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I blink around the room as soon as the blindfold falls away. Ayana’s living room is the same as before—the same beige walls, the same area rug under the coffee table, the same couch that I may or may not have tried to prove to myself that luck is what you make it, the same loveseat and big overstuffed chair, and the same art on the walls. But it all looks very different now that there’s one not-so-big body and a bunch of other bigger bodies taking up the spots.
I knew I’d recognize that cackle anywhere.
Lennox’s granny. Plus, Ransom, Ayana, Maya, who’s on Ayana’s knee, his two brothers, and two cat beds—one in the shape of a burger and the other in the shape of a pickle.
The twins look a little bit guilty, but it’s not the same kind of guilty as when I last saw them, fresh off of kidnapping the wrong person and still feeling guilty for it.
“We wanted to buy the cat a bed,” Atlas says. He’s truthfully quite adorable when he blushes, which is saying a lot because the guy looks like he eats scrap metal with a side of bricks for breakfast. “But we couldn’t pick out which one we wanted.”
Orion rolls his eyes and points to the bed. “The pickle obviously suits her. It goes best with her name, Missy Pickle Poo. I love it.”
“That’s right. But the burger one is absolute awesomeress.”
“Awesomeress isn’t a word.”
“Do you think I give to rat’s behinds about the bounds of language? I’ll make up and use my own words. Don’t people on apps do that all the time?”
“Apps and the internet aren’t cool. People do bad things on there.”
The twins look at each other, sneak a sly look at their granny, and share a private grin. I have no idea what it means, and I’m almost a little bit scared to decode it. Lennox is still at my side, and his hand is still clenched in mine. That has to mean something. It has to because everyone in the room suddenly has eyes—I mean, they always have eyes, but they’re suddenly trained on that connection point like it could send light beams flying. Yes, light beams. Happy light beams. No one looks at it like it might let out stink fumes, so that has to be a good thing.
I lean in a faction of an inch and direct my words to Lennox’s ear. “You blindfolded me to meet your family?” I whisper.
Lennox chuckles again. “I thought it might spark happy memories from the last time we blindfolded you and were all in the same room.”
“Ayana wasn’t in the room. And neither was Ransom or your granny. At least not at first.”
“Dang. I got pie and fries to recreate the whole thing too.”
“Oh, in that case, you bet it sparks all the happy memories.”
Lennox’s fingers clench up in mine. “This time, it’s going to be all happy, I promise. This time, you’re here, and it’s no mistake.”
That swells my heart up to gargantuan proportions. The kind of hugeness that makes my chest feel tight because it can barely contain all the heart and emotion. Lennox wanted me to meet his family. Okay, so maybe his granny showed up with his brothers and wanted a family thing, but they still included me. Even if Lennox didn’t plan this on his own, I have no doubt that because it was him who brought me here and not his granny reaching out, it means he wants this as much as she does.
Maya coos away on Ayana’s knees, and I walk over and extend my arms. Ayana hands her daughter over, sweeping her up in the air, and I take her, bouncing her on my hip. She immediately tries to grab my lips with both her hands, but I pull back and blow air at her empty grasping fingers, which makes her scream and shriek with laughter.
The cat is nowhere to be seen, and at least the twins seem, for the moment, to have settled down. There isn’t going to be a competition to see who picked the better cat bed. Yet. But I have to say they’re both pretty fantastic. The pickle bed is super sleek, which matches the cat perfectly at the moment, but if she ever turns into a super adorable chonky cat, the burger bed is nice and spacious. Or if Ransom and Ayana get a second cat, and it’s an adorable chonky one, they’re already set.
“Are you going to tell us about the pawnshop?” Atlas asks. He and Orion are sitting on the loveseat together, dwarfing the thing. I have no doubt that Ayana chose strong furniture just for those reasons. They probably reinforced the bottom with plywood to keep people from falling through.
That makes me think about the couch and what we did here last time. I don’t want to start blushing fiercely, so I force myself to think about granny panties, but that makes me think about my grandma, who is as sweet as peaches, and it makes me even more guilty. Plus, it also makes me sneak a look at Lennox’s granny, who is wearing a power suit and sitting as regal as a queen in one of those big chairs by herself. I get the smallest inkling of fear.
