Sniffling before they could hear me, I got myself under control just as I reached my chair. “I’m back, bitches,” I said in my fucked-up voice as I pulled my chair out.

Every set of eyes flicked up at me in surprise just as I plopped down into my seat, Ivan doing the same thing. “I made sure she only stole candy from kids and didn’t try to beat them up,” he said dryly, shoving his seat forward before picking up his napkin and dumping it on his lap. “Only one of them cried.”

A smile twitched at my lips, even as my eyes felt dry and my face felt hot.

No one in my family said anything. Not for a minute. Maybe not even for two minutes.

Until...

“A wasp got you in both eyes too while you were out there, huh?” my brother Jonathan piped up, giving me an expression that wasn’t totally a content one.

I blinked at him, ignoring the tightness in my chest, and said, “After he stung you all over your face, from the looks of it.”

Jonathan snickered, but it was half-hearted. “You look like a raccoon.”

I sniffed and picked up my utensils, ignoring the look I could feel my dad giving me from his spot down the table. “At least Mom didn’t find me in the trash.”

My brother choked at the exact instant that a hand landed on my thigh for the second time that night and gave it a squeeze.

A throat cleared and a second later, my dad started to say, “Jasmine—”

But Ruby pretty much cut him off by shouting, “I’m pregnant!”

“Do you want me to drive you home?” Ivan asked as we waited for the rest of my family to filter out of the restaurant.

My face was still puffy and tight, and I was sure I looked like a giant pile of shit, but I gazed right at that handsome face and shook my head. “No, that’s stupid. I know it’s past your bedtime and you need your beauty sleep. I can catch a ride with my mom.”

The man who had been nothing but quiet the rest of dinner, nodded, not picking up on my jokes at all. Which said something. Said more than anything. He was still frustrated, but whether it was at me or my dad, I had no idea. Maybe I was imagining it too, thinking everything was always all about me.

Without thinking, I reached forward and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. “Thank you for coming, and for everything you said and did.” I squeezed his much bigger hand once more. “You didn’t have to—”

His eyes were on me, steady, steady, steady. “I did.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes.” He squeezed my hand back. “I did.”

I stared right into those eyes I couldn’t tell were almost a sky blue in that moment, but knew in the bottom of my heart were. “If you have any family drama and I need to get involved in, I’ll be there.”

What could have been considered a smile, creased his dimples and he shook his head. “No. No family drama. They’re all supportive. But my grandpa would eat you up, you know.” He paused and his dimples became that much more pronounced. “Ex-partners on the other hand… I’m lucky they signed confidentiality agreements. Save it up for them.”

I blinked at him, taking in the explanation that didn’t answer hardly anything, and I swallowed it for later, trying to cling onto the lightness of this conversation after earlier. “I’ve got you,” I told him with a nod.

He squeezed my hand again.

At that moment, the doors behind him opened and I could hear my brother and James arguing, followed by my mom talking to my sister about how she shouldn’t keep things from her mother. The hypocrite.

“I’ll get going then,” my partner—my friend—said, slipping his hand out of mine gently and effortlessly. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some rest. Call if you need me.”

I nodded, this… something… pressed right at the center of my chest.

And before I could think about what I was doing, I went up to my tiptoes and kissed what I could reach—Ivan’s chin.

He looked down at me with an expression I had never seen before.

It pleased me. So, I smacked his hip and said, “Drive careful, Satan.”

He blinked. Once. Twice. And then nodded, his eyes looking like they had glazed over for a moment before refocusing, and then just like that, he turned on his heel and headed toward his car, leaving me standing there, watching him… before something familiar hit my ass.

My brother.

An arm slipped around my waist, pulling me into a body only a few inches taller than me. Jonathan gave me a rough squeeze that banged me against him, before roughly whispering into my ear like his words embarrassed him, “Love you, Grumpy.”

Letting my head drop to the side so that it rested against his, I put my own arm around the middle of him, around his ribs, and said, “Love you too, jackass.”

He huffed but didn’t let go of me. If anything, he held me closer to him and whispered, “I don’t like my baby sister upset.”

I groaned and tried to pull away.

He didn’t let me. “My wittle, baby sister.”

“If you say ‘wittle’ one more time….”

He laughed the lamest noise I had ever heard from him. “Love you, Grumps. And I’m proud of you. If I had kids and they grew up to be half as dedicated and hardworking as you, I couldn’t ask any for anything else.”

I sighed and hugged him closer. “Love you too.”

“Don’t let Dad get to you, all right?” My big brother turned his head, gave me a sloppy kiss on the head, and let me go, just like that. So suddenly I almost fell over.

I could see my dad out of the corner of my eye talking to James and Sebastian, but while I didn’t want to run away, I definitely didn’t want to talk to him.

“Let’s roll, Grumps,” my mom said, slipping an arm through mine and dragging me forward in the same motion; her husband, Ben, following behind, an arm on my shoulder as he pushed me into the parking lot.

What was I going to say? No? Please stop?

My brother and sisters would only give me a tiny amount of shit for bailing without telling them bye, but they would understand why. Walking beside my mom, pretty much jogging, the three of us made it to Ben’s BMW and got inside in record time, me slipping into the back seat while Ben got into the front and my mom in the passenger.

The second all three doors were slammed shut, my mom screamed.

Literally screamed so loud and for so long that Ben and I both covered our ears and looked at her like she was insane.

“I cannot stand your father!” she shouted the second her scream died down. “What is wrong with him?”

I looked in the rearview mirror at the same time Ben did, and we both raised our eyebrows at each other a moment before he started reversing out of the parking lot.

“I’m sorry, Jasmine, I’m so sorry,” my mom apologized, turning around in her seat to look at me.

I still had my eyebrows up. “It’s fine, Mom. Put your seat belt on.”

She ignored me. “God, I want to light him on fire!”

That went dark real quick.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked, still facing me. Her face this weird mixture of devastated and furious.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Now. “Put your seat belt on.”

“Is he always like that?” Ben asked as he steered the car across the parking lot.

“An asshole?” my mom pitched in. “Yes, especially with the kids.”

I loved how she called us her kids to a man that was only a few years older than my brother.

“But to tell you that you’re quitter? He’s lucky I promised Squirt I’d behave or I would’ve ripped him an asshole the size of my fist, and punched it.”

If I wasn’t supposed to smile to that, I wasn’t sure how to make that happen.

“She was pinching me under the table,” Ben let me know, like that would surprise me. It didn’t.

That was my mom right there. My defender forever and ever.

“Sorry about that, Jas,” my mom’s fourth husband murmured.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.” Mom turned around to face me again. “You’re a world-class athlete, and he makes it seem like you’re some kind of… little girl that does it for fun on the weekends. And I just sat there, dying inside while my Grumpy went outside, upset.”

“Mom—”

“I don’t want to see him. I better not see him again while he’s here. Better not see him again for another decade. Ruby can hang out with him after this. He better not expect you to see him.”

“He never wants to spend time with me anyway, Mom. It isn’t a big deal. Even dinner was a stretch, and I regret it. Obviously.”

She blinked those big blue eyes at me that had the power to make men weak.

“I’m stressed. I don’t know why I lost it. It’s fine. I’ve made it this long only seeing him once a year for a day; I can go on with my life the same way. He’s never been around anyway. And it isn’t like he really cares or is going to lose any sleep over it. It’s just me.”

My mom just blinked some more.

I didn’t like her looking at me so much, especially not when I knew I looked like shit. “Mom, seriously put your seat belt on.”

She didn’t move. Then she said, “Jas… you know your dad loves you, don’t you?”

Where the hell had that come from?