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“Mother,” Maya chastised her. “Stop flirting.”
“I’m not.” She fluttered her eyelashes and pulled the chair out.
“Can he at least get a drink from the bar first?”
Ian stood up and held out his hand. “Please to meet you, Will. What can I get you to drink?”
“No let me.”
“I’ll be offended, lad,” he said sternly but with a smile.
I nodded. “Okay, thanks. Any bottled lager, please.”
He asked around the table and everyone gave him their order, before trailing off to the bar. Maya led me to a seat, two away from her mum, and then plonked herself down in the one next to it.
“Great to finally meet you, Will,” Jack said, giving me a nod. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”
Maya groaned. “I think I hate you, Jack.”
“What. You don’t stop talking about him. It’s Will this, Will that, Will she ever shut up about him?”
When she narrowed her eyes on him I laughed. The love between them was clear to see, and it hit me how much I’d missed that kind of relationship you got with a sibling. I doubted that there was one like it.
“Leave her alone,” Charlie replied, nudging his brother in the ribs. “It’s not all the time, just twenty of the twenty four hours in a day.”
Heather rolled her eyes and reached a hand across the table. “Nice to meet you, Will. And please ignore the Chuckle brothers.”
“It’s fine. Great to meet all of you, too. And Ihaveheard a lot about all of you. Most of it good.”
“Whatever she said is a lie,” Jack added.
“Funny, Maya said exactly the same thing.”
“And she’s right,” Debra said wryly. “These two are always making up stuff about her. In fact, they lie about everything. Have done since they were little. Anyway, Will, tell us all about that lovely daughter of yours. Maya says she’s beautiful and very funny.”
“I don’t know about funny—sarcastic and stubborn more like.” I glanced at Maya who was looking at me with her head resting in her hand. I wanted to grab her, pull her across the table and kiss the life out of her. Kiss off all her bronze lipstick and push my hand up her dress and get a handful of her incredible, voluptuous arse.
“She’s hilarious,” she said, reaching for my hand. “Don’t believe him.”
“She is funny.” I raised an eyebrow. “But she’s still sarcastic and stubborn, but she’s beautiful, too. I’m very lucky and very proud.”
When I looked at Debra, she was staring at me like she was in a trance and then when my gaze moved on to Heather and Maya they had the same look in their eyes. Christ, it was theMaddy effect again. Just me mentioning her got women looking all dreamy.
“You okay?” I whispered to Maya. “Your eyes have gone a bit glazed.”
She gave a happy sigh. “Yes, just the way you talk about her. It’s so swoony.”
I burst out laughing. “Swoony?”
“That’s the word,” Debra chipped in, pointing a finger at Maya. “Swoony. Very swoony.”
“Very,” Heather added and then nudged Jack. “Why can’t you be swoony?”
“I’m swoony,” he protested. “I swooned you easily enough this morning before the kids woke up.”
“I swooned Laura after the ceremony,” Charlie added, wiggling his eyebrows. “Just before the photos.”
Everyone burst out laughing, while his mum threw a napkin at him, cursing him for being the crudest, most annoying of her children. Ian then appeared back with a tray of drinks.
