“Thanks, I’m glad to be home,” I tell her in a voice just above a whisper. I don’t need to hear what Reid thinks about me having conversations with my cat.
“Mrrp,” she says, so I come in, put my stuff down, get my shoes off, and scratch her under the chin. She accepts this as her due, tilting her head back and letting her eyes go closed. Voices drift in from the kitchen, and I ignore them for a moment.
“He treat you right?” I murmur, now down on one knee. “You can tell me if he didn’t, I’ll take care of it.”
She just turns her head slightly and shoves a different part of herself against my hand, so I keep scratching her and glance around the entryway. The place started life as a farmhouse somewhere around a hundred and twenty years ago, and every successive owner has made sure to leave their touch in the form of questionable flooring choices, add-ons with puzzling geometry, one very ugly stained-glass window in the front room, and two gargoyles flanking the front steps. Of a farmhouse. In the country. They’re awful and ugly, but I couldn’t bear to get rid of them.
My entryway is shockingly free of Reid’s shoes, or his hoodies, or his backpack, or any of the things he likes to leave around.
“Did you eat him?” I ask Dolly. “Come on, we talked about this.”
She stands up and rubs her back against my hand, then walks away slowly until I’m scratching the spot above her tail.
“Hesaidhe was feeding you,” I say, and she looks over her shoulder and trills at me just as Reid walks into the doorway.
“Don’t listen to her, I fed that catsomuch,” he says, hands shoved into the pocket of the oversized hoodie he’s got on. “And she still bit me like three times.”
“Dolly,” I admonish. She gives me a look that’s the cat equivalent of a shrug.
“Anyway, welcome home,” Reid says. “I’m glad you made it.”
“Same,” I say, and stand. Dolly vocalizes her irritation, and so does Reid when I hug him. But then he hugs me back even as he saysare you trying to squash me or somethinginto my shoulder.
“Uh, by the way,” he says, pulling back and sort of gesturing with one elbow. “Sadie and Ariel are here. They can tell you why.”
* * *
My sisters giveme a bigger and louder welcome than Reid, who was subdued even as a toddler. Sadie’s obviously been crying but she still jumps up and hugs me, lets Ariel do the same, and then orders Reid to get me some spaghetti and meatballs. They go back and forth a couple of times before she rolls her eyes and saysplease, Reidand he rolls his eyes and saysfine, Sadie, confirming my decision to have a vasectomy for at least the thousandth time.
“How is it?” asks Sadie, sitting across the table from me, practically a blur of nervous energy.
I poke the spaghetti a little more, then break a meatball in half and eat it before answering.
“It’s good,” I say. “You didn’t use mom’s recipe?”
Reid snorts and Sadie makes a face.
“I didn’t,” Ariel says, looking quietly pleased. “I didn’t need to feed a zillion people, for starters. Also, her spaghetti is gross.”
I don’t point out that it’s hard to make good spaghetti for fourteen people on a budget of approximately two dollars. I grew up making that recipe at least once a week. I think I know it by heart. I don’t particularly like it either, but Ariel’s spaghetti is actually good.
I take a sip of water, and then realize there’s not only a water glass in front of me, but a whole place setting.
I sigh again, taking it all in. “What happened?”
The three of them look at each other. Sadie takes a deep breath, then lets it out.
“Beth’s not talking to Sadie, and Matt’s been hassling her boyfriend,” Reid finally says. “And Ariel’s panicking because she thinks Drew saw her kiss her boyfriend on New Year’s and he’s gonna tell everyone that they’realsofucking.”
“Reid!” says Ariel, blushing furiously.
“What? Are you not?”
“That’s not thepoint—”
“It’s definitely the point, are you kidding—”
“Stop!” I say around a mouthful of pasta. Miraculously, they do.
