“Yeah, it was really fun,” I say instead.
He runs his free hand through the back of his hair, then places his glass on the side table. “We should maybe . . . talk about what that . . . means for us?”
I open my mouth to speak, but at that second Logan comes tearing into the living room and launches himself at me, jumping onto my lap.
“Woah, woah,” I say, trying to find somewhere safe to place my half-drunk tea. It’s no longer hot, but I still don’t need to be paying additional carpet cleaning fees on top of the caravan rental.
As soon as I’ve settled the mug on the table, I welcome Logan into my arms and repeatedly kiss his forehead until my lips go numb.
“Morning, me ’ansum. How’d you sleep?” I say.
“Good,” he replies.
“Any cool dreams?” I ask.
“I had a dream that Nanny’s hair catched on fire.”
“Which nanny?”
“Nanny Shell.”
“Oh, that’s good, then. At least it’s not Nanny Kel.” I turn to Pi because he’s looking at me with an eyebrow raised and a barely suppressed smile. “Nanny Shell is Jody’s mum. Short forMichelle. She’s actually lush. I shouldn’t be celebrating her hair catching on fire.”
“And then Steven catched on fire too, and I found five pound coins on the beach.”
I nod. “Steven is their cat.”
“Can I have pancakes for breakfast?” Logan asks.
“Maybe.” I lift him off me and dump him onto the empty couch cushion between Pi and me. “I need to check if we’ve got enough eggs.”
“Forecast doesn’t look too great,” Pi says, staring at the TV. I can’t see the screen from where I am, but the local weather updates wouldn’t have changed that much in the last thirty minutes.
“What do you want to do today, Spider-Man?” I ask Logan.
“Ooh, can we play the dare game?” he says.
I crack two eggs into a big Pyrex jug, guestimate what a hundred grams of flour might look like, and by-eye three hundred mils of milk. “I don’t think Uncle Aiden wants to play the dare game.”
“Aww.” Logan slumps.
“Yeah, no, we can play the dare game. What do you have to do?” Pi says.
“Bruh, okay . . .” Logan starts. “So you get like four or ten or two or six dares and you have to do them, but if you don’t want to do them, you can do a veto on them. But you only get to do a veto like two or five or one or three times. And if you run out of vetoes, you have to do the dare, and if you don’t, you lose.”
Pi looks at me for the translation.
“Basically,” I say as I click the gas on and light up the front left ring. “You each get a certain amount of dares that you can give to the other person. Say you have six dares, yeah? You’re allowed half that number, so three, in vetoes. You can veto any dare you don’t want to do, but once you’ve used up all your vetoes, that’sit.” I take a deep breath. “Trust me, you will need those vetoes with the nonsense my son thinks up.”
Logan screams with laughter. “Unless you really like poking your finger in Gristle’s bumhole.”
“A lot of them involve bums and farts and poo. Just FYI,” I add.
“Okay, yes. I see how the vetoes might be useful,” Pi says.
I’m making eyes at him as I whisk the batter. “This is your chance to gracefully back out now. No one will think any less of you.”
“I will,” Logan says.
