Lift You Up (Rivers Brothers 1)

My hand slid down her spine, settling at her lower back, pulling her close. "Dunno, sweetheart, I've been pretty impressed in that department."

"Shh," she hissed, looking around self-consciously.

"Hey," Aero's voice called, making her jerk away, looking over toward the table. "We're going to play some poker. You guys want to be dealt in?"

"One hand?" Savvy asked, clearly caught up in the atmosphere. And, well, who could blame her. If you were going to play your first official hand at poker, where better than at a table with businessmen and women, a local madam, and who the hell knew who else.

"Can we play as one?" I asked, leading Savvy closer. "She's never played before."

"Oh, she can be taught things too?" Faye tsked. "Men just love teaching women stuff," she announced to the table, making the redheaded woman nod.

"Helpless with heads full of air," the redhead agreed, collecting her cards.

"One of my girls has officially been taught how to play pool thirty-seven times as of last night. It was a new record."

"What'd she win?" Aero asked, rearranging his cards as I pulled Savvy down on my lap, helping her arrange her hand.

"Those Saint Laurent Opyum pumps," she informed the table to a bunch of nods, leaving us the odd-men-out. Savea's shoes came off the shelf at a department store. And not the fancy kind. She wouldn't know a Saint Laurent from a Payless heel. And it was yet another thing I liked about her, her lack of fuss, her appreciation for less superficial things. She told me as she flipped through dresses that she generally chose her clothes based off what fabric was less likely to show animal hair.

"Raise," I whispered in her ear when it was her turn, watching as she smiled, grabbing the chips, pushing them toward the center of the table.

"I have no idea what I am doing, but this is fun," she told them, getting warm smiles from everyone, yes, even the cool Faye.

Maybe she actually did win the first hand.

It was possible no one had anything better than a three pair.

But, I suspected, they let her win.

Like they had likely let Harry win on occasion.

To lift them up.

To make their day.

The money meant nothing to them.

But no matter how hard and jaded you might be in your life, you had to warm up at Savvy squealing, slack-jawed as she reached across the table to drag all the chips toward her, shoulders dancing a bit as she put them in stacks.

"Hey, Kingston?" she asked, leaning back against me, head turning into my neck.

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking..."

"About?" I asked, shaking my head when the dealer waved in front of us, asking if we wanted in.

"Fixing up the farmhouse," she told me, voice low, a little slower than usual, thanks to the triple shot of tequila just barely splashed with something sweet Eamon had given her.

"We can work on that," I agreed.

"I mean... maybe... when it's done... Padfoot and Petunia would really like the yard, I think."

"Are you asking me to move in with you?" I asked, arm around her belly giving her a squeeze.

"I mean... if you think it's too..."

"It's not," I cut her off.

"Okay," she said, and I could hear the smile. "Then, yes, I'm asking you to move in."

It was official.

Helen was going to get to continue her winning streak.EPILOGUESavea - 2 weeks"Are you done?" I demanded, voice low, gaze downward, snapping the ends off the green beans in the Mallick house.

Here, and nearly nowhere else in her life, Helen Mallick stuck to traditional roles. The women gathered in the giant kitchen, slaving away to prepare a huge Sunday dinner while the men did, well, we didn't even know. Pretended to watch the kids who were likely running amuck wholly unsupervised judging by the nearly constant sound of screams, belly laughs, and OooOohs like someone was getting into trouble.

Not a single one of the Mallick women seemed fazed by this troubling chorus, each of them raising litters of kids, likely deaf to the sounds of children at play by now.

"Done?" Lea, Shane's wife, asked, dark brow quirked up. "We've barely gotten started. Fee hasn't prattled off a stream of sexual euphemisms. Peyton hasn't asked for details about what positions you guys tried while you had the bum leg. Helen hasn't asked about if you planned on having babies. And Dusty hasn't implored for all of us to leave you alone, to be nice, to mind our business. You've got a big bowl of green beans to be snapping. And we have a lot of work to do."

Jamie's arm went around my lower back, giving me a reassuring squeeze, but knowing better than to try to play interference, to interrupt what had seemingly become a family tradition.

And since none of the other Rivers brothers seemed anywhere near ready to settle down and find new women to drag into the fold, I was the last chance for a while to get a good, solid, embarrassing ribbing in.