Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 80819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Or spinning her and her cute—despite being engaged—friend around the dance floor?” Marshall adds.
“You were at a club. There is no spinning on the dance floor. More like grinding,” I say as I clench my jaw.
“That too.” Marshall grins.
“Motherfucker,” I mumble as Mom walks into the room.
“Royce Riggins! You watch your mouth. It’s time to eat,” she announces as she turns on her heel and heads back to the kitchen.
Like the teenage boys we’ll always be when we get together, we race to the dining room to take our seats. The same places we sat in growing up. No one ever assigned us seats; it just sort of happened one day, and then the next, until it became routine. The dining room table is huge and could seat many more than just the seven of us. In fact, it can seat sixteen in total. It makes it nice for big holiday dinners for family gatherings.
“What were you boys going on about?” Mom asks once all of our plates are full, and we've begun to eat.
It doesn’t matter how old we are; we will always be boys in her eyes. “Your offspring thought it would be fun to take my new assistant out and get her drunk last night.” I give Marshall and Conrad a pointed look.
“That’s not what happened. Royce has his panties in a wad.” Marshall rolls his eyes.
“Sawyer?” Mom asks. “Gail has said such nice things about her.”
I heave a heavy sigh before taking another big bite of my mother’s homemade mashed potatoes. I should have known that Gail would fill my mother in on my new assistant. I can only imagine what she’s told her.
“She’s great,” Conrad tells her. “She was at the club last night with her best friend, Hadley, and we bought them a few rounds, danced a little. Nothing over the top.”
“Yeah, her friend is engaged,” Marshall explains. “It was just a fun night out.”
“And you’re upset?” Mom asks. There is a gleam in her eye that tells me exactly what I was afraid of. She thinks I’m jealous. She’s not wrong, but she’s not right either.
“Yes. She works for us. They shouldn’t be drinking and dancing with her.” My excuse sounds lame even to me.
“Why on earth not? It sounds like it was a nice friendly evening.”
“Mom, there is nothing friendly about dancing at a club. Trust me on this one.”
“Oh, you mean twerking, and what not? I’m sure your brothers enjoyed that.”
Marshall and Conrad crack up laughing, and even Dad is struggling to hide his grin behind his glass of sweet tea. “There was no twerking. Although, Sawyer did this thing where she bends over and touches the floor.”
“Hot!” Marshall declares. “So hot.”
“Boys.” Mom laughs. “It upsets your brother when you talk about his new pretty assistant that way.”
“How do you know she’s pretty?” I ask without thinking.
“Gail, and well, now you.” Her grin tells me it was a trap that she expertly placed, and I fell into blindly. I’m thirty-two years old. You would think that I would be smarter than that by now. Mom’s got game. Of course, raising the five of us boys, she had to have.
“Can we all just agree that it’s bad form? Think about how that makes the company look? When the owners are getting the employees drunk. Dad, back me up here.”
“Royce is right, and your actions do affect the company. However, you are of legal age, and I assume that she is as well?” He gives them a pointed look, and they reply with a nod. “I see nothing wrong with dancing and a few drinks.”
“Owen? Some backup?” I ask my brother, who’s closest to me in age.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it. She was smiling and laughing. Both girls were. It looked like they were having a good time.”
“Conspiracy,” I mumble under my breath. Dad’s deep chuckle pulls my attention, and I don’t miss the wink he tosses my mom’s way.
I decide to let it go. The battle has already been lost, and I don’t want to spend the rest of the meal arguing with them. Besides, even I know that I’m reaching. I would never admit that. No, that means I’m admitting defeat, and that can’t happen. I’d never live it down. Instead, I turn the conversation to work. It’s what I know, and it’s who I am. Mom just smiles and shakes her head as the Riggins men, yes, men, regardless of what she likes to call us, talk about the shop in Idaho that Grant is visiting and the issues we’ve been having.
I’m in the conversation, offering my thoughts and commenting where appropriate, but the entire time in the back of my mind, all I can see is Sawyer and my two younger brothers. I’m sure the scene in my head is much worse than the real-life event. That doesn’t stop me from glaring at them both as they talk to our parents and Owen. They know better.