“Sorry we’re late!” a woman added.
“Basilio,” Riley said to Remi.
“Us, too!” Mrs. Constance shouted. “We came through the gate with them.”
Seconds later Renata stepped into the kitchen with Basilio right behind her. “Sorry we’re late. We were putting in some new flowers and lost track of the time.”
“You know my mate and her landscaping,” Basilio said.
Everybody greeted him, and Roman even came back inside the house from where he sat outside enjoying his meal, to hug Basilio and pound him affectionately on the back.
Renata laughed and chatted with everyone and made her way around the room. When she got to Remi, she paused for only a second before she hugged him, too. “Hello, Remi.”
“Hi, Mrs. Renata.”
“Oh! You know who I am,” she said.
“I know who your mate is, so I know who you are.”
“Story of my life. Everybody knows my mate, and that’s how they know me.”
‘You wouldn’t change it if you could,” Basilio said. “And just to be clear, you can’t.”
Everybody laughed.
Remi stood up and extended his hand to Basilio. “Hello, Mr. Lyakhov. I’m a huge fan, thrilled to meet you.”
“Thank you, Remi. I appreciate that, but I put my pants on one leg at a time, just like you do. I just happen to be good at baseball.”
“You’re in the hall of fame. I think you’re a little more than good at baseball,” Remi said.
Basilio laughed as he shook Remi’s hand.
“Where’s Kaiser?” Renata asked.
“He wasn’t feeling well so he went upstairs to lie down,” Riley said.
“Oh, I hope he’s okay,” Renata said.
“He said it’s just a bad headache. You can go up and check on him if you want to. Cristie just took him a plate of food,” Maia said.
“I think I’ll just go check real quick,” Renata said.
“We never stop being a mom do we?” Maia asked.
Renata left the kitchen and started up the stairs to find Kaiser, but voices from downstairs caught her attention. She quietly went back downstairs, but instead of taking a right to go back toward the kitchen, she went to the left through the office that used to be the dining room, toward the extra bedroom on that side of the house. She didn’t walk all the way into the office/dining room that led to the extra bedroom. Instead, she stopped and stood in the shadows, listening to the conversation taking place.
“Because I’m having a hard time,” Cristie snapped.
“No, your pride is hurt,” Kaiser said.
“It is not! He treated me like I didn’t matter, that’s what hurt. I have a right to be hurt and it’s justified.”
The sound of rustling sheets and the soft creak of the springs in a box spring were audible as it appeared that Kaiser shifted in the bed, or maybe even sat up. “Yeah, you do have that right. But at some point, let’s put on your big girl panties and be an adult, huh?”
“Excuse me?!” Cristie demanded.
“You heard me, Cristie. He fucked up. Who among us hasn’t? Who among our parents hasn’t? If you truly want who fate meant you to be with, you take a moment to understand why he fucked up, and you move on, hopefully with him. Otherwise, you let it go and move on. But either way you stop torturing both him and yourself.”
