“Why are you smiling, Nicholas?”
“Just remembering something that happened that day. Sometimes good can come out of bad, you know?” Holding her eyes with meaning I add, “Like Billy’s house catching fire.”
“His parties have sure grown. He seems happier.”
“I meant us.”
Madison frowns, voice lowering, “If you’re messing with me for fun, it’s really not nice.”
“I’m not.”
“Nicholas? What the hell are you doing here?”
Madison and I look over. “Ethan, hey! I was just thinking about you!” To Madison I mutter, “Family-interruptions again. Hold that thought.”
A billionaire stay-at-home dad, my cousin Ethan is forever in graphic t-shirts and jeans, no matter how nice the restaurant. Standing with him is his redheaded CEO wife, Charlie, their daughter Kaya staring from her hip.
Ethan grins, “Look at you stealing my thunder. Beat me to the restaurant I’d specifically chosen because it’s new and no Cockers have been here before! Now how am I going to brag about it, huh? How?”
“You can’t,” I smirk. “So fuck off.”
He guffaws, chestnut eyes shining under a mop of sandy-brown hair. “From here on out, I call shotgun since I’m older than you.”
“On every new place that opens in Atlanta?”
“Yes!”
“Why don’t you just buy them out and guard them like a troll with his bridge?”
“I might do that.”
Laughing I wave him off. “Get outta here, I’m busy.”
“Screw that, I haven’t seen you in ages. And we didn’t make a reservation. My bad.” He glances to his wife, “Princess, slide in.” He calls out, “Oh, Barry, good! Is that wine for us? I’m parched! Bring it over. See, we had a place saved for us after all, buddy, what d’ya say to that?”
Sitting back in my seat, I stare as Charlie sits down and asks Barry, “Could you bring us a booster seat, too, please?”
Ethan cocks an eyebrow as he tastes my wine like he fucking ordered it.
“Mmm. Good year. Nice legs on it. Meaty.” To Barry he nods, “It’ll do. Oh, and put the tab on me.”
“No!”
“Don’t listen to Nicholas. He’s got bank, but I’m way richer, so please…on me.”
I glance to Madison who is highly entertained by us. She makes a face like what-can-we-do?
I sigh and get comfortable. “You know, Ethan, you’re not supposed to boast about your billions, you big-headed dork.”
His head rocks back on his neck, face confused—all an act. “Then what’s the point of having ‘em? Why do I work so hard if I can’t interrupt my cousin’s dates and make him look cheap? I mean, really? What’s the point in living if I can’t do that?”
Charlotte Cocker passes their daughter to her husband, “Ethan, stop it.” Kaya touches his face and he pretends to bite her hand. “I’m Charlie by the way, and this little one is Kaya.”
“I’m Maddie. She’s so sweet!”
“My husband’s not an asshole, he just pretends to be one, I swear.”
Maddie laughs, relieved they’re so easy going. “I nanny for a living so I can tell a good father when I see one. A good father is a good man.”
“You’re a nanny?”
Ethan eyes his wife, “Don’t even start, Princess. I’m raising Kaya. We don’t need help.”
She rolls her eyes. “You know how to dish it out but you sure can’t discern when it’s being dished out to you. And besides I was going to suggest she might want to work with Tanner and Emma at their orphanage!” To me she asks with sarcasm, “Nicholas, are you going to be this involved when you’re a father?”
I nearly choke on the wine glass and break it. Wiping my lips I announce, “Hey everyone, this is a first date.”
“Your date’s a nanny.”
Madison touches my arm, “Who leaves her work at work.”
My hand slides onto her thigh. “Thank you.” The hem of the dress was pretty short to begin with, but now it’s almost too high. Instantly I’m impatient, wishing this had gone a totally different way. As they pick up the menus I lock eyes with her and whisper, “My family, bunch of cock-blockers.”
She covers a laugh but it shines from her eyes.
Ethan corrects him, “Cocker blockers. If you’re gonna say the joke, go hard or stay home.” He grins and flicks a glance to my menu, which he stole.
I give Madison a quick kiss and whisper in her ear, “You’re beautiful.” Her eyes go wide as I turn to ask Charlie, “You not having any wine?”
“Can’t. I’m pregnant.”
My mouth drops, but Ethan nonchalantly pretends to read about risotto as he asks, “Yo, Nicholas, what’s this I hear about Nathan becoming a firefighter?”
“Shut up! You guys are having another kid?”
He sets the menu down as Charlie nods, leaning over to kiss her, his hand on Kaya’s forehead. “Who’s coming to stay with us, honey?”
Her squeaky voice says, “Brother!”
“That’s right!”
Elated for them I gasp, “You’re having a boy!?”
Ethan bites his lip on a grin. “Yep. Due in about five months. Guess you thought Charlie had been eating too much hummus.”
She hits him, “Ethan!”
He kisses her again, and Kaya watches them.
Our conversation for the remainder of dinner is light-hearted and never for a minute awkward.
But the entire time my mind is now on family.
It might have been the right thing for Ethan to settle down. And for Gabriel, Emma, Hannah, Eric…jeezus, the list of all the cousins who’ve bit the wedding-ring dust! Sofia Sol is even getting married soon. Max moved in with Natalie right before Christmas and he hasn’t proposed yet, but it’s only the end of March now. I’m waiting for the phone vine to let us know he bent the knee, too.
But that’s them.
Not me.
I might be the oldest of my siblings, but I’ll be the last of us to get married.
That I know for fucking sure.
CHAPTER 23
M ADISON
A s I tug my dress to modesty, Nicholas shuts the driver’s door and looks over the gear-shift at me. “I promised somewhere nice and then we got ambushed.”
“It was nice,” I smile, adding with genuine honesty, “I
