I sighed.
“Is Darby there?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He sounded like he was grinning now. “Give me a minute.” He sounded like he set the phone away from his face. “Hey, you little asshole!”
I sighed and put the phone on speaker, grinning when Nico’s brows rose at Callum’s colorful language toward our baby brother.
“Ace wants you to ride to his crush’s house and get her to call him!” Callum bellowed.
I pinched the bridge of my nose while Nico straight up laughed.
There was a shuffle, then Callum was once again talking to me.
“Darby said he’d drive over there on the way to his night class.” Callum paused. “He also said that he couldn’t get his toilet to flush and wants compensation for doing your dirty work.”
I squeezed my eyes closed.
“How about you tell him to stop using so much goddamn toilet paper and to start taking shits more than just once a week. And if I come home and have to deal with his shit, I’ll make him eat it in his sleep,” I suggested.
I would, too.
I’d dealt with his shit—literally and figuratively—for a long fuckin’ time now. There was a point that the little fucker had to grow up and deal with it himself.
Even though he was at the point where he was.
He still acted like a little asshole every once in a while, though.
Callum snickered. “I’ll tell him that. But you may not get your girl…”
“You can do it or he can,” I suggested. “I know shit on both of you. Don’t make me use it.”
Callum sighed. “We’ll get it done, party pooper. Don’t worry.”
Then he was gone, leaving me with Nico still laughing his ass off.
“And I thought my sisters were bad,” he grinned. “Are you staying for dinner?”
I thought about that, then shrugged. “I’ll ask Codie what she wants to do. She doesn’t like your kids.”
Nico’s brows shot up. “That’s not an excuse. I don’t like my kids, yet I’m still here.”
Grinning, I got up and went for another beer.
Fifteen minutes later, Codie finally called me back.
Thirty minutes after that, dinner arrived and so had Codie.
She looked worried as well as hesitant the moment she walked up to the door.
“You so owe me for this, Ace Valentine,” she hissed when she saw all the kids looking in her direction.
All the kids that were staring at her as I opened the door, thinking it was the pizza delivery.
“The food is right behind me,” she said. “There is food from two places. One from a Chinese place, and one from a pizza place.”
I looked at the two men who were walking up the front walk almost in unison and grinned.
“I think my sister is pregnant again,” I murmured. “She came home and declared that Chinese wasn’t going to touch the day she had, and that pizza had to be ordered as well.”
Codie’s lips twitched.
“I had two apples with about half a cup of peanut butter about half an hour ago,” she paused. “That was what I was doing, contemplating my circumstances, when you called. My phone was charging in my room. It’s acting up today. I had it off the charger for all of five minutes when it said that it was at ‘twenty percent battery life’ and then I had to plug it in again.”
“Huh,” I said questioningly. “You’ll have to get that looked at tomorrow.”
“Kinda have to have a job to buy a new phone and all that jazz,” I commented. “What’s going on? Are y’all having a party?” she asked, changing the subject.
I gestured for her to take the pizza, which she did without comment.
I took the Chinese and gave each man a five-dollar tip.
They turned and walked away without another word, leaving both Codie and I with our hands full.
I stared into the glass screen door and raised my eyebrows at the twins who were staring at us laughingly.
“They’re the devil,” she whispered. “Why did you say that you wanted me here again?”
I grinned. “I swear, you’ll like the reason.”
Setting the Chinese food on top of the pizza boxes causing Codie to groan, I pulled out the box marked ‘noodles’ and a pair of chopsticks.
“What are you doing?” she asked curiously, not complaining about the weight of the food in her arms.
“Waiting them out,” I answered, opening the box and digging in with my chopsticks.
Both twins narrowed their eyes, and I took my first bite.
“Oh, they don’t look happy,” she teased.
“The noodles are theirs,” I said around a mouthful of their dinner.
“That’s mine!” twin one, better known as asshole one, said.
I shrugged.
“Just open the door,” asshole two said.
Asshole one did and held out his hands.
I shook my head. “You go wash your hands and get to the table, and if you hurry there might be some left.”
Both twins huffed but ultimately left to do my bidding.
“So that’s how it’s done,” Nico said.