Yolo (Carter Brothers #7)

Chapter 22

Don’t worry about me. Worry about your eyebrows.

— Bindi’s secret thoughts

BINDI

“ My brother was shot because of me,” Garrett said to my father.

I whipped my towel toward him and heard the satisfied tap of it hitting a limb.

But then my dad yelled, “ Oow !”

I winced. “ Sorry , that was meant for Garrett .”

Garrett was chuckling, which was better than him blaming himself, so I counted it as a win despite the wrong target.

“ She doesn’t like when I say that my brother was shot because of me,” Garrett admitted. “ Truthfully , whether she wants to admit it or not, it really was.”

“ What happened?” Dad asked as he started heading up the front walk of Garrett’s brother’s place.

Mom was holding my hand, and each of us was balancing a tray of pies.

She squeezed my hand when I went to interrupt again. “ Shhh , honey. Let him speak.”

I shut my mouth just as Garrett started talking.

“ A while ago, I had a hit put out on me because of some shit that went down when I was undercover. I guess as they tried to rebuild, they’d forgotten about it. But just because they’ve forgotten about it, doesn’t mean that it’s gone. You know what I mean?”

Dad muttered a “yeah.”

“ That’s why I stayed away from your daughter for as long as I did, because that hit finally caught up to me,” he explained. “ I didn’t want to put her in any danger.”

“ Is that how you got the scar?” Mom asked as we came to a stop at what I assumed was the front door.

I’d seen the scar, of course.

I remembered him from before after he’d explained that we’d seen each other that day when I was in town with Joseph .

I’d seen him in the hotel lobby with his K -9 officer, Boss . Though I hadn’t known who they were at the time, I’d kept his face in my mind.

It’d been captivating.

I’d seen the scar running down his face, but his eyes—they’d been so freakin’ brown. And the glasses were even cuter. I’d thought he looked like a contradiction with his scarred face and his cute black-rimmed glasses.

I was so happy to finally know what his face had looked like. I didn’t know why it mattered to me so much, but I felt at peace about it finally.

Like I knew who it was that I’d fallen in love with completely now.

“ Hey , bro,” I heard called. “ You need help carrying anything else over?”

“ Actually , yes,” Garrett said as he walked deeper into the house. “ I have a tray of some sort of appetizer…”

“ Sausage crinkles!” Mom and I both said at the same time before I finished with, “ They have cream cheese, sausage, and crescent rolls in them.”

“ Yum ,” I heard said.

“ Which brother was that?” Mom asked.

“ That was Quincy ,” Garrett explained.

“ And that one right in front of you with the adorable baby?” Mom pushed.

“ That’s Quinn , Quincy’s triplet.”

I smiled as I walked farther into the room.

My mom let my hand go, and I felt a little bit naked in a room full of people with no idea where to go.

We’d left Rooster at home because it’d be utter chaos in the house with all the people around.

But now I wasn’t sure what to do or where to go.

“ Hey there.” Atlas’s voice came from my side. “ Can I take the pan for you?”

I nodded, thankful that someone had come to the rescue.

“ Ohh !” I heard running feet. “ Can I help you to the couch?”

I smiled. “ Sure . You’ll have to remind me who you are, though. I can’t talk to strangers.”

The little girl giggled so cutely. “ I’m Addison . My mama is Ande .”

“ The eldest?”

“ The oldest,” she agreed. “ This is Lola . She is Auden and Maven’s .”

I held out my hand and a tiny little one took it. “ It’s nice to meet you, Lola .”

“ You have pretty hair,” Lola whispered so quietly that I could barely hear it. “ I want hair like yours.”

“ No you don’t,” I teased. “ You can’t brush it, and when you wash it, you have to use half a bottle of conditioner.”

“ Amen to that,” Maven groaned. “ Curls are such work!”

I felt the couch depress next to me and assumed she’d sat down.

I’d met them all over the last few weeks, and I knew most of them by name.

However , the triplets— Quincy , Quinn , and Quaid —all sounded exactly alike so it was hard for me to differentiate who I was talking to.

Gable sounded a lot like Garrett , too, but not enough to make me question who it was I was talking to—my fiancé or his twin brother.

