“Out of all our boys,” Keela said, running her hand over Miller’s back, “he is the most like you.”
I tugged on Miller’s hair, earning me a smile. He grew his hair out, so it hung low and brushed his neck just like mine did. He was definitely my mini me; he did everything I did and said everything I said, which had me watching my P’s and Q’s daily. He was my baby, mine and Keela’s last child, so I went out of my way to baby him because I knew these days were numbered. Before I knew it, he’d be a teenager like Enzo.
The front door suddenly opened, and Ryder’s middle son, Alfie, strolled in, he too was wearing soccer gear. Nearly all of the Slater kids played soccer. They all played for the same club, just on different teams because of their age differences.
“Cousin.” Alfie frowned at Miller lying on me. “My guy, are ye’ okay?”
Miller turned his head so he could look at Alfie. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“D’ye wanna come and play Fortnite with me?” Alfie asked, then he looked at me as he sat down. “Can he, unc? Me Da said I don’t have to go and play football if I came over ‘ere and played with Miller.”
Alfie loved Miller, I knew that, but right now, my nephew was using my son to get out of playing soccer, and it tickled me. Fortnite was the latest craze that all the kids obsessed over.
“Sure.” My lips twitched. “Only for an hour, though, okay?”
Alfie nodded, jumped up, then ran out of the room and up the stairs to the kids’ game room without a backwards glance.
“Cousin!” Miller shouted as she scrambled off my chest. “Wait for me.”
“C’mon then, Mills!”
When both kids were upstairs, I turned to Keela and found her smiling and shaking her head.
“I honestly can’t believe they all address each other as cousin.”
“I can’t even remember how it started, but it’s cute.”
Keela leaned against me and rested her head on my chest.
“Wanna do somethin’ fun?”
I looked down at her. “The kids could come down at any—”
“I’m not talkin’ about sex, Alec.”
I frowned. “What then?”
“I was thinking of watchin’ a film.”
I paused. “What movie?”
“I don’t know ... oh, I know one of the Jurassic World films are on Sky. The second one, I think. What about that?”
“We aren’t watching that.”
I made a vow to God to never watch that damn movie ever again.
Keela looked up at me. “Oh yeah, I forgot that ye’ cried when the dinosaur with the long neck died when we saw it in the cinema.”
“You saw him, Keela!” I grunted. “He was calling for help; he was asking the humans to stop the boat and help him, but they didn’t, and he—” I cut myself off midsentence and took a few deep breaths. “He died,” I finished. “It was sad, and I wasn’t the only one who cried, so leave me alone about it.”
“Everyone else who cried with us was under the age of fourteen, big man.”
I glared at my wife. “Then me and the kids are the only ones who aren’t pure fucking evil in this family!”
My wife chortled. “What d’ye want to watch then, crybaby?”
I perked up. “I vote Star Wars.”
Keela groaned and laughed when I said, “I’ll eat your pussy until you come later if you watch the new movies with me.”
“Ye’ better make me toes curl, husband.”
I fist pumped the air. “I always do, wife.”
I grabbed the remote and turned on The Force Awakens. Alannah Slater chose that moment to enter my house like the plague she was. I paused the film before it even had a chance to start, and I glared at her as she walked into the living room. She pulled a face at me when she looked my way.
“That’s way more of your ugly arse than I need to see on this fine Saturday morin’.”
I stretched my body out. “I’ll be naked the next time you enter my crib, Ryan.”
“I haven’t been Alannah Ryan for ten years, and ye’ know it.”
“You’ll always be a Ryan, you life-sucking monster. No Slater woman in her right mind would ever be as evil as you.”
Alannah sat down on the armchair and snickered. She knew damn well that she was a hellion, and from the look on her too pretty face, she was pleased about it, too.
“Well,” I began, “what’s good, four eyes?”
Her jaw tensed as I knew it would. Her eyesight had worsened over the years, and she refused to get laser eye surgery out of fear she’d go blind or something, so she settled on getting glasses. She hated them at the start, so I teased her about them every chance I got, and it still bugged her after all these years.
Alannah deadpanned. “Ares and Ace wear glasses, too.”