Chapter 176

MASON Luke’s excited squeals echo around the den, making Maddox and me laugh. I guide our nephew to the sofa, my hands around his waist as I make the sounds of an engine stalling. I jerk him, making him the plane that’s about to crash-land, and his shrieks grow louder. “Now, Unca Mase, now!” I bring us both crashing to the sofa, and his resulting giggles are loud and infectious. “Mel is going to kick your ass getting him this worked up before bedtime,” Nathan says, eyeing me and his son with amusement. He’s already dressed in his tux for the second stage of Drake’s wedding celebrations this evening. Like our two oldest brothers and their wives, Drake and Amelia decided to get married at our family home in an intimate ceremony. Now they’re on a brief hiatus to decompress—which we all know is code for fucking—while an army of caterers and people with checklists on clipboards get the house ready for over two hundred guests. Mel is Nathan’s wife and the only person in the entire world he’s