“ Oh my god!” I heard cried out. “ These are fan-fucking-tastic!”

“ You better not have eaten them all,” I heard called.

“ What is he talking about?” I wondered.

“ The sausage crinkles,” I heard my mom call from beside me somewhere. “ You should give him the recipe. It’s easy and they’re fantastic.”

I shrugged. “ I’ll give whoever wants it the recipe.”

“ You came up with the recipe?” I heard Maven ask.

“ Here , baby. I snagged you one,” I heard Auden say.

“ Oh my god.” Maven groaned. “ They are fan-fucking-tastic.”

“ You should put these in your bakery,” Hollis , Quincy’s wife, called out. “ They’d sell out every single day.”

“ I’d have to pay to use the recipe,” Maven said. “ Would you allow that?”

I snorted. “ You can just use the recipe. I can’t gatekeep it. I mishmashed a few recipes together to come up with it.”

“ Well , how about free cookies for life?”

“ Deal !” Garrett called.

I giggled.

“ Who’s ready to eat?” the matriarch of the Carter clan called out. “ Because I’m starving, and there aren’t any more sausage crinkles!”

I felt a hand catch mine and got up.

“ There’s a step,” Lola whispered.

I stepped up into what I assumed was the dining area.

“ Whose bright idea was it to put the dining room up on a pedestal?” Garrett asked.

“ The contractor who fucked our concrete up,” Quaid grumbled darkly. “ They got all the kinks worked out, so everyone else’s house was normal.”

“ I kind of like it,” I admitted as I was helped into a seat. “ It differentiates one room from the other without me having to guess.”

“ That’s true, I guess,” Ellodie agreed. “ I guess I never really thought of it that way. Okay , everyone be quiet so I can tell Bindi what’s on the table.”

Everyone quieted down and I listened in shock as everything that was on the table was told to me.

“ I don’t think I have a big enough plate,” I admitted.

“ She’ll take this, this, and this.” Mom must’ve been pointing.

“ Oh , and that one,” Garrett chimed in. “ She loves sweet potatoes.”

“ She loves rolls,” Atlas said. “ I paid her in rolls last week when she helped me watch the kids for a bit.”

I felt my heart get so full it might burst.

I loved this family.

They were all so freakin’ welcoming it was overwhelming.

Tears formed in my eyes, and a soft, tiny hand curled around my hair from behind and said, “ Aunt Pepper , do you think you could make me a wig out of Aunt Bindi’s hair?”

“ No , Catherine ,” Shayne tittered. “ Because Aunt Bindi wants her hair.”

“ I do,” I admitted. “ But I might consider growing it out and then cutting it later.”

“ Ohh ,” Catherine said. “ Please ?”

“ Sure .” I shrugged. “ But it might take a while. My hair grows really slow.”

“ It really does,” Mom admitted. “ As a kid, she had straight as a board hair. But one day I cut her hair because it was getting too long. And the next day it turned curly. Then it took her four more years to grow hair past her shoulders.”

“ That’s a bummer,” a young boy’s voice called out. “ My hair grows so fast. I can’t wait to have testicle hair!”

There was a moment of silence and then Ande said, “ Tex , honey. Those are the types of things that you keep to yourself.”

“ But then how will you know that I want ball hair like Daddy ?” Tex asked.

There was a groan, which I assumed belonged to Keene , Ande’s husband.

“ Yes , sister.” Garrett laughed. “ How will we know if he doesn’t tell us?”

“ Hey , Bindi . Did you know that when Garrett was younger, he got caught buying a penis pump online because he wanted to impress his locker room buddies?” Ande asked sweetly.

Garrett sighed from beside me.

“ He must’ve grown a lot since he was younger, because he has no reason for a penis pump right now,” I said, then winced.

“ Sweet Mary , Mother of God ,” I heard my dad call. “ Honey , these are the types of things you keep to yourself.”

Garrett chuckled and caught me up with an arm around my shoulders, pulling me toward him.

He kissed me on the forehead, then leaned in to whisper, “ Your plate’s in front of you. You have a fork on your right, a spoon and knife on your left.”

“ That’s backward,” I pointed out.

“ I know, but we let the kids set the table. They do what they want.”

“ What would you like to drink?” Catherine asked, who was on my other side.

