Playing Favorites: Part I

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Playing Favorites

Part I

An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle

“We talked about this!” Reese heard Sara snap, which normally wouldn’t have fazed him and if hadn’t been for the, “I’ve got this!” that followed, he would have continued sitting there, staring at the pictures that Uncle Jared sent over this morning.

Rubbing his hands roughly down his face, he pushed his office chair back and went to find out what nightmare his unwanted roommates were getting into now. As he headed down the back hallway towards the kitchen, he considered sending them Trevor’s way and leaving his cousin to deal with them only he couldn’t do it. Well, he could, but since his wife would kill him and his daughter would probably throw something at his head, he decided to just deal with whatever they’d gotten into so that he could go back to work.

“I will kill you,” Sara bit out as Reese rounded the corner.

“Stop getting in the way of my dreams, woman!” Eric snapped as he reached for a screwdriver from that toolbox that he’d bought on the off-chance that he found something broken around the house before Reese could get to it.

“No,” Reese said, not even bothering to ask what was going on as he plucked the screwdriver out of Eric’s hands, dropped it back in the toolbox, and with a look of warning, he put the toolbox back in the closet.

“But-”

“No,” Reese said, shifting his attention to the beautiful woman glaring in Eric’s direction and cocked a brow in question.

“The pantry door made a small noise,” Sara said, narrowing her eyes on the man that Reese figured she would one day be arrested for trying to beat to death.

Then again…, he thought, biting back a smile when he caught the way her gaze flickered down, taking in the way that Eric was starting to fill out his Bradford Construction tee shirt before returning to glaring at him.

“It will wake the boys up,” Eric said as he sent the closet door a hopeful glance that had Reese sighing as he grabbed his keys off the counter, locked the closet door and put his keys in his pants pocket.

“The boys are with my parents,” he pointed out as he turned around, ready to head back to his office so that he could figure out what project he wanted to work on when Mikey came walking in, which normally wouldn’t be an issue, but since she was currently limping and Sebastian came in behind her with Jonathan in a headlock, he decided this was probably something that he should handle.

“What happened?” Eric asked, not really sounding all that concerned, but that probably had something to do with the fact that he was now focused on the platter of baked goods that Kasey kept well-stocked.

“Nothing,” Mikey said, and if she hadn’t said that with a glare…

“What happened?” Reese asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache come on.

“She started it!” Jonathan bit out with a glare at Mikey, which he followed up with a wince, a pained grunt and a muttered, “Well, she did,” when Sebastian tightened his hold.

“Please tell me that you didn’t put your hands on my daughter,” Reese drawled with a look that had Jonathan swallowing hard and shaking his head frantically.

“He didn’t hit me,” Mikey said with a wince as she moved to keep waking only to mumble something and shift direction towards the refrigerator.

“I would never,” Jonathan stressed even as he shifted a glare back in Mikey’s direction.

“Then what happened?” Sara asked as Mikey grabbed an ice pack, limped towards the kitchen table and with a wince, sat down and placed the ice pack on her knee.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, making him sigh, because that’s what his daughter did these days.

That’s when she wasn’t locking herself in the bathroom crying.

Then she made him want to kill something.

“I wouldn’t either,” Jonathan said, nodding in agreement as he pushed himself free and headed towards the large platter that every man in his family was obsessed with.

Sighing, Reese looked back over at his daughter, hoping to get an answer only to find her bottom lip trembling, her eyes watering and-

“You idiot,” Sebastian said, shaking his head in disgust as Mikey stood up, limped towards the pantry and closed the door behind her with a small squeak that had Eric gesturing towards the door with a brownie and a, “See?” while Reese stood there, staring at the pantry door, wondering how long it would be before he lost his fucking mind.

Not long, he decided when Sebastian turned a glare on his brother before diving over the counter and taking his brother down with an impressive punch that was definitely going to leave a mark.