“Who else here hasn’t seen Shannon naked?” James replies. It dawns on me that he’s not shocked by this conversation.
He’s pissed to be an outsider.
Hamish starts to raise his hand and wiggles his fingers. Amy smacks his hand down.
“You’ve seen her naked?” Andrew growls at me from a position half under the table. Is he snarling?
“Yes,” I whisper back.
“Hmph,” he grunts, sounding remarkably like his Scottish cousin. “That’s kind of hot.”
I stab the back of his neck with my dessert fork.
A strong hand reaches up, grabs my wrist, and I find myself yanked, hard, under the table. My face is inches from Andrew’s, and he’s hissing at me in that voice only men can do. The low, deep vibrating baritone that makes hissing sound like pure sex in vocal form.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls at me.
His eyes are red and floating. “Did you show up here drunk?” I ask, my voice full of accusation. “Is that what your quickie text is all about? You’re drunk texting?”
He’s very, very angry. Which makes him even hotter, which makes me tingle in places that feel like they’re vibrating from pure animal magnetism. He’s the magnet and I have iron shavings running through my bloodstream.
“Raise your hand if you haven’t seen Shannon naked,” I hear James say above us. “Apparently, there’s a club and some of us are excluded.”
“DAD!” Declan shouts, his voice filled with warning.
I don’t know what happens next, because Andrew’s mouth takes mine, hard and furious, the kiss more like retaliation for my neck stab.
Retaliate away, bud. And do it a little more to the left like that. Oh, and that.
And...oh.
A month’s worth of lust comes pouring out between us. If my panties hadn’t already melted off from listening to Hamish recite the MBTA Red Line station list, they would melt off again.
“Are you two making out down there?” Shannon cries out. Her beautiful Tom Ford high heel turns into a weapon, jabbing at us like a toothpick going after a jumbo piece of shrimp at a cocktail party.
Fortunately, she gets Andrew, an inch to the left of his crotch.
“Jesus Christ!” he screams, sitting up so fast his head whacks against the underside of the table, making people murmur and gasp above.
“Direct hit!” I shout. “You sunk my battleship!”
Shannon pulls me out from under the table and directs me to my seat. “Don’t do this to me,” she whispers furiously.
Andrew crawls out as well, clutching his phone. “Found it!” he says, pretending that’s why we were under there. He does not realize three inches to the left of his lips, he’s covered in my red lipstick. He looks like the subject of a South American anthropology documentary.
“Found what? Mandy’s mouth?” my mom quips. James’ lips twitch. I don’t appreciate the childhood name, but I let it slide.
Until...
“Mandy!” Marie squeals, her eyes jumping from me to Andrew like she’s on a scavenger hunt and we’re on the list. “And Andy!” She claps like a child, jumping up and down in her seat.
“No one has ever called me Andy,” Andrew declares in a cold voice as he takes his seat and angrily wipes his face with his napkin.
Hamish waggles his eyebrows and holds up the bottle of scotch, offering to pour Andrew a shot. Andrew takes the entire bottle from him and fills his wine glass instead.
“Hardcore,” Hamish murmurs admiringly.
“And I haven’t been Mandy since I was five,” I say. Andrew and I exchange a look. I give my mom an arched eyebrow. She reaches into her bag and pretends Spritzy needs attention, except Spritzy is in James’ lap, now licking the herbed butter bowl.
Andrew and I have something in common, after all. At least there’s this: a hatred for diminution.
Marie pretends not to hear, or maybe she does and simply decides our protests do not fit her delusion and therefore are dispensable.
She zeroes in on Hamish, then Amy.
“Weel,” Hamish says in that low Scottish accent of his. “Ye dinna have a nickname you can use for me, Marie. Hamish is—”
“Hamy and Amy!” Marie interjects, pronouncing Hamish’s new moniker as if it rhymes with Amy.
The man’s face turns green. It’s astonishing, and too bad he’s not Irish, because that would be one hell of a party trick if he were, especially in Boston every March for the famous St. Patrick’s Day parade.
“Oh, God,” Amy mutters, reaching for her wine. She drinks the whole glass down, grabs the bottle of white wine, and starts chugging from the mouth.
Declan grabs the red and it looks like he’s about to imitate her. Or use the bottle as a weapon against Marie.
When he starts drinking, I exhale sharply. Whew. Marie’s safe.
Terry is watching all of this with a look of inappropriate glee, most of his attention focused on his brothers and James. Of all the McCormick men, he seems to be the only one who genuinely likes Marie.
“Carol and Terry,” Marie announces, squinching up her face. “Hmmm. You two don’t match.”
“And I’m not changing my name to Terrel,” Terry says, winking at Carol, who manages to roll her eyes and blush at the same time.
“That’s fine. Carol can just go by Carrie! Carrie and Terry works!” Marie looks like she just discovered Fermat’s Last Theorem.
“What rhymes with Chuckles?” Declan mutters.
James clears his throat. “I know a word. It starts with F—”