I paced down Market Street, telling myself that I shouldn’t be nervous. This was going to be fine. She was going to be there, I would see her, and we would formulate a plan.
But as I passed my favorite bakery, wondering if I should go in and get a Spring Fling piece of cake, my throat tightened.
What if she wasn’t there? What if she decided it was too much.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I looked up into the eyes of my cousin and smiled.
“Lake. What are you doing here?”
Lake was one of my many cousins. Considering my dad had seven siblings alone, and twelve cousins on one side, we were a lot of family.
In fact, there were more babies being born every day it seemed. I was the eldest by far, considering my dad had started a little early, and was the oldest of all the cousins, and Lake was the closest to me in age. Technically she was a second cousin. Or was that first cousin once removed? I was terrible at that math. But she was my uncle Liam’s daughter. And since Liam was technically my dad’s cousin, it made for complications. But we Montgomerys just went with easy namings. Everybody above us in a generation were aunts or uncles or whatever they wanted to be called, and everyone in our generation were siblings or cousins. My aunts and uncles called us nieces, nephews, and niblings. And it all worked out for the best. Every Montgomery had a flair for the dramatic, tended to like art, most of us had brown hair, blue eyes, and a perpetually increasing love of cheese.
Our Montgomery motto and logo might be the Montgomery Iris—one that was tattooed on my body and on most of the adults in the family—but the actual motto had more to do with cheese than anything else.
So while I wasn’t surprised to see a Montgomery on the street, on the next street over there were more than a few Montgomery-owned businesses, I was surprised to see Lake.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as I opened my arms. My teenage cousin wrapped her arms around me, and I kissed the top of her head. She was decently tall, but I was well over six feet. She would always be able to sink against my chest, even when she was an adult.
“I’m visiting Aunt Everly.”
“That doesn’t excuse the fact that you’re walking around on your own without a chaperone.”
“Since when did you join the Regency era?” she asked with the roll of her eyes. “I’m allowed to walk down the scary streets of Denver in broad daylight by myself. Except for the fact that I’m not by myself.” She waved past me as my mother came forward, a grin on her face.
“There’s my baby boy.” Sierra Montgomery hugged me tightly, and I wrapped my arms around her, that feeling of uneasiness settling as soon as my mom held me.
As soon as I had landed from Paris, I’d gone to my parents’ to say hello and tell them everything about my trip. Well, not everything. I hadn’t spoken of Brooke.
I would. I knew it. But I wanted that moment to myself first. Especially to see if this would actually happen.
But she would be there. I didn’t need to worry. And we were formulating that plan. You know The Plan.
“Seriously, I didn’t know you guys would be down here?”
“Well, considering I own the boutique on the other block, of course I’m down here.” Mom patted my cheek as she linked arms with Lake. “However, the team has the store today. I’m on Student Progress Day.”
My eyes widened as I looked at Lake. “You’re already doing that?” Student Progress Day was when a student in an accelerated program had time off during the school day to visit businesses or schools or other programs that had to do with the future they thought they might want to pursue. It was a career path legacy that had started way before I’d even been in high school. I’d ended up going to a couple of museums with my uncles and even got to sit next to my dad like I usually did on weekends, watching him tattoo people, and even getting to help with the stencils. At least I had with a few regulars who wanted to be my test subjects.
Without that program, I know I wouldn’t have been able to find my path here. To the art that I loved, and to being a tattoo artist.
Lake sighed dramatically, her eyes dancing. “I don’t know why you think I’m a little kid. I even drove here.”
In answer, I looked at my mom, who just smiled. “And I didn’t even have to press the emergency brake like I did every time you drove me.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad of a driver,” Lake teased.
My mom laughed good naturedly. “You’re not at all. Leif here was a menace.”
Shocked, I leaned forward. “Excuse me, Dad was the one who taught me how to drive.”
Mom shook her head. “The first few times. I tried once and then your Uncle West decided to step in.”
Not even a little bit ashamed, I stuck my hands in my pockets and grinned. I loved my parents, but I was the eldest baby and that meant we were all learning how to do the whole parenting thing. My parents had stressed me the hell out when I was behind the wheel at first. Uncle West and his amazing spreadsheets had saved the day. “And thank the gods for that. When their kids get old, and have to learn to drive, I’m glad that West will be there for them.”
“Anyway, I’m going to the bookstore to work with Everly on the business side of things. I already worked at the boutique. I’m just happy that we Montgomerys tend to be entrepreneurs. I have so many things to write in my thesis.”