“ I’d like whatever you’re having,” I suggested.

“ No ,” Shayne quickly dissuaded me. “ She drinks suicides. I think she added tea, Kool - Aid , and cream soda to hers.”

I wrinkled my nose. “ Okay , then, how about just sweet tea?”

“ Excellent choice,” Catherine said. “ Aunt Ellodie made it, so you know it’s going to be good. It tastes like shit when Uncle Quaid makes it.”

“ Hey !” Quaid whined. “ I thought you loved me, Catherine ?”

“ Just because I love you doesn’t mean that I’ll lie about your sweet tea,” Catherine countered, her voice fading out as she left the room.

“ She’s got you there, bro,” Gable called. “ Your tea does suck.”

“ Well , if it sucks, it’s because Mom taught me how to make it,” Quaid countered.

“ Boys ,” Germaine hollered. “ Everyone dig in.”

Garrett tapped my thigh and said, “ Your drink is to the left of your plate.”

I smiled and dug in, finding the first bite to be macaroni.

“ Mom ,” I heard another child say. “ I want to eat with my hands, too!”

“ You can’t,” Auden countered. “ You’re not special like Bindi . She has to feel her food to see.”

I smiled and took another bite, this time of sweet potato casserole.

Everything was fantastic, but by far my favorite were my mom’s mashed potatoes.

She had yet to pass the recipe down to me, stating I’d get it when she died.

I then asked for seconds, hearing a lot of the kids parroting my sentiments.

“ Here , try this,” I heard a kid say as she moved toward me and squeaked in between Garrett and me.

“ What is it?” I asked.

“ It’s a roll with mashed potatoes on it,” Garrett whispered when the kid disappeared. “ That was Cilian . Quinn and Shayne’s adopted son. I watched him make it. He used a plate and everything.”

I laughed and reached for the roll with mashed potatoes on it, then took a healthy bite.

I wasn’t a person who shied away from trying new things, and this sounded right up my alley.

I was right, too. The two paired together were fantastic.

“ Yum ,” I said. “ Cilian , can you make me more?”

The body was back within a minute and he said, “ It’s on your plate next to the green beans you didn’t like.”

Everyone laughed at that, and I ate my roll, my extra mashed potatoes, and then my mashed potato-filled rolls.

By the time I cleaned my plate, I was stuffed.

“ Oh my god.” I groaned as I leaned back in my seat. “ I don’t think I can eat another thing.”

“ You better have saved room for dessert,” Maven countered. “ And those pies your mom made looked fantastic.”

I scrunched up my nose. “ I’m sorry to tell you this, but there’s no way I have room for anything right now. I’m gonna need at least an hour to digest before I eat any dessert.”

“ In that case.” A hand touched my shoulder. “ Hold my baby.”

A baby was thrust into my arms. One who was sleeping and protested only slightly at the exchange.

“ Who am I holding?” I asked.

“ That’s Mellisandre , Ellodie and my youngest,” Quaid said. “ She’s out like a light.”

“ I can tell.” I rubbed my chin on the baby’s head. “ She smells really good.”

“ She helped me bake dessert,” Ellodie admitted. “ I think she wore more than she got in the bowl.”

I smiled and closed my eyes, remembering only now that I’d forgotten my glasses in my rush to leave.

“ I can’t wait for you to give me grandbabies,” my mother’s voice was soft.

I huffed out a laugh. “ Let me tell everyone at work that I’m marrying Garrett , then you can get your grandbabies.”

“ What ?” I heard yelled.

The baby in my arms jumped at the multiple “whats” shouted from the table surrounding me.

I patted the baby’s bottom, then started to sing a lullaby in Spanish .

“ Oh ,” Athena cooed from across the table. “ Can you teach our kids that lullaby? It sounds beautiful.”

“ It’s actually not all that sweet. It talks about spiders and sleeping. But it sounds beautiful, doesn’t it?” I said between breaths.

“ Honestly , if you could just start teaching them all Spanish when you’re here, you’ll give them a leg up in life,” Quaid advised. “ I hate having to call in backup when I can’t figure out what someone is saying.”

“ You should take Spanish ,” I suggested. “ It’s a great language to know in your line of work.”

