Alice sighs. “I would love to believe that, but I know her a little too well.”
“Mush-ooms!” Ava yells.
“Eat,” Vanessa says to me. “Long day ahead of you.”
“Don’t say anything funny, okay? I don’t want to have to Heimlich myself.”
“I know the Heimlich,” another man says. “Beck, you know you have a shipping crate full of mushrooms on your driveway?”
I register Tripp Wilson strolling into the dining room at the same time the deck door slides open.
Davis steps inside, looks around, and his eyes soften when they meet mine.
Like he’s sayingyou didn’t leave.
Like he’s glad I’m here.
Like he wants to try what we did last night again, even if I don’t really care how fast he came.
I kinda owed that one to him.
Also, I would’ve left him a note, but I made a fatal mistake with that plan when I stopped to talk to Giselle first.
“Hi, uggy,” Ava says to Davis.
“Hey, bottomless pit,” he replies to her as Beck sighs.
Sarah pokes her head out of the kitchen again. “Did my daughter just call you ugly?”
“Yeah, but she’s right. I make an ugly panda.”
Sarah winces like that makes sense.
“She wishes I was in her favorite cartoon show,” Davis tells me.
“Mush-ooms?” Ava says in my lap.
Michelle Ryder rises and holds out a hand to her. “Here, sweetheart, Grandma will take you to find the mushrooms. And clean them. If we have to. Which we probably will, because Vanessa might not have cavorted with your daddy and his friends when they were younger, but she still has the same sense of humor that fits in with this crowd.”
“Gamma, what cavabornded?”
“Cavorted is what you’re going to do one day with all of your cousins, and you’re going to have the time of your life, and hopefully give your daddy a heart attack or two that he very much deserves.”
Ava stares at her for a minute. “Mush-ooms.”
“Exactly, sweetie. Let’s go find the mushrooms.”
While Ava dashes off with Beck’s mom, Davis’s gaze swings to his sister, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s someoh shitcreeping into his expression.
And are his cheeks turning pink?
What the hell is that about?
She folds her arms. “So you know I know.”
“Know what?” Alice asks.
“Who told?” he asks.
