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I laughed. “For what?”

“That?” He nodded in the direction Grandpa had wheeled off in.

“Who says he’s lying?”

He let out a snort.

“I told you it was going to be a lot,” he said.

“Jacob, I have twenty-two first cousins in El Salvador,” I said, taking off my shoes and setting them next to everyone else’s. “This is nothing. You should just relax.”

I nodded to the way he came. “You should go do stuff with your dad or something. Skin your dead raccoon. I’ll hang out with your mom in the kitchen.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to leave you alone with them.”

“What’s gonna happen?”

He slipped his hands into his pockets and peered at me wordlessly, and I imagined those wheels turning again, running through every scenario that could possibly end in disaster.

“Okay,” I said. “Then come with me. But chill out. I’m having a good time.”

He clearly didn’t believe me.

I sighed. I was glad I’d made tonight work because if this was too much, the next one with the brother and the ex would have been a disaster.

This place was an introvert’s nightmare for sure. Loud, overcrowded. Lots of social expectations crammed into a tiny window of time coupled with the stress of introducing a new person to his family. The worry that we wouldn’t pull off this charade.

The next time he wouldn’t have that pressure because we will have gotten it out of the way. He’d still have to deal with all the rest of it, but at least the two of us would have worked out the kinks of this arrangement by then.

I nodded to the house. “Come on. Give me a tour.”

I suggested this on purpose to give him a chance to decompress before we joined the group again. I could tell immediately it was the right thing. He let out a breath that sounded relieved and nodded for me to follow him.

The house was enormous. I got the feeling it was the family hub. It was built for entertaining. The basement had a full bar and so did the pool. There was a water slide and a pool house with a nice outdoor BBQ. They had a movie room and a very comfy, very large living room where the twins were playing on a PlayStation. A big dining room with a table that seated twenty and lots of guest rooms.

“Did you ever live here?” I asked as we strolled past the open door of a guest room strewn with the twins’ toys.

“I grew up here.”

“Ohhhh,” I said, turning to smile at him. “Show me your room.”

“It’s not the same as when I was a kid. Dad uses it now,” he said.

“I still want to see it.”

I stopped at a bookshelf off the hallway. There were framed photos tucked in with the books—a picture of Jacob in eighth grade. His hair stuck up every which way and he had braces and an overbite.

Damn. Puberty hit this man like a bus. The glow up was unreal.

“Oh, look at that,” I said, spotting a book I knew. “Love Shows Up. I read this.” I tapped the spine.

“Mom wrote that.”

I froze. “What?”

“She’s a couples counselor and sex therapist. Bestselling author. She has a PhD in clinical sexology. She’s also a board-certified OB-GYN.”

I turned slowly to stare at him in horror. Then I hustled him into the nearest room and closed the door behind us.