Page 94 of The Sadist and the Brat

“It’ll do,” she decided, and taking it from his hand, knocked it back. “Shit.”

He whacked her on the back. “You’re supposed to sip it.”

She wheezed. “Now you tell me.”

“Rough day?”

“Not really. I’m just being dramatic.”

His lips twitched. “All right. Want another drink?”

“Yes, please. Preferably one that won’t set my throat on fire.”

“It wouldn’t have, if you’d sipped it.” He slipped a hand around her waist, over the knotted apron strings, and looked down. “Why are you wearing an apron?”

“It’s part of the being dramatic,” she told him. “Plus, the strings are knotted and I can’t get them undone.”

“Want me to do it?”

“Yes, please.”

He set his glass down on the entry table and moved behind her. “Hold still.”

She looked around the big open living room as he worked. “Lot of people here.”

“There were more before,” he said. “Rebecca’s parents went back to their hotel, and Nick’s parents left too. But your old boyfriend is still here.”

“Old boyfriend?” she echoed, confused.

“Nick’s brother?”

“Nate’s here?” She spotted him by the windows, standing next to his twin and laughing, one arm wrapped around a pretty brunette. “He was never my boyfriend.”

“Hmmm,” he said.

“Don’t start,” she muttered, and caught Nate’s eye. She returned his cheerful grin, then cut her eyes deliberately to the woman at his side and gave him an exaggerated thumbs-up.

Nate grinned back and tugged Kit closer, bending to whisper in her ear. Kit turned, her face lighting up when she spotted Sadie. She waved, a little waggle of her fingers, and Sadie replied with a smile and a wink. Kit laughed along with Nate, then turned back to their conversation.

A yank on the apron strings almost jerked her off her feet. “Hey!”

“This is a very stubborn knot,” Jack remarked, all innocence. “How did dinner with your parents go?”

“Well, my brother Brian still won’t look at me because I accidentally called him this summer while I was having sex, my mother asked me if you were my naked friend, and my dad asked me if you’re weird and if that’s why I didn’t bring you to Thanksgiving dinner.”

His hands had gone still on the apron strings. “You told your mother about me?”

“I told her a friend taught me to make waffles,” she explained. “She inferred the naked part.”

“Uh-huh. And your brother won’t look at you because…”

“Apparently every time he looks at me, he thinks about me having sex, and it breaks his tiny little twelve-year-old brain.”

“You called your twelve-year-old brother while you were having sex?”

“He’s notactuallytwelve, that’s his emotional maturity level,” she explained. “He’s twenty-two. And I told you, it was an accident.”

“And your dad thinks I’m weird.”

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