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Wick met me in the hall just outside my room as soon as I exited with my arms full. “You know, you don’t have to sleep out on the floor with everyone else if you don’t want to.”
“Are you crazy?” I shoved half of my load into his arms to carry. “I’m an only child. This is like a dream come true for me.”
“Alright then. I guess I can understand that,” he murmured as we walked down the hall side by side. “Even being an introvert, I like being in a big family. I mean, don’t tell them this, but if I could choose, I’d probably keep all my sisters just the way they are.”
I bumped my shoulder into his and grinned up at him. “Aww, look at you. You’re just a big softie, aren’t you?”
He scowled. “Though ninety percent of the time, they’re a royal pain in the ass,” he announced as we entered the living room only for a pillow to smack him flush in the face.
“Oh, that’s it,” he said stonily, dropping all my bedding until he held only one pillow. “One of you is getting suffocated tonight.”
And with that, he pounced, smacking Darcy first and then Izzy. Charlie tried to sneak up behind him, but he spun and pummeled her with my pillow too. I grinned, hugging my bedding to my chest, and watched them play.
Oh yeah, I decided, I’d definitely take a couple of siblings over none at all if given the choice.
Darcy finally noticed me, hovering, and smirked. “What? You think you’re getting out of this, chickie. This is for stealing my shotgun on the way home.” And she smacked me right in the gut. Then she laughed gleefully before tipping her head toward the others and inviting me to join.
Charlie went after me next, claiming it was for stealing her spot next to Wick in the spook houses. And Izzy hit me in the back. When I spun toward her, she shrugged and said she just didn’t want to be left out.
I’m not sure how, but I ended up with my spine pressed against Wick’s as we battled his sisters together.
By the time we all collapsed on the floor, panting and exhausted, I think every inch of my body had been pillow-smacked. I laughed, enjoying it all, feeling young and free and content.
“Okay, now I’m starving,” Izzy announced.
“No doubt. I’m craving those no-bake cookies Haven made earlier,” Charlie chorused. “And hey, where’s that alcohol you promised us, Wickham?”
“I could make more no-bakes,” I offered as Wick told them where the hard liquor was stored.
“To the kitchen then,” Darcy declared.
So the party moved down the hall, where Wick dutifully doled out his promised one cup of rum mixed with soda to the two minors. Darcy made her own alcoholic beverage, and I began the cookies.
“So, Izzy says your mom’s in a wheelchair,” Charlie announced, leaning against the counter next to me as I stirred the ingredients on the stove. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Charlie!” Izzy, Wick, and Darcy scolded together.
I just smiled. After spending the evening with Charlie, I knew she didn’t have a mean streak in her body. She hadn’t meant anything rude by the question. Besides, if I got offended by everyone who ever asked me that very thing, I might not ever get a chance to actually be happy again, so I answered with my typical, “Nothing’s wrong with her. She just has cerebral palsy.”
They all listened as I explained what that entailed. Then
Izzy said, “I didn’t know people with cerebral palsy could have kids.”
“There’s no medical reason why they can’t,” I answered. “She’s had some issues with strokes and seizures, so she did have a couple of problems carrying me because of that. But not because of the CP. Actually, I was my mom and dad’s fourth try for a baby. After three miscarriages, I was kind of like their miracle child. Which is overwhelming sometimes. I swear, they would’ve wrapped me up in bubble wrap and put me on a shelf if they could. I had to become stubborn and bullheaded to ever get to do anything on my own.”
“Wow, so you were probably spoiled rotten growing up, though,” Charlie guessed enviously as she sipped from her cup. “Got whatever you wanted?”
I rolled my eyes, but then had to grin and admit, “Pretty much, yeah. I got a lot.” I pointed my stirring spoon at her. “Except for cats. I always wanted a baby kitten, like desperately craved one, but Mom was allergic. So, no cats.”
“Damn,” Darcy laughed lightly from the table, where she was pouring more alcohol into her cup. “I can’t even remember how many cats, and dogs, and freaking hamsters we had over the years.”
Izzy giggled. “Remember those two supposedly boy hamsters Wick had that we named Ben and Jerry before they had babies together?”
Wick chuckled from his chair where he was tipped back on the two rear legs and resting his own drink on his chest. At some point after we’d gotten home, he’d changed from contacts to his glasses, and he looked incredibly yummy in them.
“Dad tried to take them back and return them,” he recalled. “But the pet store refused. So I took the babies to school and gave them away to all my friends. Oh man, I was grounded so long for that, because Mom got a call from just about every mother there was, complaining about the hamsters their kids brought home.”
I watched him a second longer, relaxed and kicked back like he was. It was a side of Wick that was open and free, and it charmed me just as much as the intense, moody closed-off Wick I was used to seeing. He was such a multifaceted man. The strange thing was, though, I liked all his personalities, so far.
