Page 48 of Spinning Out Of Control

“Daddy! And Daddy!” She squeals, and I go ramrodstraight, freezing as if I’ve just had ice water dumped on my head.

Daddy?I mouth, and she nods.

Slowly, I lower her to the ground, where she brushes herself off and pushes past me. I turn, grateful for the kitchen island separating my lower half from the rest of the room where Kira’s brother, fathers, and a woman who looks like the spitting image of Kira–save for her eyes–stare back at me.

The woman—who I can guess must be Tía Camila, based on her grey eyes that match Kira’s to a tee—looks me up and down. I think she looks impressed, and I preen a bit. Dean smirks, clearly enjoying his sister’s misery, while the dads seem to be intent on ignoring my presence, choosing to hug their daughter instead.

I’m fine with that. I need a minute to cool off andsettle down, anyway.

“Did I or did I not call it on Friday? My little sister, ladies and gentlemen. Getting mauled in the kitchen, of all places. We eat there, Keeks.”

“Fuck off, Dean. Go throw another interception,” Kira flips him off. She’d checked the game highlights in the back of the car when she realized I wasn’t going to fuck her in the back of an SUV, either.

“Oh, fuck you, we won, didn’t we?”

“No thanks to you. That’s a pretty sweet gig you’ve got, Dean. I wish someone would pay me millions of dollars a year to fucking suck at football.”

“¡Bastá! Dios mío, you two still bicker like littlechildren. Come here, chiquitina,” the woman interjects, pulling Kira into a hug while she and her brother continue to make faces at each other.

“What are you all doing here?” Kira asks as she’s passed off to the dads for more hugs.

“It was a last-minute thing. We came to see your brother play and stuck around to surprise our baby girl,” the smaller of the two men says.

“And what a surprise it was,” says the other, staring at me like I’m the dirt on the bottom of his shoe. It’s clear to see which of Kira’s fathers was once a professional football player. I can’t blame the man for the ire he’s throwing my way. If I had a daughter and…

Nope. Not even gonna go there in my mind. If this dude wants to kill me, I might just let him.

“IronDad, Pops, Tía, this is Warren Yates. Warren, these are my dads and my Tía Camila. And you’ve met my asshole brother.”

Pops holds out a hand for me to shake. I round the kitchen island, thankful that my erection has subsided and that I had the good sense to wash my hands after finger-fucking Kira within an inch of her life on that plane.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. McKenna,” I say as we shake.

“Likewise! And you can call me Keith. Nice accent you’ve got, there. London?”

“Born and raised,” I answer with a nod.

“Oh, how wonderful. I love London. I took a gapyear after high school and spent six months drinking laps around The Square Mile.”

“Maybe you ran into each other. You look about my husband’s age.” IronDad looks me up and down, his eyes lingering on the silver hair by my ears that certainly ages me up a bit. I swallow, unsure of what to do with my hands. It’s been a long,longtime since I’ve had to meet a woman’s parents, and I’ve already started on the wrong foot.

“IronDad!”

“Jay!”

Kira and Keith chastise in unison, and fuck, it’s kind of creepy the way both of their eyes turn dark when they’re pissed.

“Alright, alright,” Camila interjects, ushering the group out of the kitchen and into the living room. “We can keep making introductions after we order some dinner. Kira has nothing but vodka and lemon protein bars in her fridge and I’m starving. ¡Vamos!”

“You order for everyone,huh? It’s not just a me thing?” I ask Kira, my eyes lingering on her lips as she sips her cabernet next to me. I let the McKenna clan argue about dinner until they finally settled on Chinese, conceding the menu to Kira.

While we waited for the food to be delivered, Kira spent ten minutes talking to the damn fish, asking if it had a good weekend, if it missed her, if Dean was nice to it. It was seriously weird, but also a bit endearing. Kira truly loves that little slime mongrel. Though the whole display nearly made me lose my appetite, that changed as soon as the food arrived. We wound up with a spread that includes two different kinds of pork belly, stir-fry, sticky rice, and three whole Cantonese roast ducks. Every bite has been fucking heavenly.

“I always know what everyone is going to like. It’s my superpower.” She shrugs, offering me a wink over her wine glass.

“It’s not a superpower, baby girl. It’s a finely honed skill,” Jay says, speaking for the first time in nearly half an hour. The rest of us have been swapping stories while we break bread and sip wine at Kira’s table. Jay, on the other hand, has remained stoically silent.

Except, of course, when I made the mistake of asking him to pass the soy sauce and he told me in no uncertain terms that I was to address him as “Mr. McKenna”, not Jay.

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