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“Woof.” They picked up the next section and then fitted it in. “You know that you’re—”
“Perfect the way I am?” Felicity’s navy blue eyes sparkled. “I do actually. Honestly, I have mostly come to terms with my body, and I have fully embraced the intuitive eating life. I mean, I’m in great shape and work out three times a week. Should being a size fourteen mean I can’t like my body? Unfortunately, from Mom’s perspective, the answer is yes. But I think every Irish Catholic family needs a curvy, tatted-up, bisexual ginger with ADHD to call everyone else on their bullshit. Even the Gallaghers.”
“Mom’s mom shamed her for her weight all the time. Grandpa did too.”
“Dad told me. You know, when I told her I started Vyvanse, she said she could never take amphetamines because she hated the diet pill kind her mom gave her back in high school. But she hoped that the weight loss side effects would ‘help’ me.”
“No…”
“Yeah… I was like, Mom, my ADHD meds are not the same as the literal meth your mom gave you in high school to keep you a size two.”
“What’d she say to that?”
“Oh, I didn’t actually say that. It was one of those mental hypothetical arguments after the fact.”
“Why didn’t you just say it then?”
“It’s Mom.” She shrugged. “I just said weight loss wasn’t my goal right now, and I didn’t want her to comment on my weight anymore whether it was going up or down.”
“Good for you.”
“Meh, boundaries are really only about what you do. I can’t change her. But what I could do is have an extended slumber party with my favorite older brother.”
“Don’t let Anderson, Brooks, or Cal hear you call me that.” He handed her the screw gun. “I still wish I could talk to Mom about the—”
“Oh, our brothers totally know you’re my favorite.” She worked down the line. “We should probably keep moving so the adhesive doesn’t dry.”
Since Dylan knew that she knew that he knew how to put in a floor, he figured this meant she was done talking about this. Christ, he loved his sister. He was pissed at his mom, but Lissy could fight her own battles.
Once the subfloor was in, a very sweaty Dylan and Felicity sat next to Gus’s enormous doggie bed. Gus had fled the screw gun noise to cower in the bedroom. He seemed so alarmed that Felicity found a YouTube channel designed for dogs and turned her laptop volume all the way up. Who knew there was such a thing? This led Dylan down a mental rabbit hole of researching life solutions for big, elderly, monster dogs with delicate paws that hated hot sidewalks.
He realized he’d lost his mind when he started pricing out dog treadmills.
Seriously, what had this animal done to him?
Felicity clicked her metal water bottle against his. “To luxury vinyl, and the rich people who change their minds.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “So, did something happen between you and Derek? Please note how I’m not asking about assholes.”
Dylan choked on a swallow of water. “Wh-why do you ask?”
“Just the way he looks at you sometimes when you’re asleep and half drooling on the couch cushions.”
“How does he look at me?”
“Kind of like how I look at the garden at the parents’ house when the calla lilies start blooming.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“Speaking of which, I need to go back tomorrow because Mom’s probably getting everything ready for the barbeque and needs stuff harvested. But this is neither here nor there. So… Derek. There’s a vibe. A sex vibe.”
“You get a sex vibe when you look at calla lilies?”
“It’s like you’ve never heard of Georgia O’Keefe.” She nudged him. “Can you just be honest?”
“I am not going to deny that the guy is…”
“Super hot. Like celebrity swimsuit edition of a magazine hot.”
“Right.”