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“Hello, hello!” my mum coos, ushering us in with her hands. “It’s freezing out there, come on in! It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
She immediately begins to fuss over them both, but Anisha pulls sharply on my arm to extract me slightly from the excitable group. I blink at her as she narrows her eyes at me. “Are these the dinosaur beach friends?” she demands in a low voice.
I take a breath before smiling at her. “Yes,” I say confidently and firmly.
There’s a beat until her face splits into a devilish grin. “They’recute,baby bro. Are they yours?”
I consider her question as I look over at them being hugged aggressively by our mother.
“I certainly hope they might be,” I murmur.
CHAPTER14
Colby
“Thank you, Mrs. Lau,”I say as Andreas’s mum takes my coat from me.
She blows a raspberry and waves her hand. “Call me Tianna. We’re all family here. When did you boys arrive?”
“This morning,” I answer.
“Do you mean we posted your presents all that way for nothing?” Andreas’s sister grumbles at him.
He laughs sheepishly. “If it helps, I brought them all back with me to open on here Christmas Day.”
“That doesn’t really pay for the postage, now does it?” Anisha counters with a raised eyebrow.
Andreas grins at her. “Would a case of red wine make up for it?”
Anisha throws open her arms. “Merry Christmas!”
Tianna puffs her cheeks out and shakes her head. “You must be shattered,” she says to me and Jalen. “Come on. You come sit down and let me fuss over you. Your timing was spot on. We were just about to have dinner.”
We’re interrupted as Jalen removes his coat as well, and Andreas’s two nieces both gasp. “You look lush,” the younger one says.
“You look like you should be performing on Strictly,” the older one agrees before sticking her hand out. “I’m Esme. Pronouns she/her.”
“I’m Isla!” the younger one adds, jostling her sister for Jalen’s attention and also shoving her hand forward. “My pronouns are she/her, too!”
Andreas was right about their outfits. They both have sparkly tops on over black leggings and glitter around their eyes. Esme has bright red hair extensions woven into her braids, and Isla has a cute bow nestled in her big natural curls.
“Kids these days,” Andreas’s dad says with a chuckle, presumably referring to how they naturally included their pronouns in their introductions. His tone is fond, though, not mocking like my own father’s would have been.
“I think it’s really cool,” Andreas says.
“That’s because I’m a really cool mum,” his sister says with a grin.
“Aren’t you both adorable,” Jalen says, touching one hand to his chest and using the other to shake with the girls. “And so polite. I’m Jalen and you can totally use he/she/they for me. It’s all love. And this is my best friend in the whole wide world, Colby. He uses he/him.”
“Hi,” I say shyly.
“So you’re Australian,” Isla says to me before looking at Jalen. “But you’re American?”
Jalen nods, slipping his arm through mine and following Tianna into the living room. “Yep. We’ve been besties for years online. Then I moved to Sydney this summer.”
Thiswinter,I correct mentally, but I guess for everyone else here it would have been the summer. That’s weird.
As we enter the room, my attention is immediately drawn to an enormous pile of floof lying on a rug by the lit fireplace. The bottom half is gray, and the top is white with a pink bow tied at the end. As we enter, the mop moves to reveal a pair of black eyes, a black nose, and a pink tongue that lols out as the lump begins to pant. A gray tail with a white tip emerges and slowly starts to wag.
