“I’ll take that into consideration. Now, your mother made a huge pot of coffee. There’s a French toast casserole and a quiche in the kitchen, if you’re hungry.”
“Coffee and Ma’s food or our children, which is more important?” Max murmured in her ear.
“You have to ask?”
“Right. Let’s tiptoe to the kitchen, then.”
But they were spotted before they could stuff their gullets and get caffeinated.
“Dad!” Hannah sprinted across the living room to her father and glued herself to his front, pushing Amanda out of the way. “I’ve missed you!”
Amanda’s lips flattened out.
Max glanced at her over their daughter’s head, shot her a smug grin, then shrugged.
She rolled her eyes. “You know, kid, I’ll remember this moment when in six or seven years you come running to me screaming about how a boy is trying to come up the driveway to take you on a date and your father is standing on the deck with a shotgun in his hands.”
“He wouldn’t do that!”
“Oh, don’t you doubt it. And I’ll remember just how much you loved your daddy more than me.”
“Dad!”
Max chuckled. “We’ll see.”
Oliver ran up and glued himself to the only space left on Max’s body, the back of his thighs and ass, since Hannah wasn’t letting him go or willing to share the front with her little brother. “Daddy, you gonna do the same thing with me?”
“Nope,” Amanda answered their son. “The second the clock hits midnight on your eighteenth birthday he’s going to pack you up in a box and put you at the end of the driveway for UPS to pick you up and ship you out.”
“No, he won’t!” Oliver laughed, peeking at her from behind his father.
“No, I’ll wait until 12:01,” Max told his son, running a hand over his messy dark hair. “Were you good for your grandparents?”
He peeled off both children so he could walk into the living room where Ron was now settled in his recliner, sipping coffee with a gray-faced Chaos already laid out at his feet near the fire. Mary Ann was sitting with Greg on one of the couches, with a coffee mug in her hand, too.
Amanda hoped they hadn’t given Greg any coffee. Today was not a day for him to be wired out of his mind. There would be enough excitement already.
“Did you drink all the coffee, Bud, or did you leave some for us?” Amanda asked her brother. She needed to know in a roundabout way if she should prepare for activity overload. And if they should all wear bubble wrap to protect them from his flying arms.
“No! Grampa said... said no coffee for me.”
Oh, thank fuck. “Good idea, Grampa,” Amanda said catching Ron’s eyes and he winked at her knowingly.
The front door opened and two miniature draft horses came barreling around the corner, a long string of slobber hanging from Menace’s mouth. Both mastiffs plowed past Max and immediately found their little humans, Austin and Jax, who were sitting on the floor engrossed with their tablets. Trouble’s big tongue licked up Jax’s face, from his chin over his open mouth and up his nose, leaving a path of slobber.
“Guess you didn’t use a napkin during breakfast this morning, did you?” Amanda asked the four-year-old.
“Who needs a napkin when you have dogs?” Marc announced as he came around the corner from the foyer to join them. Leah followed behind him, her cheeks pink.
“Did you two walk here?” Mary Ann asked, her eyes narrowed on Leah.
“We were trying to wear the dogs out a little since it’s going to be tight quarters today,” Marc answered.
Ron jumped from his recliner and went over to Leah. “Come sit down on the king’s throne and put your feet up. I’ll rub them for you, if you need it.”
“No, Pop, she doesn’t need her feet rubbed,” Marc growled.
“Yes, she does,” Mary Ann insisted. “All pregnant women do. Gets the blood flowing.”
“In Leah or Pop?” Marc asked.
Leah rolled her eyes at her husband as Ron escorted her to his seat and helped her sit.
“The woman is carrying my grandchild, she deserves to be spoiled,” Ron said.
“And she puts up with you,” Max added under his breath, loud enough for his brother to hear. “For that she deserves an award.”
“Get your wife a plate and some juice,” Ron ordered Marc.
“Pop and his harem. Fuck me. If he didn’t have Mom, we’d have to hide our women,” Marc muttered as he turned and headed toward the kitchen.
They heard the door open again and a loud, “Yoo hoo!”
“Uncle Teddy’s here!” the boys all yelled and a wild pack of man-children rushed past them to tackle Teddy.
“Oh, look at all these baby gorillas.” He came around the corner, fighting his way past them, carrying one small wrapped gift in his hand. Adam followed on his heels, a mile-high mountain of gifts in his arms, so high Amanda wondered how he could see where he was walking.
“Are those for us, Teddy?” Greg bellowed in excitement across the room.
“Some of them, yes. Some are for the adults who will open them in private when they get home.”
“Sweet!” Amanda said.
Adam placed the small mountain next to the beautifully decorated tree since there wasn’t any room left under it. “Nobody opened gifts, yet?”
“We were waiting for all of you before they tore into them,” Ron said.
“Grandpa made us wait,” Hannah grumbled, now sitting next to her grandmother, her legs tucked under her and her nose in her phone.
Max went over to his daughter and plucked the phone—one he was not happy Amanda bought her—from her fingers. “No phones today. Today is a day to spend with family, not strangers.”
Her mouth gaped open. “They’re my friends. And the boys have their tablets!”
Max pulled Oliver’s tablet from his hands and then with an approving nod from Leah, took Austin and Jax’s, too.
He took all the electronics and put them on a high shelf out of reach. “Grandpa will give those back to you when he decides family time is over.”
“Dad!” Hannah wailed.
“Hannah, you aren’t
