Chapter 62
Two Weeks Later…
“You’re wasting your time, ladies,” Reese said, pausing on the way to the moving truck so that he could lean down and kiss his beautiful wife.
“We had a deal, Yummy,” Kasey said, gesturing for him to get moving as she reached into the red cooler and grabbed another apple juice.
“He’s going to say no,” he reminded her as he hefted the large box in his arms.
Frowning, Sara looked at Kasey and asked, “Why is he here?”
Sighing heavily, Kasey shrugged. “He keeps following me everywhere.”
“I feel so bad for you,” Sara said with a pitying look as she checked her manicure.
“Me, too,” Kasey said, letting her shoulders sag in defeat and making his lips twitch.
“You’re so mean,” he said, chuckling as he stole another kiss.
“You knew this going in,” she pointed out with a smile.
“You really did,” Sara said, nodding in agreement as she helped herself to a Coke.
“It doesn’t get any better,” Zoe said with a heartfelt sigh as she helped herself to a whoopie pie.
“It really doesn’t,” Haley said with a nod.
“We can hear you,” Jason bit out from where he stood with Trevor, glaring at their wives.
Blinking, Zoe said, “And?”
“And we’re not moving another goddamn box until we get one of those whoopie pies,” Jason said, stubbornly crossing his arms over his chest.
“Well, I guess if you’re giving up…” Haley said, letting her voice trail off with a shrug and making his cousins eyes narrow suspiciously.
“You’re rating us again, aren’t you?” Jason demanded.
“We really never stopped,” Kasey said, as Zoe pointed out, “Yummy’s still in the lead.”
“What the hell?” Jason demanded in outrage.
“He’s the only one willing to work without a shirt,” Haley pointed out.
“It’s like forty degrees out here!” Jason snapped, and since he was in the lead he decided against mentioning that his wife had stolen his shirt again just so that she could ogle him and since he enjoyed her deviousness, he’d let her.
“Which is why he gets an extra ten points,” Zoe said, which earned more glares until his cousins finally stormed off back towards the house to grab more boxes.
Chuckling, he leaned down to kiss his wife one last time before he headed towards the large moving truck they’d rented for the move. Once he had the box loaded, he turned around and came face to face with the man that he’d been avoiding for the past two weeks.
“No,” Uncle Jared bit out with a glare.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” he said, biting back a sigh, because he knew this wasn’t going to happen.
“You have a good job, Reese.”
“I know,” he said, telling himself that he wasn’t disappointed.
He knew what his Uncle’s answer was going to be and it was fine. He had a good job, which in the last two weeks had been a hell of a lot better since he’d had Kasey and Mikey to come home to. They were staying with his parents while they were waiting to close on the old Jackson place and he wasn’t the only one that was thriving.
His parents were ecstatic to have Kasey and Mikey around. They were spoiling Mikey and, of course, his father was taking advantage of Mikey’s arm and the two of them had already been busted for smashing a window with a wild snowball pitch. They were now banned from throwing snowballs without adult supervision, which meant that his father snuck Mikey outside every chance he got.
His mother was loving having Kasey there. They cooked all day and his mom was loving helping with the cooking videos since Kasey needed an extra hand right now. At night, when the nausea hit, his mother sat with her, binge watching Netflix and keeping her company while she helped Mikey with her homework. It didn’t hurt that Mikey was loving her new school and that she’d already made quite a few friends, but her best friend seemed to be Sebastian, who was at the house every day waiting for her when she got home.
In a few weeks, they’d be moving into their new house and Reese would start working on renovations and getting the house ready for the babies. It would give him something to do until spring hit and he could cash in his vacation and finish fixing up Kasey’s house so that they could put it on the market.
“Look, if you want to come work for me part-time then I’d be more than happy to have you, but I can’t sit back and let you quit your job, Reese. I just can’t,” his Uncle said, before adding, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said, shrugging it off. “I promised my wife that I’d ask.”
“I’m sorry, Re-”
“Uncle Jared?” Sara said, joining them with that creepy smile that gave him nightmares.
“Sara, it’s-”
“Why don’t we go talk inside, hmm?” she said, cutting him off and somehow managed to lead Uncle Jared, who was throwing him a questioning look over his shoulder, towards the house.
Knowing that it was pointless to tell Sara that she was wasting her time, he shoved the box the rest of the way into the truck and decided to go find his wife. He’d break the news to her. She’d be upset, but thanks to that amazing website that she’d created for him, he could probably catch a little work on the side.
When he spotted his cousins watching him with somewhat terrifying expressions on their faces, he couldn’t help but frown and wonder what they were up to. He moved to go find out when the front door suddenly flew open and his uncle, looking incredibly pissed, stepped outside, glanced around the yard until his eyes landed on him and when they did, Reese found himself taking a step back.
“You,” his uncle bit out accusingly.
But, before he could ask his uncle what was wrong, the spry bastard was coming after him. He would have managed to escape if it hadn’t been for the two bastards that had taken it upon themselves to grab him and hold him in place.
“You son of a bitch!” Uncle Jared snapped, storming towards him as Kasey and the rest of the ladies popped open fresh bottles of apple juice and settled in for the show.
“What the hell did I do?”
“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it, Yummy?” Jason asked, releasing his hold so that he could shove him towards his father.
“You made that kitchen island?” his uncle demanded.
“He designed it, too,” Trevor said, throwing him under the bus as Sara walked past them, sighing with satisfaction as she said, “Told you so.”
“I-”
“And you held out on me?”
“I-”
“He designed the floor, too,” Jason added, smiling smugly.
“And did you check out those built-in shelves in the living room?” Trevor, the bastard that he was going to throttle with his bare hands, said.
“Let’s not forget about the bathroom,” Jason mentioned as he moved to stand behind his father’s back so that he could mouth, “Bitch,” at Reese without his father seeing.
“You designed all of it?” his Uncle demanded with a calculating gleam in his eye and before he could answer, Kasey was coming to stand by his side and Sara was stepping up to his other side.
“We’ll handle the negotiations from here, Yummy,” his wife said.
“I-”
“Shh, you’ve done enough,” Sara said, nudging him out of the way.
“But-”
“It’s really for the best, Yummy,” Kasey said, moving to step away when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against him so that he could kiss the devious woman that drove him out of his fucking mind.