Page 30 of Unreasonably Yours

Cillian

“Antoinette Joy, don’t you dare hang up on me!” A woman’s voice I don’t recognize says from Toni’s phone as she opens her front door.

“Joy, huh?” I tease.

“Middle name privilege is earned,” Toni says, ushering me inside.

“Put him on the phone,” the woman demands.

Toni lifts her phone up. “Belle?—”

“Now.”

“Ugh. Fine.” Toni holds the phone out to me. “Cillian, this is Belle. Belle, Cillian.”

A brunette with striking blue eyes greets me on the screen. “Finally,” she huffs. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but can you please tell this woman she doesn’t need five sweaters for a weekend in the damn woods?”

I look up from the screen, cocking a brow at Toni. “Five?” She shrugs by way of response. I follow her into her room while Belle continues.

“And tell her that she needs to bring real pants,” Bell continues .

“I thought we were past the leggings are pants debate,” Toni says.

I look back at the screen to see Belle rolling her eyes in a way that reminds me of Oliver so much I almost laugh. “They are technically pants. But if they’re the only thing you’re wearing, your Texan ass will freeze.”

“She is right. It’s gonna be pretty cold this weekend.”

Toni pouts her lip a little. “But the sweaters look better with the leggings.”

“Won’t matter if you're miserable,” Belle says. I nod in confirmation.

“Ugh.” Toni begrudgingly fishes a pair of jeans from the pile of clean clothes on her bed. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen her effortlessly extricate an item from what, to me, looked like total chaos. It’s an impressive feat. She tosses them in her bag. “There. Real pants.”

“And the sweaters?” I ask. Bell sniggers from the phone.

“I knew I never should have let the two of you talk.”

“Doll,” I lean on the door frame to take some weight off my leg, “we’re gonna be there for hardly 48 hours. You need maybe two sweaters.”

“Exactly,” Belle says.

“I just appreciate options.” Neither Belle nor I respond. “Fine.” Toni pulls a couple sweaters from her bag, bringing it to a much more reasonable level of full.

“Thank you for the support,” Belle says.

“Anytime,” I say, grinning.

“Not anytime.” Toni tosses a shirt at me. I bat it away with a laugh. “I can’t have the two of you conspiring.”

“It isn’t our fault you’re too extra for your own good sometimes,” Belle says with affection.

“I refuse to believe that,” Toni says.

“This is why you and Lucy get along so well,” I sigh .

“Because she’s a delight?”

“In case you’re curious, yes, she has always been like this,” Belle says.

I laugh. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Ok, enough of you two,” Toni reaches for the phone, but I pull it away.

“Oh no, I’m having far too much fun,” I tease. Belle’s answering laugh is good-natured.

Toni huffs. “Tell her to get her ass out here and she can share all my embarrassing teenage stories with you.”

“Tempting,” Belle says. I bring the phone back to eye level. “You two have fun. Good to meet you, Cillian!”

“You’re avoiding the offer!” Toni yells.

“You, too,” I say.

Toni takes the phone back. “You’re the worst,” she directs to Belle.

“That’s Toni for ‘I appreciate you,’” Belle says loudly. “She’s only half as prickly as she wants you to think.”

“Goodbye, Isabelle!”

“Bye, Antionette!” Belle’s laugh gets cut off as Toni ends the call.

“Attacked in my own home,” Toni says. She shoves the phone into the waistband of her leggings, the cropped length of her T-shirt leaving it half-exposed.

I take a seat on the edge of her bed. “Yes. You’ve been horribly victimized by people hoping you stay cozy.”

“Sweaters are cozy,” she protests as I pull the phone from her waistband.

“They are.” I grab her exposed waist, pulling her between my legs. “But unless you’re going to wear three at a time, you still don’t need that many.”

“What do you know?”

I hold her gaze as I press my lips to the soft skin of her midriff. “I know you look best with no sweater on, much less three.” Playfully, I tug on the waistband of her leggings with my teeth.

Toni shakes her head, laughing. “I still have to pack.”

“Mhm,” I agree, hands slipping down to give her ass a squeeze.

“We’ll be late,” she protests.

“They can wait.”

“About time!” Lucy accuses, looking down at us from the deck as we get out of the car. We deserved the call-out. The sun had already dipped below the tree line, casting the sky in a wash of warm colors.

I would feel bad about just how late we are if all the people here didn’t have full access to everything on the property.

Not that there was much to access. There’s the elevated cabin with barely one room that was here when I bought the place; a large outbuilding, which mostly held firewood and camping supplies; and a tiny pre-fab cabin Michael and I finished last summer, which is arguably nicer than the original cabin.

“Someone wasn’t packed when I got to her place,” I say, catching Toni’s accusatory glare in my periphery.

“More like someone wanted to stop and look at the leaves every few miles,” she rebuffs.

Neither was a lie. We just left out the part that included her soaking my beard.

