Dream Chaser (Dream Team #2) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,136

I’m gonna lose it,” I warned.

His head twitched.

Then he muttered, “You are so weird about crying.”

“Whatev—”

I didn’t get that whole word out before we heard, “Aaaaaaauuuuntieeeee Rynnnnnnnie!”

I turned toward Angelica’s house to see Jethro barreling out of it, arms wheeling, heading straight to me.

Okay.

Shit.

So I was going to cry.

My nephew hit me like a train, and I went back on a foot.

I also bent over and wrapped my arms around him.

“Hey, bucko,” I said, my voice funny.

His head shot back.

“Hey!” he yelled in my face.

God, he was cute.

And God, until that moment, I didn’t allow myself to feel it.

But I missed him so fucking much.

“How you doin’?” I asked.

“Awesome,” he said.

I was uncertain that was true on the whole. More like true because I was there.

Which worked for me.

He pulled away and shouted, “Hey, Dad! You’re back!” and then he barreled into his dad.

Boone put a hand to the small of my back.

I looked up at him to see him looking at the house.

I turned my attention there.

Angelica was bearing down on us.

Oh boy.

“Jethro, get in the house!” she barked.

Jethro turned to his mom, then to his dad, to me, and finally, his eyes caught on Boone.

“Who’re you?” he asked.

“Jethro, what did I say?” Angelica demanded, arriving at us.

“I’m your aunt’s boyfriend,” Boone answered.

Jethro gave Boone a scrunch-nosed gross face.

He also totally ignored his mother.

But she made it so the rest of us couldn’t.

“Of course you are. Of course a stripper would land a hard body,” Angelica sneered.

New improved Ryn, I kept my mouth shut.

Boone stared down his nose at Angelica.

Brian murmured, “Angie.”

That got him her attention. “What are you doing here, Brian? I’ve already let you see the kids today.”

“I was worried about Portia,” he told her.

“I told you, there’s nothing to worry about. She’s throwing a tantrum. The best way to beat a tantrum is not to give it any attention,” Angelica Mother of the Year retorted.

“She’s too thin, Ang,” Brian said.

“She’ll eat when she’s hungry,” Angelica returned.

“You think?” Brian asked. “Because she can’t have lost that amount of weight by skipping a couple of meals.”

“You do not give in to a kid who is acting out,” Angelica decreed.

“She just wants to see her aunt. And her aunt is right here,” Brian pointed out, motioning to me with a hand.

“I say who the kids see, and I’ve told your sister she is not welcome here,” Angelica shot back.

“Ang, let’s talk this—” I began to try to make the peace.

She swung on me. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

I was about to say something, but Brian spoke first.

“You don’t say who the kids see, Angie.”

She swung on him. “I do.”

“I get where you were,” Brian replied. “But you see where I am. Regardless, in all that, I’m always their dad and we make decisions together about our kids. Or I make decisions on my own when one of them isn’t in a good place and you aren’t seeing to her.”

“So you’re their dad now, hunh? You weren’t their dad when you walked out on us, leaving me on my own to raise two kids,” Angelica stated.

“I didn’t walk out, you kicked me out.”

“You gave me no choice.”

“And you weren’t raising them alone, Angelica.”

“Might as well have been.”

Brian flinched, even though, maybe sister prejudice, I thought that was way not fair.

He might have been drunk during some of it (okay, maybe a lot of it), but he was all over having them when it was his time to have them and he made certain Angelica was covered in a lot of ways, financially and with family to take her back.

He recovered and said carefully, “I wasn’t just talking about me. And we both know you weren’t raising them alone, Ang. Far from it.”

Now that was totally true.

Angelica, being Angelica, wasn’t about to cede the point.

So she didn’t.

She said, “Well, we wouldn’t have needed them if you hadn’t left us before you actually left us.”

“I hear that but let’s not revise history, okay?” Brian asked.

I worried that neither of them realized Jethro was right there.

Angelica proved she didn’t care as she launched right back in and tried another tack.

“You gave up the right to be their dad when you picked the bottle over your kids,” she declared.

“I’m not making that choice now.”

She hooted then asked, “So I’m supposed to believe you’re all better?”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters right now is where Portia is at,” Brian retorted.

“Maybe you guys can take this somewhere else and me and Boone can take