“And seriously, we need to talk about my wedding,” H.R. reminded me, fanning out her left hand so I could admire her diamond. “It’s coming up quick, and there’s still a fuck load to plan for my special day.”
“Our special day, you mean,” Lion reminded her dryly as he tugged her back into him by her belt loop and pressed a kiss to her ear. “Or do I have to remind you of that, again?”
“Okay, gross,” Cressida teased, because Harleigh Rose was always complaining about her brother and father’s PDA. “Can you two get a room or something?”
“Yeah, seriously, H.R., you’re going to scar your little brother and sister,” Loulou teased, trying to hide their eyes.
H.R. stuck out her tongue at them, and we all laughed.
I wanted to have dinner with them. I wanted to spend the entire day with this family made up of ragtag misfits with the biggest hearts I’d ever known. But I still had one foot in another world, and that fact was rearing its head now. “I’m sorry, but Phillipa and I are having dinner with the Linley’s tonight after Sunday school.”
The Garros fell silent.
I shifted from foot to foot, fidgeting with my hands. “I’m sorry, I would way rather have dinner with you guys, but I already told them I would.”
“Seth Linley is nice enough,” Cress offered as an olive branch. “But his wife kinda gives me the creeps. She’s always so intense.”
“Dr. Linley was one of my doctors,” Loulou said softly, trailing a hand over Monster’s head as if to draw comfort from him. “Tell him I said hi.”
I beamed at my sister, loving her for trying to support me even when I made decisions she didn’t understand.
“We’ll do something this week,” H.R. declared, shooting me a wink. “If you aren’t too busy with your Priest.”
Everyone chuckled, even the other brothers who had been pretending not to eavesdrop.
“Where is he?” I asked Zeus softly under the current of laughter.
His concrete eyes softened. “Sometimes we live in a cage of our own makin’, little Bea, and sometimes, even though we got the key, we don’t wanna let ourselves out. You get me?”
I bit my lip, thinking of the haunted look in Priest’s eyes, the panic I’d felt at odd intervals when we’d been having sex. It was a strange sensation to realize the fearless enforcer of The Fallen was afraid of little, insignificant me.
“I’ll work on it,” I told him with a stubborn tilt of my chin.
He chuffed it lightly with his massive fist and grinned at me all crinkly-eyed. “Got that Lafayette magic. I don’t doubt you will.”
Bea
Sunday Mass was a sparse affair that week, which prompted me to look back at the past few months and notice a trend in fewer and fewer folks attending Grandpa’s service. Something in the sacred space was wrong even amongst the few attendees, some edge of energy that buzzed like cheap overhead lighting.
Shaw fidgeted beside me, swinging his short legs in the pew, looking around the church as if searching for the boogeyman.
“You okay, little dude?” I asked him, dipping to look into his mismatched eyes, one brown, the other suffused on one side with green, an exact mirror of his twin brother.
Shaw startled even though I’d spoken softly, then looked sheepish. “’S kinda creepy in here.”
Steele leaned forward to look at me, and I noticed he had his little hand in Tempest’s, squeezing tight even though he was ten years old and probably too old to hold anyone’s hand in public. “Yeah, this place gives me the creeps.”
“Hush,” Amelia Stephens ordered from the other side of Bat, who sat beside Tempest. She eyed Steele holding her hand, and the little boy reluctantly let go and curled his hands into fists on his lap.
Bat shot her a look of disapproval, his mouth mean with censure, but Amelia ignored them. They’d had a blowout in the parking lot when Bat refused to attend Mass with them, and obviously, Amelia had won. She’d made such a raucous, I thought he conceded just to get her to shut up.
Tempest shot me a little look of apology as if she was used to pardoning their discord.
“You sit still through this, and we’ll go to Honey Bear Café for brownies after, okay?” she offered the twins with a little wink.
They instantly straightened and stilled.
Tempest and I shared a smile.
Most of the women in the club didn’t like her because she’d started out as one of the club sluts hanging around just to sleep with one of the brothers, but she’d been the nanny to Bat and Amelia’s children for a couple years now, and whenever I saw her, I thought she was nice.
“‘Love prospers when fault is forgiven,’” Grandpa was preaching in that smooth, worn voice as comforting as an old blanket. “But dwelling on it separates old friends. Let us remember this when we pray for Natalie Ashley’s soul. She was a good woman, no matter her past misdeeds. There is no need to memorialize her sin. Instead, we will remember how she was always eager to help her neighbour and support our youth in her well-taught high school classes. She will be missed by her family, friends, and certainly by this parish.”