Page 15 of Merry Mayhem
“Actually, I can’t.”
“You sick?” Zeke Landry asks.
“Not sick. I have other plans.”
The table goes quiet, and they all look at one another as if they don’t understand the words I just said.
“Is everything okay?”
This comes from Michael, the one I probably know the best. He grew up as a friend of the family and was a Landry by default even before he married one of Ellie’s granddaughters. You can’t spend more than ten minutes with this family and not feel like one of them.
“Everything is great, actually,” I’m happy to report.
“Well, what are you gonna be doing?” Zeke asks as if he cannot fathom anything better than hanging out with the rest of them.
And I’ll be honest, there are probably only a handful of things that I would put on the list ahead of spending time with this group.
“How about I go do it, see how it goes, then come back and tell you about it?” I say.
Zeke sits back in his chair and slides his arm along the back of his wife’s chair. “It’s a girl,” he announces to the table.
His twin brother, Zander, rolls his eyes. “Well, no shit.”
They all start talking amongst themselves about me spending time with a girl that they don’t know about, which means I can bow out. With the Landrys, even if you are the subject of a conversation, you don’t actually have to participate for the conversation to go on.
Ellie returns from the kitchen with a pie in hand.
“You can take this.”
“One of your pecan pies?” I ask.
“Yes. And by the way, I’m certain they’ll have pie. Bruce is a hell of a baker.”
“Then why am I bringing pie?”
“Because my pie is better. And you are not only encouraged, but arerequiredto tell him that when you hand it to him.” Sheholds it out to me, then pulls it back. “Promise me you’ll say that.”
I chuckle. “You’re gonna get me in trouble with this family from the very first minute, aren’t you?”
She grins and hands the pie over. “You’re going to be fine. You’ve been hanging out with us for two years.”
“So, they’re definitely not crazier than you all?” I ask affectionately.
“Oh, I didn’t say that,” she tells me. “But we’ve been good practice for what’s in store for you.”
CHAPTER 5
THEA
The soundof a horn honking pulls my attention to the right, and I gasp as I see the front of the red pickup only a foot away from my bumper.
I glance in the rearview mirror and realize that I just rolled through the four-way stop.
Damn. My bad.
Did he have the right of way? Likely.
Just because this four-way stop never has four cars stopping at once doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t come to a full and complete stop.
