Chapter 19 #2
With another tut, I prodded, “Well, get on with it! I want to see what you came up with.”
Star tossed a package onto Aoife’s knee. “You’re welcome. And if you ever sell them to your home-goods empire, I want a forty per cent cut.”
Aoife narrowed her eyes. “Thirty.”
“Good girl,” Finn crooned.
Conor elbowed Star. “Thirty-eight.”
“Thirty-one.”
“Thirty-seven-point-five.”
“Thirty-one-point-five.”
“You don’t even know what I’m taking a cut of yet!”
She shrugged. “You’re too smug for it to be shit.”
“Kat! Aunt Aoife owes you ten bucks, too.”
“Thanks, Aunt Aoife!” Kat hollered over from the other side of the room, where the kids were tearing into their gifts like the heathens they could be when they got together.
Even Shay, who was “too cool” for anything these days, tore through wrapping paper like that fellow with the scissors on his hands.
Aoife carefully unfolded the tucks on her own gift until Star sighed. “Just rip it.”
“It’s my gift!” Aoife snapped, but she finally uncovered a box.
I was surprised but grateful when she held it up to me, though I had no idea what it was.
Star beamed at her. “My extra-loud crackers.”
“Bombs,” Conor muttered.
“They’re not bombs. How many times? I’ve made bombs, dammit. I know the difference.”
Aoife stared at them with a frown. “Are they going to take off my hands?”
“No!” Huffing, Star leaned over, grabbed one of the oddly shaped things, and waggled it when Aoife didn’t bite. “Go on!”
Finn snagged the cracker. “If you take off a finger, I’ll bill you for it.”
“I’ll see you in court first,” she derided, but she pulled the end of her side.
“Holy mother of God!” I yelled over the resulting bang. “What in Mother Mary’s name was that?!”
Star, ignoring me, demanded shrilly, “See why I want forty percent?!”
Glitter as well as tiny pieces of confetti drenched Aoife, Finn, and Star. Never mind the rest of the room! Even the children stopped squawking to figure out what had caused such a racket.
None cried, of course.
My Aidan would be so proud.
As for Baby Aidan, sensing her favorite brand of mischief, she toddled over to her mother’s side to investigate and tugged on Savannah’s skirt. My eldest plunked her onto his lap instead so she could watch the chaos from a better angle.
Finn yanked on his ear. “That really is a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“Maybe it needs tweaking,” Aoife whisper-shouted. “But the reach is impressive. Thirty-three-point-five.”
“Aoife!”
“They’d be great on July 4th, Finn,” she yelled back.
Aela swept in, hands wafting through the still-falling glitter. “I’m confiscating these. Someone has to be the responsible adult.”
“Thirty-six,” Star hollered. “Final offer!”
Aoife stuck out her hand. “Fine.”
As they shook on it, I tsked—these girls were all work, work, work.
Aoife nudged Finn with her elbow. “Pass me mine, please?”
“Damn, they’re loud,” Paddy grumbled, tugging on his own ear. “Can you turn down the phone?”
“Stop whining.” But I did as he said because they were definitely shouting.
“Aela, I know you talked about missing the Irish kind so I found a recipe.” Aoife beamed at her. “I hope you enjoy it.”
Aela, frowning, unwrapped the tin and then pulled off the lid to reveal a cake frosted in royal icing.
Beneath the frosting, there was a layer of yellow stuff that I recognized as marzipan and then a dense fruit cake.
Paddy whistled. “That looks like mighty fine Christmas cake, Aoife. Wish I were there to eat it. My grandmother used to bake that every year. She’d soak it in brandy too.”
“I did that,” Aoife shouted back. “Fed it a couple times. I also made one that’s kiddo approved.”
Aela pressed a hand to her mouth. “Aoife, you didn’t have to—”
“Sure I did! As soon as I picked your name, I knew this would work out perfectly. You miss the stuff you had back there.”
Aela’s smile trembled. “You’re the best.”
Camille pressed what appeared to be an extra-large book into Star’s hands.
Star frowned at it, then at Camille, but despite how she ragged Aoife, gently unwrapped the present. Her eyes widened and she gasped once she set eyes on it.
“What did Camille get you?” Paddy demanded.
Star’s voice sounded surprisingly thick. “It’s a scrapbook. Of my parents and Dad on tour.”
Camille cleared her throat. “Savannah helped me and so did her mom and dad.”
Gentle fingers tripped over the images within the bound book and she breathed, “Wow.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Camille mumbled a touch awkwardly.
