Page 326 of The Winslow Brothers

Rachel: I have to know. Did you manage a gift?

Thankfully, with the help of a lovely woman named Susan at a little baby boutique shop thingy in Nolita, I managed to spend about two hundred dollars more than I probably should’ve on fancy fucking baby clothes and blankets and shit.

Susan was a real sleeper of a saleswoman. A little old lady with a soft smile but total shark instincts. She knew exactly what to say and how to get me to hand over my credit card before I even understood what was happening.

Me: Yes. I did. Lots of baby shit was purchased.

Rachel: Good.

I raise my fingers to type out another text, to tell her thanks for making me aware of the gift requirements, but my youngest brother’s loud-as-hell voice pulls my focus.

“So, where is she?” Jude asks, drinking from a bottle of beer and settling his hips into a table covered with more baby stuff than I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Huh?” My stomach flips, and my chest zaps immediately, thoughts of Rachel popping into my head uninvited. How does he know about her? Did he see me texting her just now?

Holy hell, you’re a fucking mess today.

Truthfully, I’ve felt out of sorts since I arrived at this shower. A little out of place, even.

All the happiness, all the couples, all the women talking about family stuff and planning vacations and musing about how happy they are with the state of their lives—it made me feel a bit like I wasn’t ready to be there. Like I couldn’t relate to my family.Like there’s been a shift in the universe, and maybe we’re going to start to grow apart.

It’s stupid mostly, I know that, but the basic principle of the feelings isn’t all that off-kilter. Two of my brothers and my sister, by and large, are entering a new phase of their lives. Hell, even my mom’s looking for long-term love after all these years of going it alone.

And I’m…well, I’m the same as always. Sure, I’ve been messing around with Rachel, but it’s all just a big game. She’s not seriously into me. She just likes messing with me. At least, I think.She couldn’t have really meant that “hot for teacher” shit, right?That was just to get under my skin.

“Yo, Ty!” Jude narrows his eyes at me. “Where is she?” he repeats slowly and like he’s speaking to a child.

“She? She who?” I scan the room for more approaching siblings in the form of an ambush.

“Amy? Meghan? Lucy? Melanie? Adriana?” Jude scoffs. “How should I know. Whatever the fuck your random chick’s name is. Where is she?”

I shake my head, waving him off. “I didn’t bring anyone today.”

“What? Are you serious? You, Ty Winslow, came to a family function without a woman?”

Initially, that was the plan, but then…I forgot. Well, I gotdistractedby the whole needing a gift debacle.

No, actually, you forgotbecauseyou got distractedby Rachel.

I roll my eyes, more at myself than at my brother, but I also quickly find a reason. “You don’t bring your own beer to an open bar, dude,” I tell him. “Baby showers are an all-you-can-eat buffet of women, if you haven’t noticed.”

And yet, you haven’t attempted to chat up even one of the women here…

What is going on with me? Have I become some kind of monk? A masochist?

A fuckingmasochistic monk?

“Apparently, Daisy already knows every woman in the city,” Jude says through a laugh. “She has no idea how lovable she is. Thought she’d have a few friends show up and that’s it, according to Flynn.”

Thankfully, I only have to halfway force the smile on my face. When it comes down to it, both of my sisters-in-law are the kind of women I’d want my brothers to end up with.

“You both found good ones. Of course, Flynn I understand because he has that whole tall, dark, and mysterious thing happening, but it’s unbelievable that Sophie settled for a bastard like you. But hey, I guess you’ve always been lucky.”

Jude nods, unperturbed. If there’s anything that doesn’t bruise his ego, it’s suggesting that he married up when it comes to Sophie. He knows it, he admits it, he’s proud of it. Which, having known the cocky bastard for nearly forty fucking years, is wild to me.

“I know,” he answers smugly. “Now I just need to knock her up.”

I choke on the swig of beer I was taking and eye him curiously. I knew the whole party was on a spawn kick, considering the reason for it, but I didn’t know Jude was ready too. “You really think you’re ready for kids? Isn’t the whole commitment to one woman thing enough for now?”

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