"He's my boss only in a manner of speaking. Honestly, I see the coach as my boss, not Graham. As long as I keep performing on the field, everything is fine. This isn't bothering me. I hope he treats you right."
"He does."
"Good."
"You'll be civil when I bring him over to dinner next Friday, right?"
Jace grinned. "Civil is my middle name."
Our Bennett cousins arrived shortly afterward, and we tabled the discussion. When Sebastian, Logan, and Blake stepped inside my sister’s house, I kissed their cheeks and gave them a hug too, for good measure.
“Well, hello there, dearest Bennetts,” Val said. As we all sat at the dining room table, she went on, “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“We’re changing the distributor in this area,” Sebastian explained. He was the CEO of Bennett Enterprises, and Logan the CFO.
“Always good to meet them in person,” Logan added.
“I just tagged along to annoy them.” Blake leaned back in his chair, wiggling his eyebrows. Then he added, “Kidding. Alice and I want to franchise the restaurant business, and we had some interest here in LA.”
“Impressive,” I remarked. Blake and his sister Alice owned several locations in San Francisco.
Hailey parked a hand on her hip, tapping her foot. “So no one came just to visit us?”
Val waved her hand. “Never mind, we’ll pretend you did. So, what’s new in the family? Anyone popping out more babies? It’s baby factory over there in Bennettland.”
“Nadine is pregnant,” Logan announced, referring to his wife. For some reason, he looked very, very smug. Hmm... interesting. All the men in their family had some mighty great egos, but I knew there was something more to Logan’s smile. Sebastian shook his head, smiling, and Blake was semiglaring at Logan.
It took me a second to understand what was going on as I recalled a funny conversation from Landon’s wedding.
“That’s right. You two were in competition with each other for who’d have a second kid first,” I said.
Logan’s smile turned, if possible, even smugger.
“Well, Blake. Looks like you lost,” I continued, trying to contain my laughter.
Blake didn’t seem fazed. “Clara and I aren’t in a hurry. And Logan already lost the competition with Sebastian. He just chose an easy prey to compete with.” Oh, yeah. The game was on. Now Blake was smug and Logan was glaring.
“I’m still in the competition,” Sebastian declared.
I cleared my throat. “I remember Ava saying she was happy to stop at four.”
Sebastian’s lips twitched in amusement. “But my convincing prowess is unmatched.”
Everyone laughed at that, and we chit-chatted about the entire family while we ate.
“Oh, by the way, Pippa has her eyes on you two.” Blake pointed between Jace and Will.
“I knew it,” I exclaimed. Their sister Pippa was an excellent matchmaker.
Will chuckled, turning to Jace. “We kind of got the gist of that at Landon’s wedding. Nothing came out of her matchmaking attempts.”
“Have you met Pippa? Failure doesn’t discourage her. If anything, she’ll try harder,” Sebastian explained.
Will blinked. Jace ran a hand through his hair, looking somewhere between alarmed and amused. Closer to alarmed.
“We should give Pippa pointers,” Hailey said conversationally.
Val nodded. “You’re right. That would improve her chances of success.”