I was in so much goddamn trouble.
IT WENT better than I thought it would. It was loud, of course, because we didn’t know how else to be. Conversations crossed over each other, coming together and then breaking apart into something smaller.
Jeremy sat next to me, and Nana was on the other side of him. Every now and then she’d lean over and whisper something in his ear, and he’d smile and nod or laugh and shake his head. She was enjoying him, and I was relieved. I knew she would, but it was still a weight off my shoulders.
For how crazy she could be, she was still the matriarch of this family and fiercely protective. She had, on quite a few occasions (and much to Larry’s consternation), announced that she didn’t like it when outsiders fucked with her people. I was told that she immediately adored Vince, and saw with my own eyes how she’d been initially wary of Darren. She trusted us enough to make our own decisions but was there to point out when they were wrong, even if we didn’t want to hear it. The rub was that she was usually right, even if she told us by way of interventions.
But Jeremy had already passed whatever test she’d put in place. Her arthritis had been acting up lately, and when she’d tried to hold a knife to cut into her burger, it’d clattered onto the table. She frowned, and I was about to reach over and cut it for her when Jeremy beat me to the punch. Without skipping a beat in the story he was telling, he picked up her knife, pulled her plate closer to him, and cut her food. When he finished, he pushed it back in front of her and went back to his own plate. Nothing was said about it.
She had stars in her eyes.
I did too.
You could tell the merit of a person by how they treated animals, children, and the elderly. I saw daily how he was with the kids at Phoenix House. And while he’d been initially taken aback by Wheels and Johnny Depp, he was scolded by Paul for sneaking a piece of burger down to Wheels, who was under the table.
And he wasn’t placating Nana. He listened to her as she talked his ear off.
Robert was right.
We’d made a good home here.
And it seemed our family was going to grow by two more.
And that was the most important thing of all. I could deal with it.
I had to.
I WAS in the kitchen, suds almost all the way up to my shoulder. Darren, Larry, and Vince were scraping the grill, and Sandy and Paul were clearing the table, letting the others relax. Matty had tried to argue, but we’d poured her another glass of wine, and Larry told her that she had done most of the work and therefore had the rest of the day off.
I heard someone walk back into the kitchen and assumed it was Sandy. “I don’t know how the hell you put two hamburgers away,” I told him. “You’re going to upchuck it all over the floor at the show tonight. And you know what happens when you spit something on someone at the bar. You have to marry them. You better aim for Darren or he’s going to be pissed.”
“Is that how it works at Jack It? I’ll keep that in mind. And I don’t think I want to spit anything on Darren. He’s… vascular.”
That wasn’t Sandy.
I squeaked as I jerked. And because I was a walking disaster, I managed to get dish soap in my eye. “Holy fuck! Oh my god, it burns.” I blinked against the soap, but that only made it worse. I was about to reach up and rub at it but remembered my hands were covered in soap. I couldn’t see to find the tap or a towel. It was literally the worst thing that had happened to anyone ever.
(Yes, I was aware that tragedies occurred the world over on a daily basis, but soap in your eye had to be up there with the worst of them.)
“Shit,” I heard Jeremy say, and he was standing right next to me. He was quicker than I expected. I didn’t know why that surprised me. “That was my fault. Let me—would you stop moving? You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I’m going blind,” I growled at him. “I’ll never see out of this eye again! I’ll have to wear an eye patch like a pirate or a space captain in charge of a mixed group of rebels!”
He chuckled. “I don’t think that’s how it works.” I startled when his hand cupped my chin, thumb just underneath my bottom lip. My throat was suddenly dry, and I was frozen.
He pressed a wet cloth against my eye. I blinked against it as the pressure increased. His grip on my chin tightened, and I was having trouble breathing.
“There,” he said quietly. “How’s that?”
I blinked again, and though it still burned, it was better than it’d been.
Which meant, of course, that my vision cleared enough for me to see he was standing close.
Very close.
“So good,” I breathed.
His lips quirked. “Yeah? Think you’ll need that spaceship still?