Page 34 of Wedlocked

She waved her hand. “Ordering in would have taken forever with so many of us. And baked potato soup is easy. It basically cooks itself.”

“It smells really good,” Rory said from beneath my arm. “I can make a salad to go with it.”

I growled, pushing her into the cushions. “Don’t even think about getting up.”

Her side-eye game was strong but still no match for my mood.

“I’ve been sitting on this couch for hours.”

“Not long enough.”

“Madison made a salad already,” Jess told her. “And Landry put some rolls in the oven.”

Jamie appeared with a plate in his hand. “There’s cake too. Better get some before we run out.”

“Jamie!” Madison appeared. “Did you seriously just cut into that cake right before dinner?”

He shrugged. “Feeling downie, eat a brownie.”

All three girls made sympathetic sounds, and Madison rushed over to lean up on her toes. Both hands grabbed his cheeks, and one went to his forehead. “Are you cold from earlier? Did you get hurt after all?”

Bro was such a player.

“That’s not even a brownie,” Kruger accused. Guess he knew the game too.

“Leave him be, Ben. He said he feels bad,” Jess scolded.

Kruger glanced at me, and I shook my head.

Lars came in from the kitchen, carrying a mug, with Win trailing behind him. “For me, it’s more espresso, less depresso,” he mused. Bro drank so much espresso that his blood was probably diluted.

“Good one, bro,” Jamie said, still chomping on cake.

Rory stirred again, sliding from beneath my arm to the edge of the couch. She was so small and this sofa was so big that her feet just hung off the edge with no hope of touching the floor.

It infuriated me.

What the fuck had she been thinking? Racing into a no-skate zone where the ice was clearly fragile and putting herself in danger. She could barely swim, for fuck’s sake. And what does she do? Almost drowns herself.Again.

Didn’t even listen when I told her to stop. When I told her to come back.

Disobedient. Careless. Nothing but trouble.

But goddamn, did I love her.

I couldn’t imagine life without her in it, and today, for a brief moment, it was forced upon me.

“Come here, Jamie. Let me see,” Rory said, making it to her feet.

Shoving the blanket off my legs, I lunged forward, snatching her off her feet and into my lap. “Woman, I’m about to superglue your ass to this couch.”

“Go ahead and try.” She smarted off. “I’ve been sitting here all day. Enough is enough. Everyone was so busy fussing over us that we didn’t even check in on them. They created a human chain to pull me out of that lake. What if they got hurt trying to help us?”

“No one’s hurt,” I protested.

“Well, Jamie is!” she said, wiggling her little ass in my lap.

My eyes fired to Jamie. He blanched.