“Okay!”
“I’ll go with her,” Lottie says before kissing Brooks as if they can’t be apart for more than ten minutes.
“Actually, um… I need you here.” She stops, then glances at Brooks.
“Let’s go, Wren, you’ll never guess how far I threw the ball the other day.” Brooks kisses his wife’s cheek, and I try not to roll my eyes at their PDA since he’s doing me a solid and getting Wren out of here.
They leave with Wren rambling to Brooks about the end-of-year school field trip next week and how she wants to see the giraffes eat standing up.
The door shuts, and I turn around to see Lottie standing with her arms crossed. “What’s up?”
I bypass her and go to the kitchen where Romy is sitting on a stool with the street corn dip in front of her and a bag of corn chips.
“Way to wait for the rest of us.” I steal a chip.
“Bennett has something to tell us,” Lottie announces to the room.
“You’re marrying Delaney?” Dad holds out his hand toward my mom. “I won.”
“I owe you nothing. You said it would happen a month from now.” Mom wipes her hand on a dish towel and turns away from the stove. “What is it?”
“Thanks for that.” I glare at Lottie.
“You’re welcome,” she sing-songs. She steals a chip and dips it in the street corn dip. Romy practically growls.
All eyes are on me, and it makes me wonder if I should’ve given this more thought and gone about it another way. But here we are, so I might as well just put it out there.
“Okay well… Leia… Delaney’s daughter?”
“Oh my god, spit it out,” Romy says. She’s still gobbling the chips.
Lottie covers her mouth and says loudly, “She’s cranky.”
Off my train of thought, I ask Romy, “Where have you been?”
Her head rears back, and her arms fly in the air. “Will people stop asking me that? I have other friends besides people who live on this ranch.”
“Like who?” Lottie asks with a laugh.
Romy shakes her head. “What did you have to say, B?”
I take in my youngest sister. Something is definitely going on with her. She’s wearing her pajamas, and her hair is thrown into a messy bun, but it looks like it wasn’t even brushed first. No makeup.
“Hello?” Lottie waves her hand in front of my face.
“She’s my daughter.” I spit it out because I have limited time with Wren outside. “Leia, she’s mine.” I glance around for a second. “Delaney was in California when I was there. Kristie and I weren’t seeing eye to eye…” I push a hand through my hair and cringe. “Actually, she slept with Jon, so I moved out. We separated and had started divorce proceedings. Delaney started at the same company as me, and we kind of…”
“Well, we know what you did, son,” my dad says, eyebrows raised.
My mom swats the dish towel at his arm. “Let him continue.”
“We started to date, but then Kristie came back and said she was pregnant with Wren. So, I ended it with Delaney, and we moved back here to try to give it another go.”
My mom shifts her attention back to the pan of chicken.
Lottie’s mouth is wide open.
Romy shoves another chip in her mouth and shrugs. “Nice, big bro, you knocked up two women at the same time. Is he still your favorite, Mom?” she mumbles, pieces of chips falling onto her chest.
