My tummy flutters.
Nearby, Jake has finished eating his slice of pizza.
“Hey, Dad, time for you to hold your daughter,” I say, pretending like I don’t want to snuggle her all night long.
But I should probably supervise my sister.
He takes the little one into the crook of his arm, and I dart for the stairs. There are three rooms up here, two of them big enough to be bedrooms, the last one more of an office—or a nursery. Right now, it’s completely empty. But because of our breakup, we have two beds, so we’re setting up our bedroom and a spare room.
The biggest bedroom also has a gorgeous big window that overlooks the quiet backyard, and I stop in the doorway, appreciating the lovely calm of it all. My mom must have been up here, too, because the bed is already made.
Jules is going through boxes efficiently, hanging stuff up in the closet. I open the last box and laugh when I see the little plastic bundle of my bedroom toiletries right on top.
I set it on my pillow, since we don’t actually have the bedside tables up here yet, and carry the rest of the box over to where my sister is standing in front of the closet. “This stuff needs to be put on the shelves in here.”
“I’ll get out of your way and start next door,” she says.
“Are you girls up here?” my mom calls out, climbing the stairs again.
“I’m in the bedroom,” I say. “We’re almost done in here.”
“Spare room next, Mama,” Jules says, twirling away from me.
I grin at her. “Isn’t this fun? Don’t you want to move home, too?”
“Some of us are meant to?—”
An ear-shattering scream next door cuts Jules off.
We both race into the spare room justin time to see my mother lob the eggplant dildo in the air. Jules catches it, then realizes what’s in her hands, and wings it at me.
I clutch it to my chest.
“Aurora,” my mother says reproachfully. “Why did you make me touch that thing again?”
Jules snickers under her breath.
“Shut up,” I snap at her. “Mom, I didn’t make you touch anything. That was in theChristmasbox! You didn’t need to open it!”
Jules schools her features into fake sincerity. “Why is your dildo in a box markedChristmas?”
“Don’t use that word,” my mother says.
“Christmas?” Jules and I say at the same time. And then, “Oh,dildo.”
“Girls!”
“Relax, Mom,” I say, because I’ve had six months to reconcile myself to the fact this is simply funny and not mortifyingly embarrassing. For me, anyway. “I’m planning on giving it back to Garrett this Christmas as a joke. We haven’t, uh, used it.”
“I should hope not.” She shakes her head as I grab the Christmas box, tuck the dildo away, and put the whole thing in the closet. “That’s doesn’t look comfortable.”
“You know it’s modelled after?—”
I cut Jules off. “She doesn’t need that reminder, Baby.”
“Nobody needed that reminder, Mini, but here we are!”
“Okay, time for you to go back to your jet-setting ways.”
