You Belong to Me - 1

 

Kerry leaned back, studying his brothers. It had been a year since the whole family had been together—last Christmas, in fact.

 

Phil, being Phil, was dressed casually—to put it mildly—in a plaid flannel shirt and old jeans. His dark hair was desperately in need of cutting and his beard, while short, looked ragged. Of course, since he and his fiancée, Cathy, had just arrived twenty minutes earlier from the west coast, where Phil worked as a screenwriter, Kerry wasn’t too surprised that his brother wasn’t dressed to the nines—But the hair and the beard….

 

Shaking his head, Kerry turned his attention to his younger brother. Corey was Phil’s polar opposite. His brown hair was stylishly short. He was clean-shaven, wearing well-pressed slacks, a blue button-down shirt under a gray V-necked sweater, and even a tie.

 

He always was the most conservative of us. Still the tie is a bit of overkill, even if we’re going to Mass later.

 

Kerry glanced at his reflection in the mirror over the credenza. He was wearing nice jeans and a red turtleneck in honor of the season. He smiled as he looked at his girlfriend, Jena, in her black slacks and red blouse. She was in the kitchen with Cathy and his mother, Linda. Whatever the topic of conversation, the three women were deeply engrossed in it.

 

“Comparing recipes?” Kerry’s father, Tom, said with a grin, joining his sons at the dining room table.

 

“Or clothes, or men, or whatever women talk about when their guys are out of earshot,” Phil replied, laughing. He turned to Corey. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your latest conquest with you.”

 

Corey smiled tightly. “At the moment I’m between ‘conquests,’ as you put it. Besides which, this is supposed to be a family celebration.”

 

Phil arched an eyebrow. “Cathy’s almost family. One more month and counting. And from what Mom said in one of her e-mails, Kerry and Jena are living together now, so she belongs here too.”

 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound pissy,” Corey muttered.

 

Phil clapped him on the back. “It’s okay. That’s just your way.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Hoping to defuse the situation, Kerry immediately asked Phil, “What’s your newest project?”

 

He got more than he bargained for in reply when Phil gave them a blow-by-blow description of a film script he had been contracted to write by one of the major studios.