Great Sass (Providence Family Ties 1)

Plus, Jesse was hilarious and continuously did his best to piss his brother off while talking about stuff he was going to do with the baby once it was born. He didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, he had uncle plans for both of them. When I’d teased him about being a natural born daddy, he’d just blushed and shrugged. Bless him!

Now, I was saying goodbye to him and doing my best not to cry.

Grabbing me up in a hug that pushed my head into his armpit, he said dramatically, “I know, you think I’m awesome, and you don’t want me to leave. No need to cry and beg, dearest Sadie, we’ll see each other soon.”

How was it possible to laugh as hard as I was and bawl at the same time? Yeah, the hormones were messing with me now big time. Just last night, I’d turned the television on, and there’d been a rerun of The Crocodile Hunter with Steve Irwin. I’d watched a grand total of three minutes before I started crying because the poor man had been dead for fourteen years. The problem was, even though I told myself I was being dumb, the hormones overrode that rational side, and it was like I was grieving for a man I didn’t know, like he’d just died.

Fucking crazy, I tell you.

Eventually, Elijah had come out of his shower and panicked when he’d seen me, then looked at me like I was crazy after I told him what was so sad. He’d changed the channel to see if it helped, but there was some animal ER program on where a poor Labrador died during surgery. Even thinking about it now made me want to cry harder than I already was.

“Okay, give her back,” Elijah sighed, gently removing me from under his brother’s arm. “We’ll see him soon, baby, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, I’m hormonal,” I snapped, wiping my face. “I’m also worried that with my coloring, the baby’s going to come out looking like a sack of flour.”

Did I mention my internal filter was also broken now?

Both men looked at me and then at each other.

“So, good luck with that,” Jesse muttered, backing away slowly.

Waving over my shoulder, I allowed Elijah to steer me to the truck that’d been left for us. I had no idea how they were pulling off all the cloak and dagger stuff, but these guys were the shit at it.

“Do you need a stool or something to get in?” he asked, looking from the ground to where I needed to get my foot to climb in.

“Why don’t I stand on your head?” I asked as sweetly as possible.

Oh, I was also highly irritable.

Fortunately, Elijah wasn’t bothered at all by my mood swings. “I’ll lift you in, my pixie.”

And there was the kryptonite for my bitchiness—he was so good at being sweet to me.

Wincing, I apologized as he swung me up in the air. “I’m sorry for being a twat. I swear it’s like I don’t even know what emotion’s going to hit me next. Your baby’s turning me into the biggest Helen Hunt this side of Bitchville.”

Laughing, he made sure I was in, then closed the door and rounded the vehicle to the driver’s side.

“What’s a Helen Hunt?” he asked as he got in and pressed the button to start the engine.

The car must have been there for a while because it felt like a furnace inside, and to add to it, the air coming through the vents was hot, too. Feeling the nausea starting to come back, I opened a window, not at all surprised that the air outside was cooler than inside.

“I hate the c-word, so I use Helen Hunt because it rhymes with it. It’s a shame really because she’s got a cool name, but needs must and all that.”

Backing us out of the spot we’d been parked in, he started driving us to wherever we were headed next. I always loved watching Elijah drive. Whereas I felt slightly anxious when I did it, he was always relaxed and looked thoroughly in control. And his arms as he held the steering wheel… driving arm porn.

“I thought Brits loved the c-word?”

His question came out of the blue and shocked me. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

“I don’t know, but I know it’s a common assumption.”

Gaping at him, I tried to think why someone would tell a lie like that. “It’s not true! We don’t just go around calling each other a nasty word or dropping it into a sentence. A lot of the people I know don’t use it, just like a lot of people don’t use it here. I think it’s a matter of personal preference, but we definitely don’t use it more than Americans would.”

“Maybe it was Australians who used it all the time, then?” he mused.