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The dining room is—in a word—insane. I’ve never seen a room like it. Red and gold wallpaper lines the room but manages not to look garish. It fits perfectly with the huge wine rack that covers half of the far wall—far more than what was displayed in the sitting room. Two matching Victorian buffets line another wall, and they would have captured my attention if it hadn’t been for the item looming in the middle of the room.
The dining room table absolutely astounds me. I recognize the furniture immediately; it’s a nineteenth century mahogany table surrounded by fourteen balloon back chairs. I can’t help but gasp as I look a little closer at the table.
“This is handmade!”
“It is,” Kate says as she takes a seat. Nate leads me to sit across from her, and he takes his place at the head of the table. “1860, if I remember correctly. Made by a man named Sheraton.”
“Thomas Sheraton?”
“I believe you’re correct.” Kate raises an eyebrow.
“He did a lot of work with flame mahogany.” I check the edge of the table. “This one has been restored beautifully.”
“My dear brother’s wife, Nataniele’s mother, did love her antiques. You seem well versed.”
“Cherry’s aunt had an antique store,” Nate says. “You’ve probably seen a lot of pieces like this one.”
“This is pretty rare,” I tell him. “The Victorian buffets are much more common.”
“I guess that’s why we have two of them.” Nora moves around the table, pouring wine into glasses before claiming the seat next to me. Apparently, she won the argument with Antony. “Furniture is boring, I think. What do you do aside from spill your drinks on it or plop your ass on it?”
“Language!” Antony laughs, and Nora flips him off.
In quick succession, a man and woman—clearly the Thrace twins Nate has told me about—enter the dining room and take their seats on the other side of Nora. My landlord, Reid, also enters and sits across from them.
“Hello, Cherice,” Reid says with a smile. He’s a deeply tanned, somewhat chunky man with dull green eyes. “I hear you’re one of my tenants.”
“Yes, I am. I
met you the day I moved in.”
He nods, clearly not remembering me from the lease signing, but I suppose he has a lot of tenants, and he can’t remember them all.
“I think this is everyone tonight,” Andrea says as she sweeps in with trays of fruit and cheese. She places them in the center of the table within everyone’s reach. Nate sticks out a hand and grabs some grapes from the tray.
“I’m famished!” he announces.
Nate introduces me to Tawny and Trey—Twos and Threes, he calls them—and they start arguing immediately about how the two of them came into the family.
“We were in foster care first,” Twos says. “Then Andrea told your mother about us.”
“No, you were definitely sent here by the county,” Kate says. “I’m sure of it. If you want me to go find some documents to prove it, I’d be happy to do so.”
“If you can’t find any,” Antony says with a smirk, “I’ll make some for ya.”
Nate gives him a harsh look, and Antony quickly drops his gaze to the table.
“Regardless,” Nate says, “they were foster kids here for years and basically never left.”
“No matter how much you tried to get rid of me.” Threes raises his glass in a toast.
“We were here long before Nora and Nate were born,” Twos tells me. “I practically had to raise those hellions, and I was only a child myself.”
“You were fourteen,” Nora says, “and you know you loved taking care of me.”
“You, maybe. Nate was a pain in the ass.”
I spend time just watching and listening to their interactions. Kate is obviously the oldest in the family though it is clear they all defer to Nate when it comes to decisions. Though Twos and Threes were obviously related to each other, Nate, Nora, and Antony didn’t look a lot alike. Reid didn’t look like any of them, either, but they were all so clearly a part of the same family.