“ I know,” Quaid grumbled. “ I just need about eight more hours in the day.”

“ Same ,” I said. “ At least I’m being compensated nicely for all the overtime I’m doing.”

“ Dad !” Quinn bellowed. “ I want a raise.”

Was this family ever quiet?

I loved it, though.

Not that I didn’t love growing up with only my parents—because they made being a single child special—but…

“ You and me both, buddy. But I’m fighting with the board to not defund us right now. Asking for a raise is out of the question,” Germaine shot back.

Hours went by as we talked, laughed, played games, and held babies.

By the end of the night, I was on the couch with multiple passed-out kids, with Addison next to me whispering in my ear as she helped me play the card game that the adults were playing.

“ This one,” she suggested.

“ What’s it say?” I asked her.

“ It says ‘ Moana’s moaning,’” she whispered.

I winced.

The kid was young. I knew that. Surely she didn’t understand the innuendo she’d just made.

“ Read me the card again?” my mom asked.

“ Things that help Mickey relax,” Quaid read.

I groaned. “ Hey , do you think you can go grab me a bottle of water?”

“ Sure ,” she chirped and was gone, barely making a ripple in the pile of kids as she went.

I wasn’t quite sure how I’d ended up with them all, but I seriously had no less than six on the couch with me.

Not to mention I had Mellisandre still in my arms, as well as Cordelia , Quinn , and Shayne’s youngest, on the boppy by my hip.

I was fairly sure that Lola was draped across my legs, but at this point, there were so many random feet and hands that I wasn’t sure who was where.

“ Oh , this one is a good one.” My mom giggled.

She passed the card up to the front, and I held my hand up.

It was plucked out of the air a few seconds later, by who, I didn’t know.

Garrett was across the room, I knew, next to my parents.

He’d tried to get next to me but the kids had descended, and he’d had to find another seat.

I was over the moon, though.

I loved that they all accepted me.

“ You know,” I heard my soon-to-be mother-in-law say. “ I was the favorite, but I think I was demoted.”

“ Sorry , Mom .” Garrett chuckled. “ You’re just not as cool as Bindi . Plus , she actually needs their help. The kids are all over that.”

“ I think I’m ready for bed after this one.” Quincy yawned theatrically.

“ Same ,” Shayne grumbled. “ I think I might be in a turkey coma.”

“ I haven’t eaten this much in an entire year,” Pepper declared.

“ Who hasn’t given me their card?”

“ Me ,” my mom said. “ I can’t decide what to choose.”

There was some shuffling, which I assumed was my mom giving up her card, and then Quaid clearing his throat.

“ Okay , the card read ‘ Things that help Mickey relax,’” Quaid said. “ The first card says ‘ Minnie’s laugh.’ The second says, ‘ Moana’s moaning.’” Quaid’s voice went strangled. “ The third says, ‘ Tigger’s bouncing….’”

He read the rest of them off, and by the time that he was done, everyone was laughing.

“ I’m going with Moana’s moaning.” Quaid chose his winner.

“ Oh , that one was mine and Bindi’s !” Addison chirped as she reappeared with a water and placed it against my hand.

I took it and barely contained the urge to laugh at the silence in the room.

“ On that note, I’m done, too,” Keene said as he got up, the chair squeaking slightly at the movement. “ You ready to go, Princess ?”

“ I’ll be ready to go when Bindi is,” Addison declared.

“ I’m ready, too,” I said softly. “ It’s way past my bedtime, and I have to work tomorrow.”

“ Eww , work,” Addison grumbled. “ I get to go to the circus tomorrow, you should come to that instead.”

Fifteen minutes after giving my reluctant declination, I was in Garrett’s room with my eyes heavy.

“ You wearing that to bed, baby?” Garrett asked.

I fell face first into the mattress and said, “ Yep .”

He helped me take my shoes off and pulled the comforter out from under me, not protesting at my clothing or lack of teeth brushing.

Instead , he took off his own clothes and crawled into bed beside me. “ Tomorrow , when I’m not so tired, I want to celebrate our almost-engagement.”

“ It’s a real engagement,” Garrett said into my hair as he squeezed me a bit tighter.

“ Sure ,” I teased. “ If you say so.”