Tear-drenched eyes caught Camille’s, right before Star hurled herself at the younger woman. Beavis and Butthead, Conor’s dogs, immediately leapt into the chaos, but Star didn’t stop them as they tried to lick her face once she released Camille from her hug. If anything, she hid in Butthead’s fur.
Even Conor looked surprised at the outburst, but I found Camille was the best prepared for emotional explosions.
While they were otherwise occupied, Aela grinned at Savannah and handed her a box. “There you go, Savvie.”
My eldest’s wife beamed and tore open the wrapping paper on the thin but somehow fat box. Savannah gasped. “Aela, it’s beautiful!”
She tilted the gift to reveal a glass-blown ornament—a “3.”
“It’s meeeeeeee,” Aidan squeaked, and her father had to hold her hands to stop her from toying with the delicate ornament.
“I remember when I had a tree full of Aela original decs,” Conor muttered with a gimlet stare at Shay, whose shoulders hunched.
“Sorry, Uncle Con.”
Ignoring them all and shaping the ornament’s curlicues and fancy additions with a delicate touch, Savannah sighed happily. “I love it. Thank you, Aela.”
I tutted. “I still don’t agree with calling a little girl ‘Third.’”
“Good thing it has nothing to do with you, Ma,” my eldest intoned with a narrow-eyed look. “If I’m a Jr. in my goddamn forties, then she can be an Aidan III as a little girl.”
“Yeah, don’t be sexist, Nana,” Shay rebuked.
“Shay!”
“What? It’s true! You said it yourself. ‘A little girl’ shouldn’t be called Third. So if Aidan were a boy, it’d be okay?”
I knew it wasn’t fair, but I still glowered at Katina. Ever since she’d wrapped my boy around her finger, he’d grown even more outspoken!
“She’s so delicate—”
Inessa coughed and I immediately let the subject drop. After my dinner, I didn’t want to rile up Eoghan again.
“Camille?”
Surprisingly, Star was still tucked into Camille’s side, gently peeling past the paper that separated the pages to reveal pockets of memories from her childhood.
“Nessie?”
“I hope you liked your office?”
Camille blinked then beamed at her baby sister. “I should have known you two were plotting behind my back!”
Brennan couldn’t have looked smugger if he tried, and Inessa blushed. “We can change it—”
“No way! I adore it! Thank you,” Camille breathed. “It’s beautiful.”
“What happened?” I insisted, utterly in the dark. “What office?”
“I decorated Camille’s new office,” Inessa answered, flicking me a smile. “I overheard Brennan and Eoghan discussing safe rooms.” She rolled her eyes. “So I got involved or Camille would have been greeted with concrete walls and steel bars!”
“Makes sense,” I informed Paddy as Camille began itemizing every single thing she adored about the gift. “She’s studying it, you know?”
“Studying what?”
“Interior design. She’ll be graduating in the spring.” Because he looked like I’d switched into Gaelic, I sighed. “It’s where you decorate— You know what? Never mind.”
I returned my focus to Savannah.
Her gift intrigued me. Crocheting hadn’t come easily to the girl, but before I’d left for Europe, she’d been able to regulate her tension and at least follow a pattern.
Savannah sucked in a breath. “Okay. My turn to get this over with.” She snagged the package and, with a shyness I didn’t think she had in her, passed the gift to Inessa.
Inessa cautiously opened the package and then her brow furrowed. “Are these…. crocheted underwear?”
Savannah bit her lip, then a hangnail, then her lip again. “They’re for your books.”
“What?”
“You know. Bookmarks.”
Her mouth opened. “Bookmarks?”
“But they look like underwear.” Savannah’s laughter sounded weak even thousands of miles away. “You know… a joke? You put the thong between the page and it marks your place.”
Inessa glanced at the surprisingly well-done thing then burst out laughing. Savannah flinched, Aidan tensed up, prickly like a pissed-off tiger whenever his mate was agitated, then Inessa cheered, “I fucking love it!”
“Inessa, you owe me ten bucks too!”
As the family cascaded into laughter at Kat’s demand, Paddy and I shared a smile.
No, I didn’t have Aidan anymore. And if he was watching over me, then he’d just have to endure watching his brother and I grow close.
He shouldn’t have left me.
If Paddy’s arm slipped around my shoulders and I relaxed into his side as I watched the rest of the gifts being opened, and I devoured the sight of my settled boys, the happiness they’d found despite their heritage, then it was nobody’s business but our own.
And certainly not Aidan O’Donnelly Sr.’s.