“We’ll have dinner at our house tonight,” Lily was telling Rose. “You guys come over later?”
“We’ll be there,” Rose said. “And Mack’s driving, so we can get hammered.”
“I’m looking forward to that,” Farrah replied.
“Not you,” Rose said, giving Farrah a hug. “You’re nuts when you drink. Me and Lily will get hammered.”
“Me, too,” Charlie said. “I’m only a half crazy drunk.”
All the women laughed.
“No strippin’, no fightin’, no Jaeger,” my dad announced. “Or I’m leavin’ your ass for Leo to deal with.”
“No Jaeger?” Rose gasped theatrically.
“You’re fuckin’ mean when you drink that shit,” my dad grumbled.
“Huh,” Charlie said, looking at me. “You are, too.”
I flipped her off behind my dad’s back, making her laugh.
“Let Draco know I left?” I asked her.
“You tell him,” she replied, frowning at me.
“Tell him I’ll call him later.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said in exasperation. “Really?”
“Love you,” I said as Rose and my dad started walking away. “See you in a few hours.”
I jogged to catch up with my parents, feeling like I had a bull’s-eye on my back and Draco was going to stop me until I’d climbed into the back of Rose’s SUV. I didn’t want to get into it with him, not then. I needed a little space.
I needed a lot of space, if I was being honest. Too much was happening too fast. It was as if now that the seal was broken, suddenly, I was expected to be with him. Ride with him, spend the day with him, be his fucking old lady. Everyone expected it, I could tell by their comments and the way they’d just accepted that we were suddenly together.
No one would understand why the thought of that made me feel like the world was going to implode.
Pulling out my phone, I checked the little fire map again. I must have made a noise when I saw that our apartment was back in the level two evacuation zone because Rose turned to look at me.
“What?” she asked.
“I can go back to the apartment,” I replied, showing her the phone.
“Just stay with us,” she said, leaning forward to look at it. “Better safe than sorry.”
“No, I’ll probably head home.”
“What, our home isn’t home anymore?”
“You know what I mean,” I said, putting the phone away. “I’m going to shower in my own shower and stuff.”
“Our bath was good enough for you yesterday. Why you always tryin’ to leave us?” she fake wailed.
“Because you raised me to be an independent adult?” I asked, ignoring her theatrics.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” my dad told Rose like I wasn’t right there. “We shoulda kept her afraid of everything. Shouldn’t have taught her how to pay her bills.”
“Pretty sure math class taught me that,” I said.
They ignored me.
“Why’d you teach her how to drive?” Rose asked pathetically. “Now she can drive away from us.”
“You shouldn’t have told her all that feminist shit,” he shot back. “If she’d kept believin’ I was in charge, none of this woulda happened.”
“You guys are hilarious,” I said, deadpan. “Abbott and Costello.”
It didn’t take long before we were home, and by then they’d pretty much accepted that I wasn’t going to stay with them. I could tell that they weren’t happy about it, but they wouldn’t push it, either. We’d come to a sort of understanding since I’d become an adult—I’d respect what they said and always take it under consideration, but I was going to do my own thing. Sometimes, but not always, that meant ignoring what they thought the right choice was.
I hadn’t unpacked anything from my bag except the clothes I was wearing, so it only took a couple minutes to get my stuff together.
“You could just go home after we have dinner at Lily’s,” Rose said from the doorway.
I glanced at my bed, and in an instant, memories of naked Draco flashed through my mind.
“No, I’m going to go home for a few hours,” I replied, smiling at her as I strode her way. “You act like I live in another country.”
“It’s nice having you home,” she said with a sigh. “I like having all my chicks in one nest and I didn’t even get that because your brothers weren’t home last night.”
“When are you going to pick them up?” I asked as we headed toward the front of the house.
“I don’t know. I texted Heather and she said they’re keeping her monsters occupied, so no rush.”
“Poor thing. You should bring a couple extra home with you.”
“You know, having kids isn’t quite as terrible as you think it is,” she joked, bumping me with her hip. “They keep things from getting boring.”
“I like being boring,” I told her. “Dad, I’m leaving!”
“Text me when you get there,” he called back from somewhere down the hallway we’d just left.
“You better get used to less boring,” Rose said as she opened the front door for me. “I have a feeling things are going to be exciting for you for a while.”