Page 55 of Peach Tree Family

This one Theo recognized. It was Wyatt and the boys. The boys ran off to join the other kids and Wyatt came over to greet Theo and the others.

"We were visiting Sam at the café when Lara texted, and the kids wanted to meet the cat," Wyatt said and held up his phone. "I did try texting you then decided to take a chance and swing by."

Theo checked his pockets. "I guess I left my phone inside. Sorry. But you guys are welcome."

"Thanks," Wyatt said while doing some texting. "Now Sam is raking me over the coals for us inviting ourselves over here."

"He's always in trouble with Sam," Lara said, shaking her head.

"What she means is that we're deeply in love," Wyatt said.

"You can invite yourself over," Theo told Wyatt. He was picking up Ace after school. He was owed.

"Should I get us some drinks?" Seth asked.

"I'll help you out," Theo volunteered. As they went in, he couldn't help mentioning Gloria's mom. "That Lara is something."

"Sure. Should we take some snacks out there?"

Theo almost brought her up again, but just took a deep breath instead. Maybe Noreen was more to his liking. Or maybe Theo just needed to stop fixating on Seth and women.

They had guests and not a lot to feed them – half a bag of chips and a small bag of pretzels. As he was sandwiching together crackers and peanut butter at record speed, Seth wasn't worried. "This is fine, and I can cook up something."

"I'll make food if we need to," Theo said.

"You forgetting our deal again?" Seth asked.

Theo grumbled but didn't argue. "I'll start taking this out there."

Before he was out the door, Seth turned to him and smiled. "It's kind of nice how they all dropped in. It's real friendly, isn't it?"

Theo couldn't help smiling back at him. "It's friendly."

"I'm not used to seeing it up close," Seth admitted and Theo realized how lucky he was. After Aunt Cindy kicked him out, he had friends who put him up and helped him out, who dropped in to hang out with each other and knew they would be welcome. It hurt him to think that Seth didn't get to have that.

So far no one had any complaints about the food or the drinks, other than they didn't have beer. Then they had more guests. Wyatt got a text from Rob asking if he could bring Danny over.

"Of course he can," Theo told him.

A little later, Rob arrived with little Danny as well as their tiny dog, Lenny.

Seth was all over that dog, but then all the children ran over and the little dog had to greet all of them too. The kids had brought Butter, but Lara took over holding her.

"I hear her name is Butter," Rob said with a chuckle.

"Ace was talking about getting a dog, but this cat got right in his face," Theo said to Rob as he scratched her behind the ears.

"We know how it is when you go to that animal shelter in Ashbury. You get caught up in a pet warp," Rob said then he leaned down to talk to Danny. "The cat came from the same place where we got Lenny. That makes her like Lenny's sister or something." Rob was joking but Danny took him seriously.

Standing on his toes to have a closer look at Butter, Danny asked her, "Are you Lenny's sister?"

All the kids waited with bated breath except for Ace and DJ, who shook their heads. When all the younger kids decided that Butter's meow meant that she must be Lenny's sister, DJ looked like he didn't know how to tell them that was impossible. Helplessly he looked over at Ace, but he only shrugged. And none of the adults wanted to set them straight either.

"You like going to school here?" Rob asked Ace.

"The other kids told me there's a scary teacher. So I don't know," Ace said.

"That's me," Noreen told him.

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