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ThankGodit doesn’t disqualify him in the present.
I’m still not used to being relieved about that.
Remy laughs. “Well, it’s late, and it’s guaranteed to be even weirder from here on out, so we might as well go sit down. Can I get you anything first? Coffee? Tea?”
“Tea would be amazing.”
“You know what? Let’s just do this.” She takes me by the arm, and we go down another hall to a big kitchen filled with warm light. Remy pushes the button on an electric kettle and opens a cupboard filled with mugs. She takes down a white one that has a drawing of a smiling pebble and saysMy life is in ruins!,then a red one that has Mickey Mouse on it. “Mickey is Jameson’s, but I don’t trust him with hot liquids in an open mug right now, so you can borrow it.”
“Thank you. I’ll be sure to keep it safe.”
“And I think your bird—what’s his name, by the way?”
“Snowball.”
Her eyes light up. “Cute. I think Snowball can go right there on the countertop. There’s room.”
I settle Snowball’s cage onto the countertop. He stirs, ruffling his wings, and settles back down.
Remy opens another cupboard and takes down a box of tea bags, then a sugar container, then a little container of milk from the fridge.
It reminds me of the nineteen-year-old still-white milk in the fridge in that cottage.
Yeah. I’m not thinking about that.
“So,” Remy says as the kettle starts to steam, a light on the front flashing red. “How did you and Jameson meet?”
“We ran into each other.”
After a beat, she glances up at me, her eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”
“He was going for a walk by my house.” To decide how to burn it down, I think, but that’s beside the point. “I was out for a run. I think technically I ran into him. I thought he was going to mug me, but he didn’t.”
Jameson’s sister purses her lips. “That tracks.”
For the time being, at least, I decide not to mention the kidnapping.
Remy puts tea bags in the mugs and pours the hot water over them. “Milk? Sugar?”
“I like it to be basically tan,” I tell her. “So a bunch of both.”
“You and I are going to be friends.” Remy puts milk and sugar in both mugs, then hands the red one off to me. “If you don’t want to brave the whole gauntlet, you don’t have to. It can be a lot.”
“Gauntlet?”
“My brother Gabriel is here with his fiancée, Elise, and their two teenagers.” We go out of the kitchen, cross a hallway, and go into a big—well, I don’t know what it is. A big room with lots of windows, with a dining table on one end and a seating area in the middle. Voices come from an open door on the other side. “They didn’t, like, have kids together. Nate didn’t have a place to stay and Lydia is Elise’s sister. And obviously Mason and Charlotte and Robin. And they’re probably all going to want to talk about what happened at length, so—”
At that moment, the elevator opens in its hallway with a softhiss.
“Oop,” Remy says. “And I guess more people? I should—” She hurries toward the foyer, and I follow her. “Oh, hey!”
I peek around her at the foyer, where extremely tall, handsome Hades is arguing in a low voice with his extremely tall, handsome brother, who is—no joke, and I was rude to make one before—named Zeus. Conor, the dog that almost scared me to death, sits at Hades’s feet, wagging his tail.
Zeus beams at Remy. “Remington!”
“Zeus!” Remy says. “Hades! Conor! What’s up?”
“Absolutely nothing good,” Hades says.
