Page 25 of Yours To Hold
“Fuck off. How can I be smothering when he’s not here?”
“Mason, you’re our big brother. Don’t act like you don’t worry about us.” Layla pats me on the chest as she waltzes into the house. I follow behind her. Willow is content telling Gramps and Gemma about her latest adventures with Ivy.
“Would you like to be the oldest then, Layla?”
“Oh, hell no. I don’t need any more responsibility.”
“Any word on if you’ll get the new storefront?” Peter asks.
With Layla’s growing store—handmade clothes and other things I don’t wish to think about—she’s been fighting the town council to get a bigger space.
“If the dickhead mayor would approve the permits, it’d be fine.”
“I don’t know what you ever saw in him.”
“Hence why I am no longer married to Dixon’s mayor. I know he has a problem with me selling lingerie in my store.”
“Eww,” Peter and I say at the same time.
“Oh, grow up.” Layla rolls her eyes and hands me a salad. “Go set the table.”
“You two are such babies about things.” Nash follows us into the dining room.
For a family as big as ours, Gramps’s house is small. With our dad and aunt growing up, it was cozy. Now, when all eight of us are together, it’s cramped.
The dining room backs up into a well worn-in living room. Couches dominate the space. A TV hangs above the fireplace. Every Winchester family memory covers the walls. Even some of Willow’s paintings have made the cut.
“Daddy!” Willow bursts into the house, screen door slamming behind her. “Aunt Gemma said I could go on a girls’ date with her and Ivy!”
“She what?” My eyes find my sister as she comes into the house with Gramps.
“Ivy and I are having lunch tomorrow. I figure if you’re going to be working, we could all hang out.”
“Wait, do I get to come?” Layla comes into the dining room, a heaping casserole dish in her hands.
“Can she?” Willow bounces over to Gemma.
“If she doesn’t have to work, she can.”
“I own my own store. If I can’t get away for lunch with my favorite niece, what good am I?” Layla looks just as excited as Willow.
“Yes! I get to be one of the big girls.” Willow runs over to Daisy, who is lying under the table waiting for scraps. “You have to stay at home, okay? I promise I’ll take you for a walk after.”
“Why is your daughter so perfect?” Peter asks.
“Because she’s mine.”
He bursts out laughing, smacking me in the stomach. “Please. If that were true, she’d be grumpy all the time.”
“Hey. I’m not grumpy.”
Peter gives me a deadpan stare. “You yelled at the delivery guy yesterday.”
I point a finger in his face. “I didn’t yell. He delivered the wrong bottles to us. You try figuring it out when the kid was high as a kite.”
“I never remember people getting this stoned when I was a kid,” Nash says, taking a seat at the table. Everyone else follows.
“What’s getting stoned, Uncle Nash?”
