“Had,” Ash corrects far too cheerfully as he looks adoringly at Ellis. “Had.”
“Had,” Toren agrees, jostling Luna on his knees and wrapping his arms around her narrow waist, so she giggles and wriggles some more.
Kirian nods. “Had,” he echoes like a bad recording. He and Lindy give each other googly fish eyes, which are probably supposed to pass as something lovey-dovey.
“Well, that’s it.” Leandra finally speaks up. She’s wearing a bright yellow dress, which is no doubt her boutique special, and she crosses and uncrosses her legs, careful about the high slit at the side. “I’m going to give up and embrace the curse. I might as well actively try and find my soulmate since I’m the only one left standing. It’s kind of freaking lonely now that you’ve all gone traitor and left me to fend for myself.”
Granny nearly leaps up from her chair in excitement. The flash of her hot pink suit nearly blinds me, as does her wider than a blue whale’s mouthy grin. “That’s the spirit!”
I should be thinking of a way to dig myself out of this, but instead, I’m just thinking about how it might be a very real possibility that I love Elodie more than I thought possible in ways I never thought were possible. I might even love her more than licking cake, bacon, ice cream with brownie pieces in it, or bacon-topped cakes with brownie pieces just waiting to be licked. I want to say it. I want to tell Elodie all that, but my tongue feels thick, and my mouth might have been superglued together as a practical joke by my asshole cousins and brother when I was passed out.
“Elodie is awesome,” Kirian says, and it’s the first thing that has made me not so uncomfortable this entire time. “She’s the best person for you.”
“I think you’re pretty darn lucky,” Ash says, and this time, he’s actually looking at me instead of Ellis. Thank goodness he doesn’t have a moony expression on his face anymore, either. “By all accounts, Elodie should prefer to make out with a llama or kiss Jeffers because both are better looking than you, but to each their own.”
“She’s far, far better than you deserve,” Toren, my douchebag to the extreme twin brother, informs me gleefully.
“I really do think you’d make super cute babies,” Ellis gushes.
“The cutest. And you’re both adorable together. What’s sweeter than best friends falling in love? Gah! You guys have been together for your whole lives, and now you can continue to be together for your whole lives!”
“That’s the thing. How can anyone know that together is forever?” There, I unglued my mouth, and I said it. It’s out there.
But it wasn’t what I wanted to say. Or rather, it didn’t come out the way I meant it. I didn’t mean for there to be so much doubt in it, but I’m overwhelmed. I know Elodie would wait for me, for however long it takes us to discuss how we want to handle this together, minus my family, but I didn’t get the chance. They’re all here, talking about babies and how lucky I am, and I know I’m lucky. I’m super, super lucky, but babies? How did we freaking get to the point of discussing babies already? This pacing is more than I can take, and I don’t know how Elodie is holding up so well under the Cromwell onslaught. If my family hadn’t shown up, we would have talked things out, Elodie and me, and I’m sure everything would have been fine. If my granny weren’t so meddling and meddlesome, we would have been fine.
But now I just said something stupid because I was feeling the pressure.
The room falls silent. And it’s the kind of silence that accompanies dropping one hell of a bomb.
Suddenly, Granny laughs. Because, of course, she does. Because she’s Granny, and even though she’s had like sixty love interests since my grandfather died, she’s still laughing at me for not knowing what forever is.
“What did I just say about growing up? If you’re worried about things ending before they start, how can you get going? You clearly love this woman. We all know it, and we can see it. We’ve seen it for a long time. Curse or no curse—though the curse makes everything that much more fun, does it not?—you both belong together. The curse is a hot pepper that adds a little extra zing to poopers the next day. Except it does that for a relationship.”
“Granny!” I spit her name out like a curse. “Don’t talk about poopers!”
“Yeah, gross.” That sentiment comes from Ash, but it’s echoed by most of the room, except for the women, who aren’t related to Granny and find her to be spicy herself, and utterly hilarious. It must be nice to be able to appreciate Granny that way. It’s easier to listen when she cracks sexy jokes and talks about anatomy and her lovers if one is not related to her.