The Dragon Prince's Crush - Lorelei M Hart Page 0,5

thing, yeah, I guess you should be. But not for your reaction to what he said.”

She placed a hand over her mouth as her voice wobbled. “It’s today.”

“What is?” I asked as I started the car.

“Mom’s anniversary.”

Fuck! That was a punch to the gut. I’d forgotten. We’d always gone to the cemetery on the anniversaries of both our dad and mom’s deaths. I rubbed a hand over my face. It was my turn to apologize. I was doing a shit job of looking out for my little sister. Failing her. Failing at life. “Sienna, I…”

But in a moment of role reversal, she put a hand on me and said, “It’s okay. You can’t remember everything. Detour on the way home?”

“Absolutely.”

I parked outside the cemetery gates. Wildflowers were always blooming here at this time of year. Mom preferred wildflowers over any other, and we gathered two bunches and strolled over the grassy slope to two granite headstones that had one of the best views over the island.

We kneeled in front of them and put the flowers in two vases. “Hi, Mom. Daddy. I almost got kicked out of school today.”

“Sienna!”

My sibling shot me a glance, and for a moment, the sun, the chatter of birds, and the distant sound of traffic vanished and it was just us. The four of us. Sienna’s impish face had laughter bubbling out of me, and she joined in.

“Mom. Dad. Wait til you hear what happened,” I said. “Take it away, Sienna.”

Three

Aiden

“Don’t hog the bacon, bro. Give it here.” Chance made grabby hands across the table.

“What… this bacon?” I teased, nibbling the end off a strip. “Mmm, so good.” I gave a low moan and then proceeded to shove the rest of the piece into my mouth in one go.

“Hey!” My youngest brother practically launched himself across the table to snatch the plate up.

The rest of us steadied our glasses as the table gave a lurch. There were six of us around the table: my two brothers and their mates, myself, and our best friend, Spencer.

“It’s a good thing this is a private room, or the staff would probably ask us to leave,” our middle brother Brenton scolded, but there was the hint of a smile on his lips.

His mate, Gavin, snorted. “Yeah, right. A restaurant tell the royal family what they can and can’t do? Not likely.”

He had a point. Kicking us out would be bad for business, but maybe that was why they gave us the private room at the back. We could relax and be ourselves rather than worrying about public opinion, and I was eternally grateful for this moment of peace.

Chance was busy shoveling food into his mouth, dribbling scrambled eggs and ketchup down his shirt. Devlin shook his head with a chuckle. “I can’t take you anywhere,” he chided in a low voice, and from the way Chance yelped, I could only guess that his mate had pinched his ass.

“You can take me anywhere, and often do. How about a quickie in the bathroom?” Chance gave a cheeky smile, and Spencer slapped a hand over his face.

“Grossss,” he moaned and made gagging sounds behind his hand. Spencer was like a surrogate brother to us, my very best friend, and even though we weren’t related by blood, he belonged at this table just as much as I did. “Please, can we change the subject?”

“Yes, let’s,” I agreed.

“Oh!” Chance blurted, his eyes lighting up. “I forgot to tell you guys that Draeke learned a new word.”

“I don’t think this particular word is anything to be proud of,” Devlin muttered.

“You’re just salty because he learned a bad word from you.” Chance’s eyes glittered, and while he was a model father, I could tell that he found the humor in his son’s newfound bad word.

“What about you, Spencer? What’s new?” Devlin asked, changing the subject away from his slip-up.

“Me? Nothing, as usual. There’s never any news when you’re a perpetual bachelor. Unless you want to hear about the new shirt I bought? Ha, not likely. What’s Evelyn up to?” Spencer asked Brenton.

Brenton chuckled. “She’s just moved from rolling across the floor to crawling. So, you know what that means.”

“Our dads have their hands full?” I asked.

“You got it,” he agreed. “Between Draeke running circles around them all, and now Evelyn never staying where you put her, our fathers are guaranteed to be exhausted by the time we finish lunch.”

“Lunches are nice and all, but I miss dinners with you guys,” Chance lamented. “We always need