Page 13 of Dare Me

“You’re right, you’re right. I do tend to plow my way through most situations to get my way, but this time I swear I’m doing it for your own good. When’s the last time you had a home-cooked meal?”

Will felt his heart squeeze hard. “Dude, seriously?”

“Shit,” Liam hissed. “Sorry. That was completely thoughtless of me.” After letting out a long breath, he looked over at Will. “I didn’t even think in those terms, so if it’s really going to be too rough on you…”

It was exactly what he hoped his friend would say, but maybe it would be better for him to get this over with and let the chips fall where they may.

With her entire family present, Arianna certainly wouldn’t jump up and run into his arms. And hopefully wouldn’t come up and slap his face either. Still, he’d allowed himself to be persuaded into coming to Laurel Bay, and it was time he stop hiding and deal with the fallout from his actions.

No matter what that meant.

“Um…yeah. I guess that will work,” he forced himself to say.

“Awesome. And trust me, you’ll be glad you stayed for dinner. My mother’s Sunday meals are legendary. I’ve sort of been dreaming of this day for over a month!”

The rest of the drive was spent with Liam pointing out different places in Laurel Bay and some of the properties his younger brother owned or managed.

“Okay, so Patrick is two years younger than you, right?”

Liam nodded. “Yup. He’s always been a real go-getter and I swear he’s going to end up owning a good portion of this town before too long.”

“Good for him!” Pausing, he took a minute to remember the other siblings—other than Arianna. “And then there’s…”

“Ryleigh,” Liam supplied. “My sister is freaking awesome and there’s nothing she can’t do. She works as a cook at our pub and does graphic design stuff too—like with websites and advertising. She handles all the social media for my folks and for a handful of the businesses in town.”

“That’s cool.”

“Once we get our stuff together, I plan on asking her to help us with all that too.”

“Naturally.”

“After her is my brother Jamie. He’s the smartass who was texting me the other night.” He let out a small huff. “Jamie can sell anything to anybody. He’s a natural-born charmer and a consummate flirt. I swear, half the girls in Laurel Bay are in love with him and that means he’s got a huge ego.”

“Sounds to me like you’re a little jealous,” Will teased and then laughed when Liam snorted. “Maybe it’s time you gave your baby brother a run for his money.”

“Please, I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

“And he’s the one who everyone thinks will take over the pub, right?”

Liam looked at him like he was speaking another language. “What? Who told you that?”

Oh, shit…

“Um…”

That was something Arianna had shared with him and now he had to figure out how to talk his way out of this.

“Well, it just seems obvious,” he began. “I mean, you told me what Patrick and Ryleigh do for a living, and I guess I just assumed that the pub would get passed down to one of you.” Then he chuckled as he looked at Liam. “And you didn’t mention going into the pub business in all of our plans, so…”

And that did the trick because Liam laughed too. “Yeah, I guess. I can’t imagine him being mature enough to run the place, and I haven’t been home enough to observe it all, but it makes sense.” He grinned. “That was pretty intuitive of you.”

There was no way he could comment on that and fortunately he was saved from having to say anything because the GPS announced they had arrived at the Donovan family home.

And Will felt like he was going to throw up, which irritated the crap out of him because Liam was right—he’d been less afraid of going into genuinely dangerous situations as a Marine in combat and here he was freaking out over facing his family.

Okay, not the entire family, just one member in particular.

Liam was already out of the car and there was no way Will could sit and hide, so he let out a long breath and followed suit. “Does anyone know you’re coming?” he asked.

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