Page 107 of Badd B*tch

I swallowed a laugh. "Sure, kid."

"See? She said yes." Harry immediately transferred herself back to my lap, swinging the parasol around like a barbarian mid-battle, nearly decapitating both Delia and me, until Delia made her stop.

A sigh, her vivid blue eyes meeting mine. "You're sure?"

I shrugged, laughing as I ducked another wild swing. “Yeah, it's fine. I've never spent any time around kids, is all." I paused. "I'm Tea. If I heard your name, I don’t remember it; I’m sorry.

"I'm Delia." A laugh. "And no worries, I know there’s, like, a billion of us. A common drinking game in our family is listing everyone in order of age from Papa Lucas down to Harry, here. If you mess up, you take a shot."

I cackled. "Oh god, I'd die of alcohol poisoning."

"That one usually gets trotted out after everyone is already ripped."

"Who watches the kids when the adults are drunk?"

"Oh, we've got a few who don't drink, for one. Then there's the older kids who are too young to drink, and no, we do not allow or condone teenage drinking. And those of us with younger kids aren’t generally the ones staying to get drunk. We have to get our kids to bed. Although Hunter and I will take turns being the sober one if it's a special holiday or whatever. But there are always several sober, responsible adults around, and even at our worst, we're not, like, frat-party wasted. Just having a good time."

"I'm not judging, I promise."

She shrugged as if it didn't matter. "It looks like a lot of chaos, because it is, so I get where you're coming from. But if you watch carefully, you'll see that we are actually paying attention."

"Oh, I noticed. Kieran nearly flattened someone, and Baxter yelled at him from across the property."

"Kieran can get carried away." She looked at me. "You really should go watch the boys and their Goldeneye tournament. It's pretty entertaining."

"Watching other people play a video game?"

"I've got two brothers and a metric fuckton of boy cousins, so trust me when I say I get it. But in this particular case, yes. It's entertaining as hell. They're unhinged about it."

"Goldeneye? Like the decades-old N64 game?"

"The very same. It's a quasi-cultish obsession with nearly all the males over the age of five in the Badd Family."

"Weird."

"Comes from the uncles. For as long as I've been alive, all the uncles have regular Goldeneye tourneys. That's my brothers’ word—tourneys. Fuckin' weirdos." She clapped a hand over her daughter's ears. "Oops. Earmuffs."

Harry thrashed her head to shake the hands off. "Fuckin' weirdos!"

"Harriet! You know better."

"So do you, mama."

My eyes widened. "Um."

Delia's shoulders shook in silent laughter. "No thank you, Harriet." Her voice shook but was otherwise admirably steady.

"Sorry, mama. I go play now."

"And what are the rules?"

Harry sighed, a sound of irritated long-suffering. "Don't go near the water without a adult hand. Don't get squashed by the big boys. Only drink a drink in my sippy cup."

"And?"

A pause. "Kisses and squeezes before I go." She stood up on Delia's thighs and flung her little arms around her mother's neck, squeezed hard enough that the woman choked, and then gave her six sloppy, wet kisses before hopping down and scampering off, waving her parasol like a magic wand.

"Quite a kid you've got there."