“You guys must be new,” comes a woman’s interruption.
We look over to see the same older couple smiling at us as they pass — this time with more than enough room to get by, so we don’t need to move or even separate.
Lexi doesn’t like the implication, and smiles at them, “My parents still make out. You should give it a revisit!”
The man glances back, his gaze then dropping to consider the possibility, but his wife has hurried her steps and left him behind. Poor guy.
I lower my volume to smirk, “Think you embarrassed her,” and get a kiss in return. One for the record books.
We move on, and she continues to point out which orchids speak to her the most.
I admit, “To me they look like they’re from an alien planet, dropped here by guys with heads like praying mantises.”
Lexi eyeballs me. “What?!”
I shrug.
We pass by an oddly shaped one that proves my point, and Lexi exclaims, “I guess they kinda do!”
“You hungry?”
“So hungry! All I had today was that donut.”
“Want to walk around Piedmont Park, grab something from a cart?”
“Yes!”
“Cool.”
She tugs my hand, “Gage, wait,” stopping just before the exit. “Take one last deep breath.”
I do, even closing my eyes because it smells so good.
We walk back the way we came in, through vine curtains, tree-lined paths filled with frogs we can only hear, and out through the lobby into sunlight flickering from lily pads the size of my head.
Lexi whispers, “Look!”
I follow her chin-point to the pond’s edge, far right, where I see that older couple — his arms around her waist, hers around his neck, kissing like they’re remembering how.
A grin spreads, and I whisper back to Cherry, “Well, I’ll be,” taking her hand as we head left to leave them to it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
LEXI
THREE MONTHS LATER
We show up at The Local where Wyatt, Nathan, Sam, Zoe and Ryder have already staked our claim of its dart board, everyone’s in their casuals, no jackets since it’s a warm Wednesday night. There’s just a smattering of customers which is why we’re here mid-week. Little to no competition for gaming.
Sammy waves high in the air, “Lexi! Gage! We’re over here!”
I lean to whisper as we walk through the nearly empty restaurant area, “As if we couldn’t see them,” and kiss Gage’s cheek.
Gage turns his face and kisses my lips, quickly, before we reach them and he’s officially introduced to the boys in an extremely unofficial way. I kind of wave at him, “This is Gage,” naming each guy off by pointing, “That’s Wyatt, Nathan — they’re brothers. And this is Ryder, he’s the nephew of our cousin’s husband. That’s a mouthful.”
Gage offers a simple, “Hey.”
They return the same.
He nods to Sam and Zoe who smile, “Hi Gage!”
My girls have gotten to know him better since he’s watched movies at our place a bunch, bringing pizza, beer, and acquiescing to our love of romantic dramas and comedies. At first he fought us, but now thinks it’s funny how smooshy-gooshy we get during the good parts. Gage joked that since we freak out so much, it’s more fun to watch us than the movies.
Tonight, as Ryder pours into the last two mugs from an amber-filled pitcher, I’m very aware that Zoe isn’t gazing at him like she normally does ever since he arrived in our lives.
They both seem tense tonight.
Answering the wrong question in my eyes, Sammy says, “We emptied the first pitcher.”
“Ah.”
“Five people.”
“Right.”
Nathan separates darts into groups of two colors, as his brother returns a text on his phone and shouts, “The second of many pitchers to come!”
I grin, having looked forward to this so much. It’s the perfect kind of night — easy-going darts with my family and my casual lover.
Gage jumped at the invite.
You invited Brad.
He never came.
You always wanted this.
A cool guy who liked darts.
To introduce to your family.
Shut up!
Wyatt announces, “It’s a matter of principle, Nate!” tapping away at his screen while apparently resuming an argument they’d began before we arrived.
Nathan volleys back, “You going first isn’t a principle. It’s something older siblings made up to dominate those of us who had no choice about when we were born.”
“I had no choice about when I was born, either!”
“Then don’t lord it over me.”
“I’m going first,” Wyatt mutters, distracted by the text message he’s working on, “Get it through your thick skull. I’m older than you. It’s my right.”
So Nathan throws the first dart.
Wyatt’s head snaps up from his phone, staring at the bullseye. “What the fuck?!”
Nathan wraps a calloused hand around his mug. “Pay attention to the game and you won’t be left behind.”
We clap. For all the reasons.
“And a fucking bullseye, too, no less!” Wyatt shoves his phone into blue jeans pockets, grumbling, “You sonofabitch.”
Zoe cries out, “You can’t say he’s the son of a bitch because that means you and I are also the spawns of one and we aren’t!”
Wyatt side-eyeballs her. “She can be one sometimes.”
Her eyes go wide.
Nathan hits his shoulder.
Wyatt throws it off, in fun, and readies his shot, admitting, “She’s never one. I was only kidding. Nathan, watch this bad boy go. I’m gonna knock your bullseye out.” He throws but gets a pathetic twenty points. “Dammit!”
Ralphie calls over, “That bad, huh, Wyatt?”
“I’ll get him back!”
While the brothers continue playing, I describe our family to Gage. Just a couple sentence-long summaries of each person. Sammy and Zo offer details they think are necessary. He won’t remember most of it since there are a whopping seventeen of us descended from six very different brothers.
Gage chuckles, “You’ve got a bigger family than I realized.”
“We’re even leaving out a bunch of names.”
“How is that possible?”
“Our cousins are having kids now, too, so the increase isn’t addition. It’s multiplication.”
Sammy grins, “Says the accountant,” before gulping her beer.
Ryder pulls over a barstool, offers it to Zoe. She declines, and he leaves it open, standing with us. “You have siblings, Gage? Or are you solo
