Me:I’m just working.
Lilah:You work too much.
I begin to type when another message comes in. Then another.
Lilah:I think I miss you.
Lilah:Or maybe it’s just Spookers and Senior I miss…
Lilah:I want to come home.
I can’t contain my grin as I type back.
Me:I miss you. I’m sure Spook and Senior do, too. I’m on my way.
Lilah:Drive safe. X
I grab my keys and hurry to my truck. Lilah’swords are still warm in my chest as I make the drive into town, and out the other side where Madelyn lives just on the outskirts. She doesn’t live so far that she can’t walk into town, which, most days she does as she has a whole brood of dogs she walks with her into the clinic.
I dropped Lilah off earlier, so I know where I’m going. But when I round the bend in the road, I don’t expect to see three women under the glow of a porch illuminated by string lights. They’re all flushed, wrapped up in blankets and cardigans to ward off the chill that’s settled into the land with the sun. Dogs line the steps, and there are a few more in the yard. There’s a box on the front step that looks suspiciously like it might be filled with—ah, fuck no.
Lilah stands and I see a little ball of black fuzz tucked into the nook of her arm. I throw the truck into park and by the time my boots connect with the ground, Lilah is there with her new little bundle.
She blinks big brown eyes up at me as she says, “This is Hex.” When I don’t respond, she begins to bounce hopefully on the balls of her bare feet. “Pleeeeeasssssse Briggs. Please.” She brings the kitten to her face, fluttering long lashes at me. “Spookers needs a friend.”
“Did you just say Hex?”
She smiles a blinding smile and I know I’m done. Cooked. “A matching pair. It’s perfection.”
“You’re a nut,” I tell her. She giggles, taking myinability to refuse her a god damned thing as permission to bring yet another animal home.
She spins and calls to the girls, “He said yes!”
The girls hoot.
Lilah spins back to me, smiling that gorgeous smile that busts balls and cracks hearts as easily as a nutcracker cracks nuts.
“I didn’t say yes.”
She wrinkles her nose as she nuzzles the cat. “You basically did.”
“How do you figure that?”
She shrugs. “You didn’t say no.”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, guiding her to the other side of the truck. “I hope I have sons.”
She frowns at me from her seat in my truck. “Why?”
“Because I need a daughter with your eyes like I need a hole in the head.” I slam the truck door and give a wave to the giggling pair that remains on the porch as I round the hood. Then I slide in beside Lilah and the kitten in her lap. I start the ignition and begin the drive home.
I figured Lilah slipped into a tipsy snooze until she lifts the kitten when the lights of the house come into view. She says soft and warm to the ball of fur, “Home sweet home, Hex. Home sweet home.”
One day soon she’s going to say those very same words as I drive her and our baby to this very house the first time.
I can’t wait.
38
