“I’ve been ordered by my therapist,” I drag the word out and roll my eyes, all for Ally’s sake, “to return him. Sonia got word that Ally was one half of the dream team who took him, so now her job depends on her getting him home.”
“Sucks to be you,” Rob murmurs and takes a pull of a half-empty beer that sits by his pile of chips.
And by chips, I mean potato chips.
I pick one up and toss it into my mouth. “Mm. Salt and vinegar.”
“Hey!” Rob snaps. “That’s my money. Fuck off.”
“We should play strip poker. No need for chips when we could be using clothes.”
“I’m your brother, you freak. Sit down and shut up.”
“Not you.” I look to Ally and grin. “Me, Allyson, and Em.” I look to the Kincaid and wink. “You wanna play with me, right?”
“Er, I don’t,” Ally inserts with a lifted hand, despite the fact I’m not really giving her the choice.
“I could play,” Emma grins, sitting taller when Rob’s gaze snaps up. “I bought new panties recently. No point hiding them away when I could be showing them off to connoisseurs of exotic underwear.”
“I am an underwear connoisseur.” I take another chip and smile for the girl I consider family. “It would be my pleasure to, ya know, critique or whatever. I’m sure you chose well.”
“You’re so thoughtful.”
“Fuck off,” Rob growls. “No one’s looking at Em’s panties.”
“No?” Em questions. “Well ain’t that the damn truth.” Placing her cards face-down on the table, she pushes up and walks to the fridge. “I feel like this town is stale. You guys understand what I’m saying?” She pulls back to catch our eyes from around the fridge door. “Being a Kincaid in this town basically means everyone knows me, and I know everyone else. It’s boring, because apart from a week or two every Christmas, there’s no new blood here. Everyone in the club is the same, everyone at the lake is the same…”
“It’s kinda nice where I grew up.” Ally joins the conversation, but I don’t know if it’s to help send Rob to the brink of insanity, or me. “The city is always moving, always evolving, so even though I was in the same school most of my life, we still had new faces passing through regularly.”
“Ugh, not here,” Em grumbles. “In this town, whoever you meet in kindergarten is basically who you’re marrying… unless you can escape.”
“Who’d you meet in kindergarten?” I peel her cards up and glance at the straight flush she’s keeping on the downlow. “Was it Gerard Whatshisface who shit his pants that time?”
“Nope.” She grabs a fresh bottle of light beer and slams the fridge door. “I was buddied up with Ernest Kay.” She smiles when Rob’s fiery gaze slowly comes up. “He’s actually really nice, and he let me borrow his red pen a billion times in sixth grade. He knew I was unorganized and always losing my stuff, so he made sure to sit near me in class, and he’d toss his stuff over.”
“Ernest and Emma, sitting in a tree.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Rob growls.
“K-I-S-S-I-N–”
“I will gut you,” Rob grits his teeth and speaks so low that I’m certain only Ally and I can hear. “Brotherhood forgotten, you’ll be dead to me.”
I smile. “G.”
“You guys have any of that…” Emma stands on her toes and reaches up so high that her dress rides up, and Rob groans in literal pain. “Ah! Hennessy, you beautiful lad.” She grabs the half empty bottle, four shot glasses, and turns back to us with a seductive smile.
She’s going to be the end of my dear baby brother. He follows her wherever she leads. To the rest of the world, sweet Emma Kincaid is merely a friend, a little sister, a jokester who enjoys running around with the Devil Twins. But from where I sit, she’s the fucking instigator, the most likely to do hard time, and the one who controls switches that could set this town on fire.
“Here.” She drops a shot glass in front of me, then another in front of Ally. “Strip poker, but each time you lose a piece of clothing, you also take a shot.”
“I never agreed to this.” Rob tosses his cards down and crushes his chips with his elbow. “Absolutely not.”
“Okay.” Em takes back his shot glass and places it beside hers. “I’ll drink twice as much, but I won’t strip twice as fast. I don’t have that many pieces of clothing.”
“We can only play a few hands.” I snatch up Rob’s cards – he had sweet fuck-all – then Emma’s, then the remaining deck, and after shuffling them all together while Em pours our shots, I start dealing. “We go clockwise. We strip and drink on the final toss, not before. But because Rob is clumsy as fuck, we have no chips.”
“I wish we had chips,” Emma laments. “I’m hungry already, and I’m gonna need something to soak up the booze before I end up needing my stomach pumped.”
“Give me that fucking glass,” Rob grumbles. “For fuck’s sake. Why do you wanna piss me off?”
Emma stops pouring, tilts her head, and smiles. “Hmm?”
“Nothing. Fuck you, Kincaid.”
While those two bicker, Ally moves in my peripherals and draws my gaze. She plays with the unicorn on her wrist, and when she thinks I’m busy dealing and not watching her, she grins.
So because I’m an ass, I cough and draw her attention to me. Her eyes widen just a little, and her grin drops into an embarrassed grimace, but then I smile and toss her cards across the table. “Ally met Mom and Dad today.”
“I know,” Rob grumbles. “Mom called after you called about the BJ bullshit. She told me all about the harlot holding her baby’s hand.”
“She called me a harlot?” Ally questions with, dare I say, a little hurt in her voice.
“She did, but don’t fret, she called me an asshole for laughing at her. Calling names is her defense mechanism. If she hated you, she’d have picked you up and booted you out of that estate herself. The fact she didn’t is basically a seal of approval.”
“It’s true,” Emma adds. “Tink is a savage. You guys remember that one time Alexandra brought a boy home?”
“Heh.” I sit back and chuckle when I’m done dealing. “Alexandra is Uncle Aiden and Aunt Tina’s daughter. They live in the house beside Mom and Dad’s,” I explain for Ally. “Alexi brought a boy home for study group—”
“Study group,” Emma does the finger quotes just to add her own flair for the dramatic.
“Alexi’s dad is Aiden, right, who is basically the scariest motherfucker on this planet if you mess with his girls. But still, Aunt Tina told him to cool it and be nice.”
“He’s not really capable of being nice to boys who look at his daughters, so instead of feigning nice, he left and hung out outside with his brother.” Emma stops, and smiles. “His brother is my dad.”
“So then Alexi is inside studying,” Rob adds his bit to the story, “and all the moms are inside the kitchen, cooking and gossiping and such.”