Mick rolled his eyes and stayed seated in his armchair. “If I move, I’ll lose the good coffee light.”
“You’ll survive,” Helen said. “Grace, honey, come on, you too.”
Grace blinked from her spot on the couch. “Oh, no, really, I can take it?—”
“Nope.” Helen waved her over like a general. “You’re family now, and we have the documentation to prove it.”
Grace looked startled but smiled. “I… okay.”
She slid to stand beside Alix, and Alix automatically wrapped an arm around her waist. The warmth of Grace’s side pressed against her, her hair brushing Alix’s cheek. She smelled like coffee and the vanilla lotion from her bag, and Alix had to remind herself to keep breathing.
“Closer,” Susan said from behind the camera. “This thing has a tiny frame. Everyone pretend you like each other.”
“Pretend?” Alix muttered.
Susan laughed. “On three. One, two?—”
“Wait, Paul’s not in it!” Grace said, scooping up the cat.
Paul meowed, unimpressed, as he was held up like a baby.
“Perfect,” Helen said. “Now smile before he bites someone.”
The camera clicked.
Afterward, Grace stepped back, cheeks pink from laughter, brushing a bit of cat hair from her sweater. “Thank you,” she said to Helen. “For letting me be in the picture.”
Helen squeezed her hand. “Oh, sweetheart, you were already in it. We just made it official.”
Alix didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Not without giving herself away. But when Grace looked at her, smiling that small, shy smile, Alix wanted to remember everything about this morning for the rest of her life.
Chapter Twenty-Five
GRACE
At mid-morning,the chaos had died down and Grace had gone up to their room to call her mom. The background noise of a packed house had assuaged her guilt about leaving her mom on Christmas, and Grace had to resist the revolting urge to whistle when she trotted down the stairs.
Jesus.She was turning into one of those people. What was next? Forcing strangers in elevators into small talk about the weather?
She laughed to herself because she was losing her mind and she was too far gone to care. Downstairs was suspiciously quiet and empty. Everyone except for Helen, who was sitting at the kitchen counter with two steaming mugs.
Grace’s stomach clenched. In law school, she’d been subjected to the Socratic method. An actual nightmare of having to stand up in front of everyone, answer some weird-ass hypothetical, and then defend that position while being publicly grilled by a professor who’d never practiced law in their life. Looking at Helen, who’d obviously been waiting for her, Grace had the same feeling she did when explaining the rule againstperpetuities in front of a hundred overachievers gunning for the number-one spot.
Helen looked up at her and chuckled to herself. “You already read my intentions, didn’t you? I can tell by the way all the color drained from your face.” She gestured for Grace to sit next to her, where the second mug waited. “What gave me away?”
Embarrassed that she’d telegraphed her apprehension when she was usually better at concealing her emotions, Grace shrugged.
“Oh, come on.” Helen grinned, warm and disarming. “I want to improve for when Matt finally leaves the basement and brings home a real live girl.” She laughed to herself. “I might even take a fake one at this point.”
Grace sought refuge in the coffee, but it was too hot to be long-lived. “Alix isn’t here, so I’m guessing you asked her to run an errand or something to get her out of the house. And you probably did that because Susan and her family stepped out — her purse isn’t by the front door. And Matt and Mick probably drifted away for sugar-crash naps.” She cleared her throat. “My guess is you saw a chance to speak with me alone, and you took it.”
Helen beamed. “Alix said you were smart, but—” She interrupted herself with a giggle. “Here I thought I’d only jumped the gun with the coffee. Being a lawyer teach you all that?”
Grace made a noncommittal sound in her throat. “Well, I do also have a mother who lovingly ambushes with coffee. It’s just a different kind.”
“Are you close?” Helen asked. “You and your mom?”
“Very close,” she replied. “Growing up, it was pretty much just us two, you know? I have extended family, but day-to-day, it was just us.”
