Page 102 of Best Kind of Trouble
“Yes, please.”
But when she leads me into the kitchen, a warm, cozy space painted sage green with a white-and-gray tile backsplash, shesighs heavily. Cormac is standing at the stove in a Rudolph sweater, pouring himself mulled wine from an enormous pot. He’s tall and lanky, with curly light-brown hair, glasses, and gray eyes.
Nora’s sigh turns to outrage when we reach the stove and she sees the container is nearly empty. “Cormac, if you finish it, you need to make more. It’s a house rule, even for guests.”
He huffs, adjusting his glasses, and takes a calculated sip of the wine. “Your mom offered it to me. We don’t have any more bottles of red.”
“You knew Briar was coming.”
“So take it.” He shoves the glass at her just as she extends her hand in a warding-off gesture, and the warm red wine splatters all over both of them.
Nora’s eyes widen. “You did that on purpose.”
“I don’t think he did,” I say. “It got on him too.”
There’s mulled wine spatter on his glasses, and he looks horrified.
“Don’t try reasoning with Nora,” he says darkly, grabbing a dish towel and swiping at the stains on his sweater, which have made it look like someone ax-murdered Rudolph. “She’s incapable of reason.”
Nora looks like she’s about to explode, so I lead her over to the marble counter and grab the roll of paper towels off its holder. “Do you know where your mom keeps the cleanser?”
She silently retrieves it from under the sink, handing it to me.
“Oh no,” Cormac says, still swiping ineffectually at his sweater. “That’s not the right cleanser for this mess at all.”
“Says the man who’s rubbing wineintohis sweater,” Nora points out.
His eyes widen for a second, as if he didn’t realize what he was doing, but then he shrugs and uses the edge of the sweaterto wipe off his glasses. “I must have been doing it subconsciously. I hate this sweater.”
“My mother gave it to you,” she hisses. “Have some respect.”
“And it was very sweet of her, but I don’t like it. I’m only wearing it because my dad said it would be nice.”
“Saying that takes away from the gesture.” She shakes the roll of paper towels at him. “Look, we’ll clean this up. Go do…whatever. Hang out with our parents while they make out.”
He gives her a sour look. “It’s my mess. Let me clean it the way it should be cleaned.”
“Fine,” she snaps, throwing the roll at him, and he fumbles it before wrapping his fingers firmly around the cylinder. She grabs a growler from the fridge while he lowers down to search the cabinet beneath the sink for something that might or might not be there.
Nora commandeers two glasses, then gestures for me to follow her. “Let’s hang out in my room.”
But before I can leave, Cormac calls out to me. “Hey, you’re running that brewery Liam Moroney works for, right?”
My heart throbs in my chest at the mention of Liam’s name, and I wonder for the thousandth time what he’s doing today. Drinking probably. Thinking ofher.
I won’t lie. I spent an hour on social media this morning, trying to find his profiles (nonexistent) and then scrolling back through Hannah’s timeline in search of any photos of Liam and a mystery woman.
If there were, Hannah has deleted them.
I clear my throat. “Yup, that’s me.”
“We’re playing at your New Year’s party. Nora’s going to be there too. I’m looking forward to it, but it’ll be my first live performance, so I’m kind of nervous.”
“Don’t expect me to ask for an autograph,” she says with an eye roll.
“Autographs don’t make any sense,” he scoffs, still kneeling in front of the cabinet. “Who cares about having something with someone else’s name signed on it? I don’t like flowers either.”
“Wasn’t going to bring you any.”
