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“She will,” Malc said, his voice low, knowing.
“I think I want to come to church,” I declared, getting a dark chuckle out of Malcolm.
“You’ll have to face her eventually.”
“Or I can get a new name and move across the country,” I grumbled, looking through Rowe’s cabinets to find some heavyweight storage containers.
But the wheels were in motion. And after we got all the soup secured, we were on our way back to my place where I was met with Violet, Gracie, and Luna—Uncle Cyrus and Aunt Reese’s daughter.
“Be honest,” Vi said as we got into my apartment. “How many books do you have stashed in that giant black hole you call a purse?” she asked Luna who managed to look a little bashful at the question because, sure enough, she’d stashed five of them in there somehow. On top of her tablet where I had no doubt she had at least a thousand ebooks and audiobooks stored. Like me, Luna had a mom who was a librarian and hardcore book lover. And while I did absolutely enjoy a good book, Luna was the biggest bibliophile of all of us.
Luna was much like her mom. Soft, sweet, on the shy side. She had dark brown, curly hair and tanned, golden skin with stunning green eyes and very small features from her bone structure to her body, she was petite and delicate-looking. Even if we all knew she’d been raised in the self-defense gym like the rest of us, and was deceptively strong. I mean you had to be to carry around those tomes with her at all times.
“Aside from Hope, is this all of us?” I asked as I got everyone tea and coffee.
“Nope. You got most of us tonight. Willa is picking up dinner. Andi is coming over after work. And I hear Layna rolled into town too.”
Layna was the only child of our Uncle Edison and Aunt Lenny. We never got to see much of her. She’d gone off to college like any other eighteen-year-old, and then had bounced around several major cities, trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
As it turned out, like it seemed to with all of us who went out into the world, her roots had recently called her back home.
Half an hour later, she was at the door. Which Luna hopped up to open. To a less than amused Layna who had her arms crossed and a brow raised.
“Really, Loon?” she asked, shaking her head, making her silky dark hair dance around her shoulders. “There is a stalker on the loose and you just open the door? Would you invite him in for tea too?” she asked, but she had a soft smile on her pretty face.
Layna was willowy like her mom with these big, gorgeous chocolate-brown eyes that were surrounded by long, lush lashes that most people could only have if they got fake ones glued on. She had deceptive looks. Her face was soft and round, very hyper-feminine. But she was every bit as kick-ass and independent as Violet or Hope.
“And you,” she said, rolling her eyes at me as she moved inside, closing and locking the door. “You have a stalker and you don’t hit me up like ‘Hey, bitch, I know you’re out living your badass life, but some dude is making creepy fan-art about me, just thought you should know’.”
“Hey, some of us were even around during this and she didn’t say shit. Don’t feel put out,” Vi said. “When did you get in?” she asked.
“Two nights ago. Wanted to spend some time with my parents before I let everyone else know I was around. But then Malc called. So here I am. Armed and ready to kick someone in the balls if necessary. Speaking of balls. Have we gotten to the trash-talking men portion of the night, or do we need some booze first? If we have to choke down some of Billie’s herbal-infused vodka, I’m down. I’ve got a doozy of a story to tell about this fuckboy back in, if you can believe this, Montana of all places.”
“There are fuckboys in Montana?” Gracie asked.
“My darling girl, there are fuckboys in every corner of the world. Every damn one of them,” Layna declared, dropping down on the arm of Luna’s chair. “But this one, being the only halfway fuckable guy in his whole town thought he was damn near a god.”
“Did you fuck him?” Vi asked.
“Vi, love, I said he was halfway fuckable,” Layna said with a wicked smile. “I would never lower myself to halfway fuckable. But I got to observe his bullshit. And it is a story to tell.”
“What were you doing in Montana?” Luna asked as I went to grab the infused vodka because it sounded fun. I hadn’t had a girls night in far too long.
