CHAPTER 34
Grae
Day 12
Unbelievable. Alana’s secondary address is about ten doors down from Amanda’s. The number of ways our worlds have been in the same orbit is killing me.
I’ve got a pear and arugula salad in one hand, the other reaching for the door, but it swings open. Lukas stands there, two dogs bounding out from behind him. One looks like a tiny husky, ears pointing up, curly, cinnamon roll tail shaking from side to side. He puts his front paws on me and barks.
“Puppy!” But a smaller, fluffier dog comes scampering in, tripping on his own feet. He tumbles and gets back up. He barks in circles around my feet. “Double Puppy!” I’m in heaven for a few minutes while I pet them and rub behind their ears.
Lukas pats his leg. “Kingston, New Dog with No Name, come!” The dogs and I follow him. The layout is similar to Amanda’s, kitchen and living room on the main level. I assume the next two floors are bedrooms and bathrooms.
The living room is filled with familiar faces and some new ones. I recognize all the men who broke into my home, each with a different drink in their hand. Obviously, I know Katya since she’s on the Mastodon payroll. There’s the blue-haired girl who owns a dog-walking company sitting next to that Joey guy who came over to help me write my apology text to Alana.
The cogs in my brain start working, and I remember meeting Izzy back at the hospital before I went to rehab. The only one I don’t recognize is whispering to Lukas and turning bright red. Waverly.
Ok be cool man, be cool.
Alana is leaning over the counter that divides the space picking at a cheese plate. I cross to her and place a kiss on her cheek, and she gives me a half smile back. “So, this is everyone. Various levels of danger. It’s the quiet ones you need to watch out for.” She pours me a glass of water.
Pretty much everyone greets me with smiles and waves. Except Lance, who has his back turned to me, arms crossed and his general scowl. I almost don’t recognize Thiago. He has a mature aura around him he didn’t have when we were kids. I offer a small smile. He returns it with a dip of his chin. Uri looks over at me, blushes, and turns away. Shit, I still need to talk to him. Maybe not tonight, but soon. Right now, it’s all about getting everyone to like me.
Then there’s a stampede of feet racing down the stairs. Two boys at roughly the same age, one with shaggy, dark brown hair and the other with short blonde hair. They have wicked grins on their mouths, and their eyes flash with mischief. Behind them is a girl with strawberry blonde hair. She’s slightly taller than the boys and maybe a year older. I can’t tell with kids. But she zeroed in on me.
“Oh, I get it now.” She flashes a devilish smile. “Uncle Lance, do you hate Alana’s boyfriend because he’s so much more attractive than you?”
“No!” Lance whips his head around to the kid and yells.
The blonde boy goes, “Oh, is it because he has so many awards and you don’t?”
Lance answers with a more annoyed, ‘No.’
The kid with dark hair smirks. “Dad, is it because he has so much more money than you?” Lance snaps another ‘No,’ but a smile crosses his lips. Izzy pats his leg—I guess the term ‘Dad’ is still fresh. “Then why?” His newly acquired son asks.
“Because” Lance huffs, “he made Aunt Alana sad.”
But then Izzy takes her hand off his lap and crosses her arms, her eyes narrowing. “So you’re saying in your perfect world, Alana and Grae never broke up?”
Alana hums into her wine glass and leans on the counter. She whispers to me, “I’d love to see how he gets out of this one.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Lance stammers, and looks around the room for any support. “I just think he shouldn’t have broken up with her.”
Then Katya steps up and starts pacing. “So let me get this straight. In your perfect world, Grae and Alana would have stayed together. So she could grow up and become an influencer or Lena’s manager? Let’s take it from the beginning. I would be working for the CIA and never be assigned to Russia, so both Uri and Ian would be dead. Oh wait, Thiago would also be dead, because I wouldn’t warn Alana about the bomb in his car.” She waves her hand around to point to each person.
“Izzy would still be down South and therefore wouldn’t have a conversation with Waverly about leaving Adam. So, there’s a fifty-fifty shot that he would’ve killed her and you never would have met Izzy. Joey would have shot Jenny when she first came in to walk Kingston. And Majesty would have taken over the world. Cool. You want to trade all that, so that Alana wasn’t sad for a little while?”
He sinks his chin to his chest and sighs. “I guess not.”
“You guess?” Izzy rubs her pregnant belly.
Any guilt I had about breaking up with Alana years ago fades, because clearly it was better for the entire universe that we did. But I don’t get to think about it because there’s a little girl running down the stairs screaming. Her pigtails swing back and forth as she screams, “Don’t you hurt Midge!” She punches her little fists against my side, but she doesn’t do any major damage.
“Why do you think I would hurt Midge?” I ask in a soft tone. “I love Midge. She sleeps on my chest.”
That makes Lance jump up. “What?! I lived with that cat for years and she never slept on me.”
I give a little shrug. “She hopped right on me.”
