Crazy Heifer (The Valentine Boys 2)

Codie came waltzing in moments after I stood and groaned when she smelled the beans.

“Oh my God. Those smell so. Good.” She groaned. “I gotta go take a shower and wash all this… stuff… off of me. Then I’ll come in and help you with the rest of dinner.” She frowned. “What is the rest of dinner?”

I held up three loaves of bread and a massive stack of cheese.

“Grilled cheese,” I said. “I saw a video today on Facebook that made me want one. I’ve been super good lately, too. So I decided to treat myself. I even got this new country white bread. Oh my God. I can’t wait to taste it.”

Callum groaned. “Can we eat before the dumbass comes over?”

The phone rang again, and I gestured to it. “Hey, Codie. Want to answer that before you go shower?”

Codie grinned, then reached for the phone just like I knew that she would.

“Hey, Mal. You got Codie,” Codie greeted. “How’s life treating you? You and the missus getting along well?”

The false sense of sweetness in her voice had me grinning and Callum chuckling.

“What do you mean you’re already here?” Codie rolled her eyes. “You’ve been knocking for ten minutes?”

So that was what that noise had been.

I’d heard it, of course, but I’d thought that it was one of the guys in the living room playing Call of Duty again.

The walls tended to shake when they turned the volume up super loud.

I’d gotten so used to it lately that it didn’t even affect me anymore. I was able to tune it all out in favor of listening to an audiobook, or reading on my phone while I worked.

Hell, I could even tune out the brothers talking in the kitchen behind me.

I’d gotten so used to the chaos that it almost felt weird to not have it around me.

“Oh, well, why didn’t you just come in with Georgia?” Codie said, turning slightly to reveal that Callum’s sister, Georgia, was walking into the kitchen sans any kids or her husband.

“Because I didn’t want him in my family home,” Georgia said. “I also don’t like his attitude. He watched me struggle to bring this in.”

‘This’ being a rather large baking sheet that looked like it was the size of a twin-size mattress.

Callum took it from her and leaned it against the wall in the corner of the kitchen.

“What the fuck is that?” he asked.

“Okay.” Codie rolled her eyes. “I’ll send Callum that way. Oh, sorry, Callum’s the only one here. Desi is at home.”

I snorted.

“Yeah, she left her phone here. She didn’t mean to,” Codie lied.

Then she hung up and put the phone on the table.

“Swear to God,” Codie grumbled as she started leaving the room. “I don’t know what you ever saw in that man.”

Me, neither.

Not when I had the real-life embodiment of the ‘perfect man’ right in front of me.

“I found it at an estate sale,” she said. “It’s just big enough to fit in our oven at home, so I think it’ll fit into y’all’s just fine, too.”

Okay, so the pan wasn’t quite as big as I’d made it out to be, but it was massive.

I’d never seen a cookie sheet so big before.

Obviously, neither had Georgia or Callum.

“What’s for dinner?” Georgia asked, changing the subject.

Callum sighed and began walking to the front door. “I’ll be right back.”

Georgia turned to me expectantly.

“I’m making grilled cheese and beans. Kind of an odd combination, but I wanted to try it. Are you staying? I think I have enough for you. Not if any of those kids or your husband is going to follow you in, though.”

Georgia’s mouth quirked. “No, not today. Nico took them to go see a movie. I’m all by my lonesome. I was going to go get a foot-long sandwich from Subway and eat it in my car, but yours sounds way better. That, and I get to tease Nico later when I tell him I got to eat your home cooking.”

I frowned. “It’s not that great.”

“Yes, it is,” Darby said as he arrived in a flourish of backpacks, books, and electronics.

He set it all down on the counter and stepped back, looking at me expectantly. “What’s for dinner?”

I repeated the night’s menu items.

“That sounds perfect,” he said. “I have to go change. I still have cow shit on my pants, I think. I had to go to class with cow shit on me. Do you know how annoying that is? I had to smell it all day long. And I accidentally skipped lunch because I wasn’t paying attention to the time. I had barely enough time to get to my next class. Hey, sis. Where are your heathens?” Darby paused in his ramblings.

“My kids are at the movies with their father,” she answered. “And you should just start packing some nuts or something in your bag to snack on. You always forget to eat lunch.”