.

“None left for you,” Rose snaps.

“Thank God.”

I give Lo a look.

“Thank Connor.” He winks at me.

I grin.

“I love you, Nona,” Ryke tells his daughter, “and that’s why this is a hard fuckingno.”

“Sorry, Nona,” Daisy says with a wince. “But it’s not a good idea. I’m in agreement on the hard fuckingno.”

“Noooo,” Winona holds up her hands, her face shattered. “You have to at least discuss it. You have to talk with each other. Take like an hour. Or two!” Desperation is in the creases of her eyes.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Ryke says firmly. “You’rethirteen.You’re not going on a tour bus with a bunch of twentysomethings. You’re just fuckingnot.”

“We did all of this,” Kinney points to the presentation just as the music stops playing. It layers on the tension in the room. “At least give ussomethingand talk. Like Nona said, just…take a second?”

“Or thirty-minutes,” Winona tries, her face losing color with defeat. “Mom, it’d mean a waffle-lot.”

Daisy is crumbling. “…talking about it wouldn’t hurt.”

Audrey looks to me. “Please?” And it’s Audrey’s utter doe eyes that do me in.

“One minute,” I say and stand up. I head over to Lily and Lo’s seats. Ryke and Daisy follow from the back. The six of us form our own huddle.

“It’s ano, right?” Lily asks.

“Definitely,” Rose says. “I’d rather send her off to Faust Boarding School full of boys than on that tour bus. And that’s saying something because the idea of having her around those egotistical neanderthals makes me want to vomit.”

I don’t want to imagine her at Faust surrounded by only male students.

“You hear that, Connor?” Lo asks me. “You’re a neanderthal.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “He’s the exception.”

“I’m her exception,” I gloat.

Rose groans. “Stop.”

“You said it, darling, not me.”

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