Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,6

eye and nodded. We’d put in our appearance, talked, and stayed long enough not to be accused of leaving too early. But there was a time to come and a time to go.

It was definitely our time to go.

Chapter 3

CARTER

Mom insisted on having us all home for Thanksgiving every year. No matter how old we got, we Demming boys knew that the woman who raised us was not to be trifled with—especially not over this particular holiday.

We also respected her enough that none of us even tried trifling. Every year, regardless of what was going on in our own lives or jobs, all five of us put everything on hold and headed back to Conroe for the week.

Technically, it wasn’t just the five of us. It was all seventeen of us.

At twenty-nine, I was the youngest of the brothers and the only one without children or a love interest. And they never let me forget it.

It didn’t matter to my family that I drove a bad-ass motorcycle, was tough as nails to the outside world, or that I protected people for a living. When I walked into our parents’ house, I was the baby brother. The single, childless one who spoiled their kids and got to walk away without having to worry about breaking the habit of sugar before bedtime.

I shrugged when Tucker, my oldest brother, grabbed the candy bar out of my hand. “We’re not having a repeat of last year, Carter. I don’t care if you’ve got more muscles than brain cells now. I can still take you.”

“Boys,” Mom warned, tutting as she propped the hand that wasn’t holding a really big knife on her hip. Her kitchen might’ve smelled like my dreams of childhood, but the expression she was wearing came straight out of my nightmares. “No one is taking anyone. Carter, we’re having lunch in fifteen. You can give the kids more candy once they’ve eaten. Tucker, uncles and grandparents were put on this earth to spoil your kids. You only have to deal with it once or twice a year, so suck it up.”

Jeremy, the brother closest to me in age at only sixteen months older, laughed and held his palm up to high-five our mother. He was standing across from her at the kitchen island with a cutting board in front of him and his three-year-old zooming around with an old sheet tied around his neck as his cape.

“Tell him, Momster,” Jeremy cheered before turning to me. “You know mine can’t have any more candy though, right? He already thinks he’s Superman. Another bite of sugar and he might jump off the roof.”

“Like he’s not going to try that sometime anyway,” Tucker shot back, grinning as he rolled his eyes. “All of you numbnuts tried it.”

“Excuse me?” Mom gave Jeremy his high-five before arching a brow at Tucker. “They weren’t the only ones who tried it. You were first, if memory serves.”

“I’m pretty sure I was first at everything.” He smirked but the smug expression melted from his face when Parker walked in. He was only a year younger than Tuck and had been his closest competition for firsts in everything.

He winked when he met our eldest brother’s eyes. “You’re getting forgetful in your old age. I can remember quite a few things I did first. Getting married, having s—”

“That’s enough.” Mom narrowed her eyes at him, but I saw the smile she was trying to hide. “Yours might be outside with the only other woman who can tolerate you, but there are other little ears in here.”

“You mean the only woman who can tolerate me except for you, right?” He wrapped our mother in a hug and lifted her clear off her feet.

While she squealed and banged on his back in an attempt to get him to put her down, she yelled at him about manhandling one’s mother. Tucker’s six-year-old daughter eyed the package of candy bars I was holding.

“Uncle Carter?” she whispered, poking me to get my attention. “I gave my chocolate to Andy. Will you keep one for me after lunch?”

Andy, also known as Superman, skidded to a halt when he heard his name. His big brown eyes—our family trademark—rounded as he shook his head. “I didn’t get chocolate. I want chocolate too.”

I ruffled his hair and gave Sabrina a small nod. “I’ll hang onto all of these, okay? I promise there’s enough to go around.”

Half my damn suitcase ended up being filled with snacks and treats whenever I came home.