“Come on, boy. You’re gonna have to get up. You weigh sixty pounds!”
Bobo only rested his snout against my neck.
“This probably isn’t good for your leg.”
Bobo rubbed his nose along my neck as if to insist,I’m fine.
Hunt lowered himself to the polished concrete beside us, crossed his legs, and made kissing noises. At the familiar sound, Bobo’s head jerked up. When he saw who waited for him with open arms, he scrabbled off my chest, scratching the shit out of me, and covered the few feet separating us in one leap, nearly knocking down Hunt, whooomphed but remained upright while he started doling out pets and lovings.
“I guess he’s feeling well enough, then,” I said with a chuckle, drawing up to sit across from them while Bobo made his rounds. When every single one of us was covered in wet dog kisses and he’d peed in the yard, we led him inside. Bobo tore through the entire place at full speed, his claws scrabbling and sliding on the tiled and wooden floors, bumping into walls and corners in his eagerness to take it all in at once. He climbed the stairs to the loft two at a time. When he was finally finished, he lapped up the water that was already poured for him in a stand with two stainless-steel bowls etched with his name, then hopped onto the couch next to me, his head in my lap, preparing to nap.
The others dropped into seats around us.
“Damn,” Layla said with a smile. “Guess bringing him here with us was the right move, huh?”
I rubbed behind his ears. Hunt, who sat on Bobo’s other side, ran a hand along the length of his shiny black back.
“I hope so,” I said. “But it makes me hella nervous. It’s bad enough having all of you guys here with me at the mercy of some guy with more money than restraint. I just don’t know.”
I allowed my head to flop back onto the couch behind me. “What are we gonna do, guys?”
Griffin slid closer on my other side, and I leaned my head on his shoulder.
“We survive,” he said. “That’s what we do. We do what we have to, and we all get out of this alive.”
“After we all die again and again, of course,” Brady said from the other side of the large marble coffee table between the L couches, resting his socked feet up on it.
Griffin grimaced. “Yeah.” Then, “I still can’t figure out how we’ve found ourselves here. Just a few months ago our biggest concern was getting our parents off our backs with all their pressuring us to go to college. Now look at us.”
“Yeah. Without parents,” Hunt muttered with a frown.
“Good riddance,” Layla said from between Hunt and Brady, but her eyes were sad. “I can’t stop wondering what Celia’s and Porter’s names really are.”
“Me neither,” Brady said.
“Lynne,” I said with a disbelieving shake of my head that dragged my hair across Griffin’s shoulder. “Can you believe Monica’s name isLynne?” I shuddered. “Feelssofreaking weird.”
Layla kicked up her feet too. “And that she screwed Wade’s dad?” She shook her head. Her hair was currently blond with frosted pink highlights. “And Xander Jones got her pregnant? Shit, I sure didn’t see that coming. Not in a million years. I wonder if Reece, whatever, knew it was going on. Like, were he and Lynne”—her upper lip curled as if the unfamiliar name were sour—“were they ever even a couple? Or was all of that a show too?”
I exhaled loudly, though it did nothing to relieve all the worries jostling for position in my chest cavity. “She got anabortion. Wade and I coulda been stepsiblings. Can you imagine that?”
Hunt frowned. “You would’ve had to really be Lynne’s for that to happen.”
My shoulders slumped. “Right. I keep forgetting. It’s like so crazy shocking that they aren’t really our parents and they lied to us all that time; I can hardly stop thinking about it. But then, somehow I forget, and think of them as my parents like always.”
“I’m having the same problem,” Griffin said. “Every time I see Tracy, it’s like a knife to the gut.”
I nuzzled my face along his shoulder in support before realizing I was probably wiping Bobo slobber all over him. He just laced our fingers together, a gesture that was becoming common with him.
“And my dad, Orson. His name isTobias?” He wagged his head along the back of the couch. “Tobias Andrew Dole.” He said it like he was testing out the words, his lips puckering just as Layla’s had. “I never even had a mom.”
Layla huffed. “Well, in fact, turns out none of us fucking did.”
“All that shit about my dad,” Hunt added. “I really believed Alexis was forever mourning him.” He shook his head, continuing to pet Bobo everywhere but the recently healed leg despite his anguish. “Just a sperm donor.”
“And to think now we’re gonna have to work with them,” Brady said. “Not sure I can stomach it. I might punch one of them straight in their ugly mugs.”
None of our faux parents were actually ugly. But their insides sure were looking questionable at the moment.
