“Okay, let’s let Uncle Bas get a drink and say hello to everyone else,” Otto called out, making the kids scatter. “Hey, Harp.”
“Hey Otto,” I said as Bas and I walked toward him.
Bas didn’t grab my hand again, but I tried not to read anything into it.
The entire Hawthorne clan was gathered in the kitchen, and they called out their hellos as we made our way into the group. Immediately, I found Nova and made a beeline for her.
“Coming as a couple, huh?” she said quietly. “Bold move.”
“Noel called and invited me,” I replied, leaning against the counter next to her. “I’m not his plus one.”
“Did you bring your own gift?”
“Shut up,” I grumbled, glancing at the gift I’d left on the kitchen table with the others.
“Harpy,” Aunt Heather, Titus’s mom, said, wrapping her arms around my shoulders from behind. “How’s my favorite niece?”
“Oh, you know, just living off my parents and eating ice cream for breakfast,” I replied, leaning into her. “Just what I dreamed of as a child.”
“Your mom loves it,” she said, giving me a squeeze. “How’s the head?”
She walked around me and waited for me to pull my glasses down.
The wound was closed, and a pink line was the only sign it had ever been there beyond some yellowed bruising around my eyes that I’d covered with makeup.
Actually, Gram had covered it. She’d ushered me into her bathroom and hadn’t let me go until she’d done alittle something. I didn’t mind—it wasn’t that I disliked makeup, I just never bothered because I couldn’t wear my glasses while I was doing it, and it was a pain in the ass leaning that close to the mirror.
“All healed,” I announced. “Dad’s truck took the brunt of it.”
“Something to be said about those old trucks,” Uncle Tommy said, eavesdropping. “Like drivin’ a tank.”
“I’m back to driving nothing now,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “After that crap with the car the club loaned me.”
“Well, you’ve got Bas to chauffeur you around,” Aunt Heather said mischievously.
“Yes, he’s at my beck and call,” I replied, grinning.
“That’s kind of fucked up to say,” Myla said, opening the fridge.
“I was joking,” I insisted incredulously. I was pretty sure that was evident in my tone.
“Hey, man,” she said, holding her hands up. “Not my business.”
My stomach sank. I knew they weren’t, like, inviting me to sleepovers or whatever, but I’d thought that they were getting used to me and Bas. I’d seen all of my boy cousins at different times throughout the last week, and none of them had seemed bothered. Suddenly, I felt very conspicuous. My cheeks heated as I glanced around the room.
No one else seemed to be looking at us.
“Myla, stop being an ass,” Aunt Heather scolded. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Myla said with a shrug as she wandered to the other side of the room.
My eyes traveled to Lou, who was helping one of Otto’s kids color at the table. She seemed completely relaxed. Me being there didn’t bother her.
“Ignore her,” Nova ordered quietly as Aunt Heather followed Myla.
“I—yeah,” I replied faintly.
Bas was talking to Mick and Otto all the way on the other side of the kitchen, and it would’ve been weird for me to go over there. I wouldn’t give Myla the satisfaction of thinking that I’d gone over to tattle or something.
