“You look so good, Cass!” I said.
She smiled, pushing back from the hug but not letting go. “You think so? I’m heavier than I’ve ever been in my life, but…I feel good, Lex. I’m teaching fitness and dance classes now, you know.”
“Mom told me in her latest epic novel of an email,” I said, looking my sister over. “Honestly, in my personal opinion, you look way healthier and more feminine now. Not that you were masculine before, but…whatever you’re doing suits you.”
She snorted. “What I’m doing is eating actual food and living an actual life. I lift weights and dance and teach, and I go for runs with the other girls sometimes, but I’m not obsessed with my weight anymore. I realized I had been. My whole life, I had to stay under a certain number or I’d lose my spot in the troupe.” She looks around at the room. “I’m so, so much happier.”
I grinned at her. “I think it’s the happiness as much as anything. You’re like, glowing.” I frowned. “It’s not a pregnancy glow, is it?”
Cassie’s eyes widened and she jokingly made the sign of the cross. “Heaven forbid. No. I’m not anywhere near ready to be a mom yet.”
“Well now you did it,” Ink rumbled. “Now we’re gonna get you pregnant.”
“And there goes sex for you, big guy,” she teased.
“What’s sex?” the little girl piped up. “Mommy says I’m too young to know.”
“Crap,” Cassie breathed. “I, um…”
“Your mom is right, little one,” Ink answered. “Auntie Cass should watch what she says around little ears.”
“Mommy says I have the biggest ears in the world,” the girl said. “But I checked and they’re not big at all. So I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you hear things you shouldn’t,” Cass said. “And then repeat them and ask questions adults have trouble answering.”
“Auntie Cass, huh?” I mused.
Cassie laughed. “If you’re part of the clan, you’re an aunt or uncle to the little ones. You don’t have a choice. You’re inducted, and thus expected to spoil, corrupt, and snuggle all the various children.”
I looked around—it seemed very few of the children were with their parents, and seemed to think nothing of climbing up the leg of the nearest adult, regardless of who it was, and that adult would pick the child up without missing a beat and incorporate him or her into the conversation. It was odd, supremely, to see these men with the tiny children, the ones like the triplets and Bax especially, who resembled WWE stars in terms of raw athletic bulk, with the gorgeous, alpha-male sex factor of the kind of men who played superheroes on the big screen. None of them were dads yet, I didn’t think, but they were clearly each growing comfortable with kids, since I saw one of the huge triplets tossing up and catching a little black girl with tight ringlets and bright eyes and a squealing laugh.
I watched. “Who’s that?” I asked.
“The big blond guy with the wanna-be Duck Commander beard? Or the little girl he’s tossing in the air?”
“Uhh, both?”
“The blond with the beard is Ram, Lucas’s son.”
I racked my brain for what Mom had shared in her emails. “Uhh, Ramsey is the outdoors one, right? Him and Lucas own a hiking guide company.”
Cassie grinned. “Correct! We all call him Ram, though, not Ramsey. And the little girl is Nina, Brock and Claire’s daughter.” She pointed at the adults in question: a tall man built somewhere between the monster physique of Bax and the lean whipcord of the twins, with his brown hair swept back and to the side, clean shaven, and so devastatingly handsome he would put every GQ model ever photographed to shame; the woman was tiny, barely over five feet, with blond hair cut straight across at her chin.
I was trying to figure out how to politely ask the obvious question, but Cass answered it for me.
“Claire can’t have kids—not sure why. They adopted Nina a year, year and a half ago. Took them, like, over a year to get through the adoption process, I guess.”
We watched Ram throw the little girl ever higher, much to her delight. Cassie turned back to me. Then eyed Myles. “My sister clearly has no manners or she’d have already introduced us. But, I mean, you’re you and so obviously I know who you are, but still.”
Myles held out his hand. “Myles.”
“Cassie. The other bitchy sister.”
I cackled. “The only bitchy sister. I’m a perfect angel.”
She flipped me off, and then went way too serious way too fast. “Mom gave me the Spark Notes version of what happened, but said I should talk to you myself.”
I huffed. “The Spark Notes version is I had an affair with a married professor, got caught by his wife, who was the dean’s daughter, got kicked out, lost my scholarship, and had an abortion.” I turned to see several faces regarding me with interest, and realized I’d said all that rather…loudly. “Well…shit. Now everyone knows.”
The tiny blonde came over. “I got knocked up at nineteen, had a miscarriage and had to have a D-and-C afterwards. The D-and-C resulted in what’s called Asherman’s syndrome, meaning I’m infertile and will never have a biological baby of my own.” She watched Ram still playing with Nina. “We adopted her seventeen months ago and I’ve never been happier.”
I blinked. “Wow. Um…wow.”
A tall woman with auburn hair that was closer to red than brown was next to her. “I was stood up at the altar and ended up here in Ketchikan by mistake, met my husband Bast, fell in love, and never went back.”
A woman with long thick black hair in a complicated braid entered the circle. “I’m from an obscenely wealthy upper crust East Coast family whom I’ve disowned and will never see again, because I love Baxter—who was an underground prize fighter when I met him, and I’ve actually