Oliver laughs as he joins us to help with the bags. “You’re both full of shit.”

“I take offense to that,” Toni says, letting him take her bag only after a brief tug of war.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t cute,” he teases.

“Personally, I believe her,” my sister-in-law, Camille, says. The sunset and that pregnancy glow make her dark brown skin absolutely radiant. “We know Cillian has a thing for leaf-peeping.”

I drop the bags beside her on the raised deck. “I had to show Toni the ropes.”

“Sure you did.” She pulls me into a fierce side hug, her belly now big enough to provide a significant barrier. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Sorry, work has?—”

“I’m well aware,” she cuts me off. “Who do you think Michael complains to?” She winks. “I’m just glad to see you before I’m in mom mode.”

“How is the cooking going?” I ask.

She rests her hands lovingly on top of her bump. “Rowdy. He’s been using my kidneys as punching bags.”

“He?!” Oliver, Lucy, and I bellow in unison.

“He,” Michael confirms. He wraps Camille in his arms from behind, hands resting over hers.

“Do mom and dad know?” I ask them.

Camille nods. “Your mom swears he’ll be here before Christmas, but I’m holding out for a Capricorn.”

“Not a Sagittarius fan?” Toni asks. She’d been hanging back a touch, watching our excitement without any trace of impatience or discomfort.

“I try not to discriminate,” Camille says with a smirk. “But as a Capricorn, I’m biased.” Her face shifts to concern, “You aren’t a Sag, are you?”

Toni laughs. “Nope. I’m the more aggressive of the fire signs.”

“You being an Aries actually makes so much sense,” Lucy says, eyes flicking between us.

“I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“I would never give you anything less than praise, darling.” Lucy loops her arms between Camille and Toni. “Let’s go enjoy the fire I painstakingly started inside.”

“You?” Oliver protests. He picks up Toni’s bags and tries to grab mine before I snatch them away. “I’m pretty sure I brought in the firewood.”

“Yes,” Lucy says over her shoulder as she leads the other two women inside. “But I lit the match.”

We get settled in, and I thank Oliver and Lucy for making the place cozy. They’d already wiped down the kitchen and tossed the canvas drop cloths I used to cover the old couch and collection of floor cushions.

“Honestly, I feel kinda bad,” Oliver says as he puts on a pot of coffee.

“Why?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’ve been out here more this year than you have, and it’s your place.”

“I consider it everyone’s place these days.” Ever since I moved into my uncle’s house, it made sense to keep the invite open to the family if I wasn’t using the cabin or property.

“Still. You should?—”

“If you’re about to say ‘take time off,’—” I sigh. “I know.”

“Oh, God,” Camille groans. Oliver’s face mirrors my own as my stomach drops to my knees for a fraction of a second. “Is that coffee?”

“Cam, you’re too pregnant to start anything with ‘oh, God,’ nearly gave us a heart attack in here,” Oliver chides.

She laughs. “Believe me, if something was happening with the baby, I’d be screaming something with more bite than ‘oh, God.’”

“You should have heard what came out of her mouth when she was having Braxton Hicks contractions last week,” Michael says, slipping his jacket off to hang by the door. “Could’ve made the devil blush.”

“I’m excited to see what I come up with when this little guy decides he’s ready to come out. I may invent new words.”

Michael smiles at Camille tenderly, kissing the top of her head as he passes by. “You want some tea, babe?”

She sighs as I bring Toni a mug of coffee and perch on the arm of the couch. “Sure. Maybe if Toni lets me smell her coffee, I can pretend it’s as good.”

Toni holds the mug under Camille’s nose. “Breathe it in.”

Camille doesn’t hesitate, wafting the steam rising from the mug toward her face, inhaling deeply. “I miss you,” she whispers.

Lucy looks down at her own mug. “I almost feel guilty drinking this in front of you.”

“Don’t.” Camille accepts the tea Michael brings her. “Trading coffee… and sushi, and charcuterie, and-” She pauses.

“That’s a lot of things.” Toni pats Camille’s knee.

“So many things,” Camille dramatically pouts. “But, it feels like a fair trade for a tiny human.”

The rest of the evening is filled with easy banter and good food. But the combination of a long week mingles with the crackling of the fire and the cool autumn night and begins lulling us all to sleep earlier than any of us anticipated.

Michael and Camille tap out first, retreating to the tiny cabin. Oliver and Lucy aren’t far behind, committed to sleeping rough rather than bringing their cots into the living room.

“I will never understand it. Inside is better than outside.” Toni says around a yawn, her body relaxing against me on the couch.

I chuckle, “You like the park and the beach, and didn’t you spend a whole day apple picking?”

“I’m not entirely opposed to the outside, but I got plenty of the—” another big yawn cuts her off, “outdoors and the country as a kid.”

“Fair enough.” I plant a kiss on her cheek. “Come on, let's get you to bed.”

“Just me?”

“Not just you.”