“But we are her family.”
“Phillip, come on,” she deadpanned. “You can’t blame her for wanting to be with him.”
“Yes, I can,” he said grumpily. “I don’t like this.”
“Really? I couldn’t tell.”
He glared even though she wasn’t in front of him as she said, “She’s coming home, he told her to, so she wouldn’t miss Christmas with us since he was flying in and out. He won’t even be able to see his family. They are going to do a late Christmas before New Year’s. Apparently his momma isn’t too happy, but she is dealing.”
He knew he was being selfish, but he was glad that Claire was coming home. “She isn’t happy about it, though?”
“Nope, not at all.”
He kind of felt bad. He wanted her to be happy. So swallowing his pride, he said, “Did you tell her it was okay to go to New York?”
“Yeah, but Jude talked her out of it. He doesn’t want her to miss Christmas with us.”
He grunted again. “Guess I can’t hate the kid that much, huh?”
“It would be nice if you didn’t since very soon, he is going to be our son-in-law,” she reminded him.
“Did she give you a date?” he asked quickly. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“Nope, but they are figuring it out. I think it’s gonna be June.”
“Ugh,” he grunted again.
She giggled. “It’s going to be great.”
“It’s going to be hell.”
When the stool beside him was pulled out, he looked over to see Jude and instantly rolled his eyes. The only thing that pleased him was that his nose was swollen. At least he knew they wouldn’t be getting married anytime soon.
“All right, let me call you back. The punk just sat next to me.”
Reese laughed. “Be nice and tell him I said hi.”
“Yeah, love you.”
“Love you.”
Hanging the phone up, he looked over again and said, “What do you want?”
“I was told I had to apologize to you. Apparently I am an instigator.”
Phillip scoffed. “You think?”
Jude smirked as he shrugged. “I like harassing you.”
“And I like hitting you,” Phillip said, cheersing his drink to Jude before taking a long pull.
“Yeah, so, um…how about we bury the hatchet?”
“I’d rather chop you up with it,” he said as cool as a cucumber, and Jude found that rather funny.
“Really, though,” he said once his laughter subsided. “Claire doesn’t want us fighting. We are getting married soon. You’re going to be my father-in-law. I don’t want us to be jerks to each other. We both love the same girl, you know?”
Not able to look at him, Phillip nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to love her till the day I die. I can promise you that. I won’t ever hurt her.”
He hated how the tears stung his eyes. He didn’t want to trust this kid to do that because no one could love or protect her the way he could, but as he met the kid’s gaze, he could see it in his eyes. Jude wasn’t going to let anything happen to Claire, and Phillip knew that. That’s why he’d given him his blessing to marry his special girl.
“I’ll kill you if you break her heart.”
He nodded. “I’ll let you. I’m not going to do that.”
“Good,” he said with a nod. “Are you old enough to drink yet?”
Jude laughed. “Yeah.”
“Let me buy you a drink then. We can shoot the shit before I’m ready to go to bed.”
Jude nodded, a smile pulling at his lips. “I’d like that.”
Phillip didn’t like the idea of it at all, but he tried.
For Claire.
Running her fingers through her sweet boy’s hair, Reese smiled as Sawyer drifted off to sleep. He had been fighting her lately, but it was only when Phillip was gone. Thankfully, she was patient and didn’t mind sitting with him until he fell asleep. It was hard being without his daddy, she knew that, but when he woke up, Phillip would be home.