Page 69 of See You Maybe
Atlanta—Present Day
“I can’t believe you brought your own whiskey.” Cara glared at him. “You knew I had special holiday-themed cocktails.”
Declan eyed the miniature candy canes decorating the green, sprinkle-covered rims of martini glasses containing a suspicious milky liquid.
“Pass.”
She turned her scowl on Luke when he asked, “What did you call this, again?” He held up the glass to inspect its contents.
Cara narrowed her eyes. “Santa’s Little Helper.”
James snorted, and Cami took a sip. “It’s delicious, Cara. Ignore them.”
“They’re great, baby.” Wes squeezed his wife’s waist and pressed a kiss to her temple.
Declan resisted the urge to make a rude comment. He’d already seen Wes hide his beer behind a poinsettia plant.
“Did you see all the trees? Cara has been decorating every spare minute she has.” Wes angled his head at the small tree in the kitchen.
A Christmas tree in the kitchen. Whoever heard of such a thing?
“These are so cute!” Dahlia lifted one of the miniature ornaments to examine it. “But your Star Trek tree in the living room is my favorite.”
Luke, James, and Declan exchanged looks, and Luke rolled his lips in to hide his smile. Declan hummed.
“Have you always been such a huge fan?” Cami asked.
James coughed to cover his laugh.
Cara squared her shoulders and rounded on her brothers, but Wes held her tight and pulled her back into his side. “She’d never seen it before she met me. An immediate convert.” He smiled indulgently down at his wife.
She crossed her arms with a huff, and then looked evilly at her brothers. “Curling up with my hot new roommate was all the incentive I needed.”
Luke pretended to gag.
“You loved it,” Wes said.
“I loved something.” She waggled her eyebrows, and the other women laughed as Wes’s cheeks flushed.
Declan looked around the room. He was genuinely happy for his siblings, even if the glimpse of what he would never have made him want to run.
He frowned, Olivia’s face in the parking lot flashed in front of him. He shouldn’t have cornered her, but her reaction seemed too extreme to come from being startled.
She’d been shaking, and he’d seen the pain in her blue eyes. Now that he thought of it, she seemed off even before the parking lot.
Olivia clearly had a severe headache, but Declan couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was wrong, and it drove him insane that he didn’t know what it was. He wanted to grab her, pull her close, ask what it was and then do whatever was necessary to fix it for her.
But he couldn’t, and she wouldn’t have told him anyway.
Might have something to do with you showing up again and acting like a heartless bastard.
“What has you frowning so darkly over here?” Dahlia asked.
His expression cleared. “Work.” It was true. He was still irritated that Armstrong had already voted, but it didn’t matter. On the car ride to his sister’s, he’d put his back-up plan into action.
“I bet it’s Snow White,” Cara said, joining them. “How is she?”
“How would I know?” He gave his sister his best shut-the-fuck-up look.