“You know the answer,” she sing-songs as she heads down the stairs.
“Stay out of your kitchen,” Cillian and I say in unison.
I roll my eyes and laugh, falling back with him and letting my eyes wander around his childhood bedroom.
Posters from rock and metal bands I’d also loved as a teenager still hang on the walls, alongside Polaroids and disposable camera photos of Lucy, Oliver, and Cillian over the years. The bookshelf is packed with well-worn paperbacks and sheet music, as well as trophies and medals from choir and boxing competitions. A little time capsule for the boy he once was.
I love it.
My phone vibrates and I shoot upright. “They’re on their way!”
Cillian chuckles. “Wanna go tell the horde downstairs?”
The O’Sullivans’ home is already buzzing. Oliver would be coming by later, having his own family festivities to see to. But Lucy, Michael, and Camille are here; Cillian’s uncle Bobby and his husband Rick even came up from Florida; and of course, Mickey and Kitty are milling about. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure how we were going to shove four more people in here.
“Fantastic!” Mickey declares when I announce my brother’s—er, my family is only about ten minutes away.
“Well, darling,” Bobby—an older, leaner, and decidedly more fabulous version of Mickey—threads his arm through mine. “Let’s get you a proper drink to celebrate.”
Lucy leans over to whisper in my ear. “The eggnog is delicious, but it will absolutely knock you on your ass.”
“Thank you,”I mouth as he pulls me toward the kitchen.
Bobby, who does indeed have exceptional stories just like Cillian promised, gets me so caught up in conversation that I’m surprised when Lucy announces my family’s arrival.
I suck down a far too large gulp of flammable eggnog and cough my way to the door.
Cillian laughs, patting my back. “Lucy did warn you.”
“I need the strength.”Because if this is a disaster, I don’t want to be sober for it.
We step onto the porch, and the boys bolt from the rental car.
“Ant-Ant!” They shriek, rushing toward me.
My nerves flee, catching their enthusiastic hugs at the bottom of the stairs, kissing them on top of their dirty blonde heads.
“We missed you!” Asher declares.
“The roads here are worse than New Orleans,” Parker says over him.
I hear Cillian laugh from behind me, and my smile grows impossibly.
“I missed y’all, too. And yeah, they’re pretty bad.”
“Let the woman breathe, boys,” my sister-in-law says, shaking her head. They release me only for Dianne to deliver her own crushing hug. “Oh, it’s so good to see you!”
“You, too.”
“And you must be Cillian,” she says, looking behind me.
I turn as he braces himself on the banister, a somewhat bashful smile on his face. “Guilty.”
Dianne introduces herself and the boys as Ben finally makes his way over to me.
“Told ya we’d make it,” he says, chuckling.
I roll my eyes, smiling, “So did Cillian.”
