Enticed by J.A. Belfield Page A

caught.
“Besides, I’ve kind of killed the cheesy T-shirt angle already.”
She had, too—half a dozen of her ‘gifts’ sat in my bedroom drawers.
“So I had to find a new obsession to kill for a while.”
    I nodded,
touched by the fact she’d bother to notice my tastes. “Nice.”
    As I stuck it
on the sideboard behind me for later, the usual bustle of breakfast
commenced: Mum hauling all the plates of bacon, eggs, toast,
mushrooms, and hash browns across to the table, Jem settling into
her seat beside me, Lia still rubbing her little fists into her eye
sockets as Sean tucked her onto his lap at his place beside Jem,
and Dad folding down his screen and paying attention as even Kyle
and Brook drew their chairs in a little closer. In another moment,
we all had plates and cutlery slid beneath our noses, and pretty
much all conversation ceased as the more important task of eating
took its place.
    Just as Mum had
ordered, nobody touched anything before I’d scooped up what I
wanted—and I smiled at them through every damn item I dished. I’d
ploughed my way through everything bar remnants of hash brown and a
strip of bacon when the metallic groan of the front gates sounded
out.
    I tilted my
head as I chewed, tracking the low rumble of an engine, and
recognised the tone as Dan’s ex-HiLux. Shelley and I’d bought the
pickup from Dan a couple of weeks back, when he’d made noise about
trading it in for a new set of wheels, though he’d shocked us all
when he showed up with a bike as his new ride.
    At the dual
slamming of truck doors from the driveway, I smiled. Gabe’s arrival
likely meant Shelley's too.
    I didn’t bother
turning when the front door swung open and two sets of footsteps
hit the tiles of the hallway. Instead, I inhaled—frowning when the
scents I grabbed had zero to do with my female.
    A hand clamped
down on my shoulder and shook a little. “Happy birthday, old
man.”
    I mustered a
smile for Gabe. “Less of the old,” I said, as he rounded my seat,
with Mia—not Shelley—in tow.
    “Oh, I dunno.
You got some grey coming, you know.” Mia’d never been shy since the
first time I met her. “Gonna have to start thinking about dyeing
those soon.” Her long ebony hair slid over her shoulder as she
leaned in and nabbed a piece of toast off the table. “Whatcha got
planned?” she asked around chewing.
    I shrugged, my
brain still half expecting Shelley to come through the door in some
kind of delayed reaction.
    “Well, you can
start by opening these uber cool pressies we got you,” Mia said,
snatching a packet I’d barely registered out of Gabe’s hands.
“You’ll love them. I helped Gabe pick them out.”
    I faux groaned.
Neither of them had hit their twenties yet—who the hell knew what
they’d come up with. “Do I really want to see?”
    “Yep.”
Grinning, she slapped a thin square-shaped parcel on the table next
to my plate.
    I stared. At
the parcel. Well, at the packaging. It was lilac. With fairies on
it—fairies with flower heads for hats and toadstools for seats and
ladybirds for companions. “You pick out the paper, too?”
    “I like
fairies,” she said, grabbing another slice of toast.
    Ignoring the
stifled chuckles from the pack, the snort from Jem, and the untamed
smiles from both Brook and Mum, I peeled back the stuck-down flaps
of paper and peeked inside to find white fabric. “Is it safe to
delve deeper?” I asked.
    Pausing in her
chewing, Mia shot out a muffled, “Wimp.”
    “Be nice,” Gabe
said, drawing her toward him with a hand slipped around her waist.
“It’s his birthday.” He tucked her back against his chest and
stared overtop of her head, and I pulled the gift from its bindings
and shook it out to reveal a T-shirt.
    Jem barked out
a laugh beside me, while I could only stare at the T-shirt. More so
at the design: 'WOOF!' In big letters. Right across the front.
    “Classic,” Jem
said.
    I turned to
her, ignoring the jiggle of Sean’s shoulders next