I knew she was talking about the teddy bear that Brandon bought her just a few days after the hybrid attack. She took it everywhere with her. She told people about how her daddy bought it.
“It’s in the bathroom, sitting on the bench by the sink.”
She beamed as she turned, hurrying back upstairs. The attack had only been a few weeks ago, but so much had changed. Brandon and Ilsa were forming their relationship. He worked hard to be there for her for everything, and Ilsa adored him. It didn’t take long before things started to feel like we had been doing this forever.
Brandon looked at me, and I blushed once more. “You should finish getting ready. We need to leave in a few minutes, and you can’t go half-naked.”
Brandon gave me a cheeky smirk before he turned, heading back up the stairs. I fanned myself for a moment, taking a few deep breaths in. I needed to remind myself that we weren’t sex animals but rather people who had a busy afternoon.
Twenty minutes later, we were driving over to his parents’ house to drop off Ilsa. Brandon had worked hard on forming a better relationship with his parents, mostly with his mother, who always jumped at the chance to spend more time with Ilsa. Now that the truth was out, his mother didn’t seem to hold back on spending time with Ilsa.
We pulled in and found his mother standing by the front door. She smiled as Brandon helped Ilsa out of the car.
“Grandma, look what I brought.” Ilsa waved her teddy bear as she hurried up the steps. I hopped out of the car and walked after them. His mother pulled Ilsa into a tight hug before hugging Brandon. Ilsa hurried inside as I took a step up the stairs.
“It’s lovely to see you again, Jade.” She smiled at me, pulling me into a soft hug. I could feel her warmth and embraced it, finding that she would have been everything I wanted in a mother.
“You as well, Mary.”
“Where is dad?” Brandon asked, looking around.
Mary shrugged. “He had some things he wanted to get done. Won’t be back until later.”
I knew that things were still tense between Brandon and his father. I wasn’t sure if they would ever really have a good relationship, but Brandon seemed to be fine with it.
“We will grab her tomorrow afternoon,” Brandon said, looking through the glass door where Ilsa was already yanking her shoes off.
“Okay, you guys enjoy the day. Have fun at the campfire.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to join? We will have more than enough s’mores to go around,” I offered.
Mary shook her head. “No, I already have the rest of the day planned out. I got some movies for us to watch, and I have some cookie recipes that Ilsa wanted to help bake. We have a packed afternoon of activities to do.”
“Sounds like a fun time.”
“Grandma!!” Ilsa yelled, standing in the doorway. “Come on.”
I smirked, and Mary started to laugh. “Sounds like she’s ready. We will see you guys tomorrow.”
“Thank you again for watching her,” Brandon said, giving his mother a quick kiss on the forehead.
We headed back to our car and drove across town to the campfire. It looked like a majority of people were already here, including the people from the other pack. They had all gotten settled in nicely in town, starting to figure their lives out after having everything ripped away.
“You nervous?” Brandon asked as he pulled into the parking space.
I shrugged. “A little. Mostly because this is the first big event we’ve put together since the newcomers have arrived.” We hadn’t gotten much pushback about opening our homes up to them. I expected that some people wouldn’t be happy about it. It was only a matter of time before people thought they should return home or figure something out.
Brandon reached over, squeezing my hand. “Everything is going to be okay.”
I let his words sink in and nodded. We hopped out and grabbed everything from the back, and started bringing it out. People were setting up tents, and there was a group of guys playing football in the distance.
Nora was sitting on the bench with Kaleb, Asher, and Westley. She waved as we headed for them.
“We have the s’mores,” Brandon said, placing them down onto the table. I realized that they were all writing in paint.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m having them help me write some signs for the games we were going to play.”
