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“You can’t talk. you brought home your share of gentlemen after dad left.” Lucy pointed at her with her fork.
“Peanuts compared to the revolving door to your room.” Sera laughed.
Lucy slammed her hands to her chest and pretended to pull something from there. Handing the invisible item to her mom, she laughed. “Direct hit, Mother. Probably because you were jealous.” Her mom threw the invisible item at her daughter.
“From what I hear, it was a carousel of men for a few years at the Lovely house,” Harrison told Leo, earning him a slap on the arm from his wife.
“Lies, all lies,” Sera stated, but she couldn’t stop laughing as she said it.
“What I want to know is why the men always had to go to your house.” Harrison grabbed his wife’s hands so that she couldn’t hit him again.
“Because if you sleep elsewhere for more than five days in a row, you lose your room. That’s how Buzz ended up on the couch the last year we all lived together. She had moved out for a week,” Lucy explained.
“We were one bedroom short. When Harper was in France and Buzzy moved out, I split up the little girls into their own rooms,” Sera added.
“So, Saturday morning, that’s how it always is? All the time?” Leo remembered just how much the sisters fought, including the physical battle between Lucy and Harper. But mostly, it was just teasing.
“No, now that they’re mostly married, it’s quite relaxed—way less fighting. I mean, it’s been months since anyone got a black eye,” Sera said and pointed to Lucy.
“It was Harper, and Agatha gave it to her. Pointy little fingers on that one.” Lucy laughed at whatever was going through her head.
“I don’t think my girls have ever fought like that,” Leo said, thinking about his own kids.
“Then you’re lucky. I think I contributed to the situation, but you try and control the craziness. And it’s not like Bradford had tried to control you five, ever,” Sera said as the meal came, stopping the conversation about Lucy’s crazy youth in a house full of women.
Both he and Lucy had gotten the fish, but she didn’t seem impressed with what was brought to her. She just poked it with her fork as everyone focused on their own plate.
“You don’t like it?” he asked her in a whisper.
“Just not what I thought it was going to be. It’s fine,” she replied and actually started to cut into it to take a bite, giving him a fake smile as she chewed.
“You can send it back if you want.”
“No, it’s fine.” She took another bite, trying to prove it.
Harrison noticed they were having issues. “Lucy, is the fish bad?”
“Lucy doesn’t like fish.” Sera looked up from her plate and over at her daughter’s.
“It’s fine. I’m fine with it. I can eat the fish,” she argued at everyone.
“Okay,” Sera stated and looked at her daughter as she took another bite.
As everyone went back to eating, Leo watched her eat from the corner of his eye. She did hate it; he could tell she was just trying to get through it as fast as she could, but she wasn’t willing to admit that she had ordered the wrong thing.
They ate, and he talked to Harrison as Sera talked quietly to Lucy. He tried to keep up with his conversation while but still listening to hers, but he couldn’t. All he noticed was her laughing at her mom’s pointed jokes and that she was sending them back just as fast.
By the time the plates were picked up, Lucy hadn’t eaten but a few bites of the fish, but he didn’t comment on it. She was an adult.
“Lucy, are you helping Harper this next weekend?” Harrison asked.
Lucy looked at him. “No, she hasn’t asked.”
“Sera is. I thought she asked everyone.” He didn’t notice the pointed look from his wife to shut his mouth.
“Not me, but I don’t expect her to. She doesn’t want me there.” She shrugged, her eyes scanning the room around them, not looking at anyone at the table anymore.
“Maybe because of the wedding. Are you going on a honeymoon?” Sera threw in, changing the conversation.
