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Banner caught her around the waist and whispered something in her ear causing her face to flush.
I grinned and caught her plate of food, deftly placing it at the spot where she’d been sitting quietly, enjoying the atmosphere.
“Your parents are almost here?” I asked.
“They’re on their way, yes,” Perry confirmed. “They had to go back home for the presents and all the baby stuff Mom had washed for me.”
“How long will they be hanging here in the area with you?” Viddy asked as she took the seat next to her.
“Mom and Dad rented a place for the winter.” Perry grinned then. “But Dad didn’t quite think about how cold it would get here, so if they make it another month, I’ll be surprised.”
“Our Texas blood can’t handle it,” Ash snickered.
“No,” Perry’s dad agreed as he blew into the door, a look of horror on his face. “And I don’t think I can handle the snow chains. On. Off. On. Off. I might as well just buy a snowmobile and make the drive to Perry and Banner’s on it.”
“This is the first day for snow,” Viddy frowned. “And it doesn’t even snow that much here. Why have you been putting them on and off?”
“The man thinks that every single time he gets a ‘it might snow’ warning, he has to put them on,” Perry’s mom breezed in, a laundry basket of clothes in her hands. “This place is gorgeous.”
“Because we’re from Texas! When it snows there, we panic, okay?”
“You’re more than welcome to cancel your reservation at your place,” Slone offered. “Then you can stay here when we’re gone. And you’re closer to the new grandbaby.”
Christmas dinner went off without a hitch.
Even the black skin of the turkey tasted amazing.
It was seasoned to perfection, and even if we got salmonella, it would be worth it.
Mostly because the people we’d had dinner with.
To have all my children and grandchildren in one room was something I’d been wanting for a while.
They completed me.
“Dad, you sure didn’t eat much.”
I grimaced, making quick eye contact with Viddy, and quickly looking away again when I saw that I’d garnered more attention than I’d intended.
Viddy shook her head minutely, then said, “He’s excited.”
“Or,” Ford narrowed his eyes, “you could tell us what that look was about, and why you lied just now.”
“I didn’t lie,” Viddy lied.
Years after I’d met her, she was still just as shit of a liar now as she was when we’d first started out.
“You just lied again,” Banner pointed out. “We know your tells, Mom.”
They only knew her tells because they had the same ones.
“We do,” Oakley confirmed. “Now tell us what’s going on. That’s a silly thing to lie about.”
It was.
Kind of.
But it wasn’t something I wanted to bring up on such an important day.
