Gigi swings the door open and then I’m in her arms, trying to hold the sobs back as I clutch her thin frame against mine with my face buried in her cherry red hair. I’m not ready to let go when she pulls away and grasps my arms. Her eyes, that perfectly match mine, are scanning me from head to toe like she’s reassuring herself I’m still in one piece.
“Alright, Peach, alright. We’re going to be okay. I need you to help me pack the rest of this stuff up.”
I frown and shake my head. “Pack? Pack what? Gigi, the moon…”
She cuts me off. “Yes, the moon is broken. I saw it. That’s why we need to get my stuff packed and get to your place.”
I shake my head. I don’t think she understands. I clutch her arms hard and give them a small shake.
“Gigi! The moon is going to crash into us and we are all going to die!”
She drags me over to the balcony door and pulls me out onto it.
“Look! It’s not coming any closer. We might die, sweet girl, but it won’t be today. Now help me get packed up.”
She leaves me there and I force myself to study the moon for the first time since I ran out of the restaurant to come here. Itlooks so freaking huge and so… broken, just hanging there. But Gigi’s right, it hasn’t gotten any closer or bigger that I can tell. I mean, I think? She calls my name from inside so I break my gaze from it and go back in. I find her in her bedroom with suitcases open on her bed and four more waiting on the floor.
She doesn’t look up as she throws clothes into one of them and tells me, “Start filling suitcases with food from the fridge and pantry.”
My mouth opens to ask a hundred different questions but she stops the flood by snapping, “Now, Luna!” So, I close my mouth, nod, and drag two of the empty cases out and get to work. My hands grab everything in the cupboards while my mind works overtime to try and process what this could mean. The moon, what could have done that? What will it being closer to earth mean? Weather! The moon could affect the weather and… and the tides… and gravity? Damn it! I’m either not smart enough or just brain-dead right now because I can’t think!
When both suitcases are packed to bursting, I grab some of Gigi’s canvas grocery bags and start emptying the fridge and freezer as well and stack everything by her front door. When I’m done, I rush back to her bedroom. She has two suitcases filled and ready to go with clothes and two still on the bed open that are heaped with…
“Holy crap, Gigi! How many cartons of cigarettes do you have in there?”
She scoffs as she comes from the bathroom ensuite with her arms full of bottles.
“Not nearly enough, I’d guess!”
I roll my eyes because that has got to be enough smokes to last for at least six months or more. My eyes bounce over to the other suitcase and I stare at the contents in disbelief. I swear there’s the entire contents of a Sephora in it.
“Do you really think you’ll need that many beauty products?”
She cocks a hip and stares down her nose at me with a raised cherry eyebrow.
“Do you really think I paid tens of thousands of dollars to look this damn good andNOW,at the end of the world, I’m going to let myself slide? Really, darling, do you not know me atall?”
I shrug one shoulder and nod because, yeah, that tracks for her. Gigi, aka Elenor Cowen, New York Times bestselling romance author, is never without her ‘face’ as she calls her makeup. My grandmother may be in her sixties but she could easily pass for mid-forties. They say smoking ages a person but I swear those damn cigarettes of hers act like a preserving agent. It’s either that or she made a deal with the devil at some point.
Nah, the Devil would have run screaming from Gigi if she had ever met him. The woman is a force to be reckoned with. I stand there studying my last remaining blood relative. Her perfect cherry-tinted, shoulder-length bobbed hair swings as she sorts and packs and a calming wave rushes through me. I think it will be okay. If anyone can survive the moon falling on us, it would be Gigi.
“I’m almost done. Why don’t you take the first bags down to the car?”
I step closer to her and wrap my arms around her and rest my head on top of hers for a moment.
“I love you, Gigi,”
“I love you too, sweet girl. Now go on and get those bags down to the car. We can have Gage with his delicious muscles carry them all into the house when we get there.”
A hot ball of worry lodges in my throat at the reminder.
“He’s not here. I took him to the airport earlier. He got called back to work.”
Her face pales hearing that, and for the first time since I got here, I might see a touch of fear in her eyes. It’s gone so fast though I can't be sure.
“Well, that’s fine, then. I’m sure with what’s happening, all your boys will be heading home as fast as possible. We’ll just have to manage things on our own until they get back.”
I blink back the tears that are threatening to form, nod, and then rush out of the room to start dragging bags to the elevator. She’s right, they’ll all be heading home now. They have to be, because I don’t know how I’ll make it without them.
