Lemon sat up straighter, a devious look in her eye. “You know what book you should debate?” Her head bobbed from side to side. “Not technically a book…yet.” She caught my gaze, giving me a millisecond’s warning. “But have you all read theSpy vs Sighseries on Incognito?”
Silas, Holden, and Christy perked up, glancing at each other. It took everything in me not to glare, squirm, or cough, even though there was a hard tickle in my throat.
“We ‘debate' it all the time.” I used quotation marks around the word.
Ford’s face twisted in confusion. “What’s Incognito?”
“An online site where writers anonymously post their stories. Here, I’ll show you.” Lemon pulled out her phone.
Tally’s dark eyes grew surprised. “You guys read that?”
Anna smiled but she was clearly surprised too. “Tally and I read it every week. We talk about it nonstop.”
Blue shifted in his seat. “It’s so good. But like seriously, when are Leggolas1012 and Austentacious119 ever going to get on with it?”
My head snapped back. “You mean Jack and Raven.”
“No.” He pursed his lips, annoyed. “I meant what I said.When are the authors going to get them together? It’s taking way too long.”
Tally shot him a glare. “Jack and Raven are playing it safe. Neither of them wants to be the first to let their guard down.”
Christy’s fingers trilled on the table. “C’mon, Tally. How many times can a couplealmostkiss before it’s laughable?” Her tone was unusually cutting. “The series may have started as a spy romance but it’s tipping perilously close to becoming a comedy. Are we actually supposed to believe they don’t know?”
Tally made a noise that was half-squeal, half-growl, like she was personally affronted. “I fully buy that they don’t know.” It was adorable how she was defending my book.
Normally kind Christy rolled her eyes. “There’s no way you can have that much chemistry and not know.” Heh. She just gave me and Austen an amazing compliment. “Which is exactly why everyone is howling about it online. You can only suspend your disbelief for so long. Enough is enough. People are threatening to stop reading if they don’t hurry up.” She raised her hand. “And if it doesn’t happen next week, I’ll be the line leader.”
Tally’s mouth fell open.
“Nah.” Holden grinned and folded his arms behind his head. “I hope they drag it outforever.” He winked and blew Christy a kiss.
Christy smacked him in the arm. Hard. “This isyourfault.”
His mouth opened in mock offense. “How could it possibly be my fault? I didn’t write it.”
“You know what you did. What youdo.” She swung her narrowed gaze on the rest of us. “Every morning he wakes up andmanifestsit into the universe.” She said the word like it was a pile of steaming dog crap. “Jack and Raven will not gettogether this week,” she did an impressive impression of Holden—super cocky and totally brainless. “Jack and Raven will never realize they each feel the same. They will dance around it until the end of eternity.” She slumped down in her seat and folded her arms, glowering. “He’s evenprayingfor it now. Like actual prayers.” She threw out her arms. “First, he teaches our kids how to flip the bird, then the other night, I caught Maddie, her little hands pressed in a prayer pose. ‘Pwease, dear God,’” she mimicked their daughter’s high-pitched voice. “‘Pwease don’t let Jack and Waven we-uh-wize their wuv for each ov-uh.’ She doesn’t even know who Jack and Raven are.” She poked Holden in the bicep. “If our kids don’t make it to heaven, I blame you.”
Silas was red-faced from laughing. But Lemon’s mouth was hanging open, her eyes quarter-sized. Christy never lost her crap. Ever. The fact that she was losing it overmybook was mind-boggling. But it made me wonder…how many arguments had there been around other dinner tables caused by my characters’ inability to seal the deal?
Holden held his stomach, gasping for air.
Christy bit back a smile but her eyes were still weapons of mass destruction, trying to cut him in half. “You think I’m kidding? Try me tonight.”
He laughed harder. It was contagious. Everyone was laughing. Everyone but me, Christy, and…Tally, who looked ashen. I knew she didn’t like arguments. Not real ones. Surely she could tell Christy and Holden were playing around.
Someone pounded the table and everyone went quiet. It took a second for me to realize I’d been staring at Tally. My gaze darted to Christy to find her glowering at me. “Somebodybetter fix it,” she seethed through gritted teeth. “I am tired. Very, very tired.”
Holden, who looked like he’d lost all his strength, was laid out in his chair, practically sliding off his seat. Hemade an unattractive noise that sounded like a strangled chicken trying to cluck its last breath.
Christy shoved him with a heave, pushing him onto the floor where he lay, laughing even harder. She stood, hands on her hips, towering over Holden. I didn’t know a woman as tiny as she was could tower, but she was. “Get up, you evil man. I’m grabbing the kids.” Then she strode over and opened the sliding door to the backyard with a bounce in her step that said she couldn’t be happier that her husband was laid out on the floor about to pass out from lack of oxygen.
Silas stood, reached down, and offered Holden a hand.
Holden staggered to his feet, cheeks beet red. “Sorry, y’all. We gotta go. It’s our annual visit with Dahlia and Randall.” Savannah’s grandparents. Holden’s high school girlfriend had passed away their junior year but Holden had kept up a relationship with them. Christy supported that because, truly, she radiated goodness. Just not when it came to my book apparently. Holden leaned over me, hands on the back of my chair. “But seriously. Who wants to start manifesting with me?”
“I heard that!” Christy said as she came in with Liam and Maddie in tow. She quickly made terrifying eye contact with each person at the table. “If y’all like getting good birthday and Christmas presents you better not.”
The four of them walked out of the room. Ford’s front door slammed with a bang.
