The Heart's Game (The Kelly Brothers, Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her down the hall to the room where she’d spent her teen years. Little had changed since then. Math and science trophies filled the top shelf of the bookcase, with rows of thick fantasy and science fiction novels below. A Mystery Science Theater 3000 poster with curling edges still hung on her wall between a Star Wars one and an autographed Jean-Luc Picard photo.
    But lying draped over the bed was a bright pink áo dài.
    She could already feel the tight confines of the dress squeezing her chest. “You’re not expecting me to wear that, are you?”
    “Dì Tam brought that back from Vietnam for you,” her mother said with a heavy dose of guilt.
    Jenny wrinkled her nose. “But it’s pink.”
    “You look good in pink.”
    “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you that I don’t like pink?”
    “And that is why you don’t have a husband.” Her mother gave an exasperated sigh and shoved a bottle of pink nail polish into Jenny’s hand. “At least paint your toes before dinner. We’ll have a guest.”
    A mix of both English and Vietnamese curses formed on the tip of her tongue, but she bit them back like an obedient daughter. It was the thin line she always walked with her mother. She didn’t want to completely rebel, but at the same time, she refused to be the demure daughter her mother wanted her to be. She’d paint her toes if that would appease her, but she drew the line at wearing the áo dài for a dinner guest. This was a family dinner, not a formal event.
    When she reemerged from her bedroom ten minutes later, her aunt was gone. “Where did Dì Tam go?”
    “To get some last minute things.” Her mother forced a pair of bamboo chopsticks into her hand. “Here, stir the bún.”
    Minding the boiling pot of vermicelli rice noodles was probably the only thing her mother trusted her to do in the kitchen. Too many hours in the basement equated to not enough time in the kitchen learning the intricacies of traditional Vietnamese cuisine. Jason was a far better cook than she was, and she suspected as soon as her brother arrived, he’d be recruited to assist their mom with the bánh b ộ t l ọ c lá.
    Jenny tested the noodles for doneness and moved the pot over the sink to drain them. After rinsing them off with cold water, she turned to her mom. “Anything else?”
    “Yes, you can go back to your room and change your clothes,” she replied without pausing from wrapping the shrimp filled dumplings in banana leaves.
    “Not happening.”
    Thankfully, the front door opened before an argument erupted between them. “Hi, Mom,” Jason called from the entryway. He appeared a few seconds later in the kitchen to place a kiss on their mother’s cheek. “It looks like a feast here. What’s the occasion?”
    He slid his gaze toward Jenny, silently asking if she’d shared their good news yet.
    She shook her head as their mom answered, “Tam is back from Vietnam.”
    “And is that the reason you asked if I could leave Mike at home?” Disappointment mixed with a touch of anger laced his words. Although Jason was their mom’s favorite, she’d never truly accepted his sexual preferences and only begrudgingly attended his wedding to Mike last year.
    “Too many Vietnamese here,” their mom replied without looking up from her work. “He’d feel like an outsider.”
    “Not if you spoke English around him. I’m trying to teach him, but there’s only so much he understands.” He moved from the kitchen island where their mother was preparing the bánh and jerked his head toward the backyard, signaling Jenny was free from kitchen duty. “Let me help you with these, Má . ”
    Jenny ran for the door before her mother found another reason to nag her and found Mike leaning against the deck, looking cool and collected in a pale yellow polo and pastel plaid shorts with a beer in his hand and a smug smile on his face. He offered her a soda pop from the ice chest beside him.
    “You came anyway, huh?”
    “One day