Page 44 of Surrender
“Of course. Greece is beautiful and all but we went through more bottles of sunblock...”
Liam nodded his head as he spooned a couple of potatoes onto his plate.
“I even missed the pub—” she saw a golden opportunity for a little payback to her brother for telling about the hickey, “until I found out that my brother had his eye on my waitress and nearly killed her.” Sophie looked at Keefe, challenging him. He wasn’t the only one who could tease.
“I did not. Stop exaggerating.” Keefe knew what she was doing and while he didn’t want to take the bait, he could sense this was going to get out of hand and quick.
“For feck’s sake, Keefe! I thought I told you to leave that girl alone,” scolded Nan, rolling her eyes.
“I did leave her alone! It was an accident all right? Jesus!” Keefe slurped an oyster then after swallowing said, “And by the way, it’s not a crime to date.”
“It is when you’re after my best waitress,” Sophie said waving a fork at him.
“I’m not after Ginny. Simon, help me out here, would you?”
Simon, sipping another glass of red wine and enjoying the conversation strictly as a spectator, raised his eyebrows over the rim of his glass before lowering it to the table. He considered for a moment—should he defend his cousin or fuel the fire?
After a beat, amusement won out.
“Well, I’ve never seen our cousin smile like he is now and after all, Ginny is beautiful, and I don’t see the harm in Keefe getting her naked and enjoying a bit of—” Just then a napkin landed on his face.
“Christ Simon!” What are you trying to do to me? I did not get Ginny naked, all right?” Yep, this was definitely spiraling out of control. Aren’t family dinners fun?
Simon daintily removed the napkin from his face and placed it on his lap. “All I’m saying is?—”
Another napkin flew his direction only this one landed on his plate.
Simon lifted his glass again feigning offense and returned to drinking.
Sondra thought she could help, well, sort of. “Keefe, there’s a nice woman who comes to my shop all the time. She’s got blonde hair, a nice figure… the one thing is she has this little quirk.”
Although he could see this was a trap, Keefe couldn’t resist the bait. “What sort of quirk are we talking about? She won’t eat green food on Tuesdays sort of quirk or she names her socks?”
“Well, she talks to herself like, ‘Nice job forgetting the eggs, Celeste.’”
“That’s not so bad.”
“Her name isn’t Celeste.” Okay, so perhaps Sondra hadn’t wanted to be helpful at all. Really all she wanted was to lighten the mood and if poor Keefe had to be the sacrificial lamb, well, so be it.
Keefe stared at Sondra for a long moment then slowly shook his head as the table erupted in snorts and laughter.
Nan wasn’t going to be left out of this. “Last year your poor mother told me that you brought home a woman who turned out to be a man!”
Simon nearly spit out his wine. Connor threw his head back laughing and everyone else was either snorting as they laughed or utterly speechless.
Keefe glared across the table at his sister who had tears streaming down her face from laughing so hard. “I don’t know what’s so damn funny. Steve was wearing a skirt and had great legs. How was I supposed to know?”
That only made everyone laugh harder. The only thing that made them stop was the laughter woke up the babies who began to cry.
“Now look what you’ve done. You should all be ashamed of yourselves waking up poor, innocent children like that,” said Keefe with righteous indignance.
“Too bad it didn’t work out. You could have shared a razor!” Henry said laughing at his own joke with a thump of his fist on the table.
Sylvia and Nan stood and took the twins to their nursery where they tucked them in safe and sound and the babies fell back to sleep before their heads hit the mattress.
“I suppose none of you ever made a fucking mistake,” Keefe muttered tipping back his bottle of Harp, shaking his head with a grin. “All right, all right. You can all stop it because Sophie’s already found me a girlfriend, haven’t you, sis?”
Sophie, who had her head resting on Liam’s shoulder sat up with a start then a gulp. She should have known he would go there. Damn him. “Yep,” she said with a popping P. Then she finished off the wine in her glass and poured another.
