Page 27 of Undeniably Perfect

“Hi,” I manage to say.

“Well, hello there. I’m so glad you could make it,” Mrs. Moore says, wiping her hands on her apron and pulling me into a giant hug.

Lanie holds out a hand to me, and I shake it. She seems more reserved than Di. They definitely aren’t identical twins, but I notice some similarities between them.

“Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” I squeak.

“Mom, is Kyles around here?” Di asks as she steals a grape out of a fruit salad sitting on the island.

“Di!” Mrs. Moore chides. “She just sent a text that she’ll be here in a little bit.”

Di rolls her eyes and grabs my hand again. “Come on, C-Dog should be around here somewhere, and K-pop will show up in like another hour.”

“K-pop?” I ask her.

She grins as we walk through a bunch of people in the family room and head out to the deck. “We’re big on nicknames. You thirsty?”

I nod.

“Wine, beer, or soda?” she asks as she lifts up the lid on a cooler.

“Beer is fine,” I tell her. She hands me a beer and sits down at a giant table, patting the seat next to her. I sit.

“We can be a little…overwhelming. Let me give you the lay of the land. Lanie is the oldest by a whopping three minutes. We call her Mother Hen or Lanie-painy. She’s a lawyer. I’m next. Everyone usually calls me Di or DC because those are my initials. Kent…well, you know him. We call him KJ or Ken doll. Kylie comes next. Kyles or K-pop or Ky-ky because C-Dog couldn’t pronounce her name. And then there’s the oops baby, Clark, but we almost always call him C-Dog. Sometimes Mom and Lanie call him Clarky. And then there’s Mom or Mothership and Dad. Have you met Dad?”

I try to digest everything she’s saying as I slowly shake my head.

She leans in. “We kids call him the Tedinator. His name is Ted. He works for NASA and he’s the brains of this operation. Mom is…the glue. And I guess that’s about it.” She looks around. “Dad was out here. He must have gone inside.”

I follow her gaze inside where I see Kent swinging one of the twins around again.

“Are there always so many people here?” I ask.

Di laughs. “Yep. Mom and Dad bought this place when Lanie and I were babies. They know all the neighbors, so between that and our extended family, there’s always at least fifteen people milling around here at any given time.”

“Bathroom?” I ask.

“Back hallway, first door on the right,” she says, pointing to the hallway where Kent and I came in.

I nod and head inside. Kent is now running around the family room with Maggie over his head and Lizzy following behind.

I turn toward the hallway. Shit. Was it the first door or the second door? I turn back but Mrs. Moore and Lanie are no longer in the kitchen. Both doors are shut. Second, I think she said second. I go to open the door and there are muffled noises. I peek around the door and…oh god. Mr. and Mrs. Moore are…uh…being intimate. Oh god.

“Sorry,” I yelp and shut the door before running right back out to the deck.

“What’s wrong?” Di asks as Lanie takes a seat next to her.

“I…uh…I…” My mouth keeps opening and closing but I can’t seem to form a sentence. I’m so embarrassed that I know my face must look like a fire engine.

Lanie takes one look at me and bursts out laughing.

“You opened the wrong door, didn’t you?”

I look at her, my embarrassment fading into shock. How the hell did she know this?

I nod.

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