Can't Take the Heat by Stephanie Julian

Author:Stephanie Julian [Julian, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-10-12T18:30:00+00:00

Frank watched as his dad dropped the surgery bomb at their family meeting Sunday night.

With his brothers Zooming in, everyone else was seated around the table at his parents’ house. So far, everything was proceeding exactly as Frank had expected.

Chaos.

His dad was talking to Gram, who was shaking her head with concern written all over her face. His mom was trying to placate the girls. And the twins were looking at each other, probably doing that freaky twin thing where they communicated without words.

Frank let it play out for a few minutes, let them get all the anger and the angst out of their systems. And when the girls finally sputtered down to huffs, he leaned forward.

“So, I’ve been thinking about this, and I may know someone who’d be willing to help us out on short notice.”

“Wait a minute.” Juli glared at him. “You already knew?”

“Now, don’t get on your brother’s case.” His dad jumped in before Juli could tear him a new one. “He only found out the other day.”

“But—”

“You wanna hear my suggestion or you wanna bitch at me?”

Juli gave him the finger, which made him smile and their mom roll her eyes.

“Okay, master of the universe, what’s your big solution?”

Frank just smirked back at Juli until she literally growled at him.

“Frankie,” his mom’s tone held a wealth of exasperation, “just spit it out before your sister’s head explodes.”

“It’s not her head that’s gonna explode if he doesn’t spit it out.” Gemma glared at him. “Don’t be an asshat.”

He reached over and ruffled his grown sister’s hair like she was still a teenager, which made her smack at his hand like he was a fly.

“Do that again,” she threatened, though he could tell she was fighting a smile, “and you won’t be able to hold your stick.”

“Which one?” One of the twins snorted, like the Neanderthals they were.

“Dude, you’re a pig.” Juli swung the laptop toward her so she could see the twins, who were in the middle of high-fiving each other. “This is why I told Mom to make your bedroom into a craft room so you can’t come home.”

His mother sighed. “Your room is still here—”

“Does anyone want to hear my solution, or do you want to continue acting like teenagers?”

Frank looked around the table, as he now had everyone’s attention. All four siblings gave him the death glare, which made him nostalgic for the days when they all lived under one roof. Which passed the second Jason said, “She started it.”

“I did not—”

Their dad dog-whistled so loudly, Frank was pretty sure the neighbors heard him.

“All right, children. That’s enough. Frankie, please. Save us.”

Amazingly, no one had anything else to say.

“I played with a guy in Texas, a few years ago. Shawn. Tore his rotator cuff a few times. After the last one, he retired and went back to school to be a chef. I talked to him yesterday about subbing in for a few weeks. He’s willing to come out this week and see if the job’s a fit.

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