21
Roscoe
Ishove fluffy roasted potatoes into my mouth during family dinner a couple of nights later and groan in delight.
“Compliments to the chef, this is fucking delicious.”
“You’re the chef, dude. You can’t do ‘compliments to chef’ when you’re the one who cooked,” Zeph says, always wanting to stifle my buzz.
“Why the hell not? This is a great fucking meal. And it’s made even more delicious by the beautiful sight I see before me. Zeph Stormrider himself, breaking bread and making kissy faces with a vampire.”
“Fuck off.”
Dante just chuckles softly, shaking his head at my words. It’s the second time he’s accepted an invitation to what I now consider our family dinners. And the vamp has spent most of the evening sitting kind of quietly, observing the absolute chaos around him. Ten people talking all at once and having three different conversations all across each other. People switch up the conversion they’re engaging in midway through a damn sentence and it’s confusing as all hell.
But he’s putting up with it like a champ, letting the noise just roll over him.
I hold my hand up, forgetting I’ve got a fork laden with chicken piled on top so the food goes flying. Oops.
“All I’m saying, it’s a damn miracle to see you getting along. A holiday miracle.”
My own words pull me up short. Sometimes it’s like one part of my brain makes connections it doesn’t inform the rest of me about.
One word stands out like a beacon.
Holiday.
“Howee schitt, ee fborgot da howidays,” I exclaim through a mouthful of food.
“Can you try that again, but be less disgusting?” Zeph asks, stabbing a carrot with more force than necessary.
I swallow and take a big gulp of water. “We forgot the holidays. The Solstice happened weeks ago, and we forgot to celebrate it. Yule time, baby.” I stare around the table, noticing that no one seems to share my dismay. “Weforgotabout it. Too busy saving the world and getting stabbed to remember about presents and pretty lights and eating until you can barely walk.”
Una giggles, and I beam at her.
“Oh, we didn’t forget,” Hanna replies. She’s also got her mouth jam-packed with food, but Z doesn’t tell her off. He just grunts and shakes his head, all prim and proper prissy manners man. Dante and he share a long-suffering look.
This alternative reality we’re in is a damn trippy place.
“He-ey, we don’t need two of you judgey judgersons making comments about our table manners.” I wave a finger at the two of them and Zeph responds by flipping me off.
Rude.
“We don’t really do holidays,” Hanna continues. “Silver always buys a cake or at least some muffins for our birthdays, but we never really had the spare cash to do the whole fancy meals and pretty lights. We’d probably have picked them outof the trash somewhere and they’d have wound up setting the warehouse on fire.”
“Can’t tell you how glad I am you’re out of that deathtrap,” Zeph grumbles.
“Oh.”
