Page 114 of Chasing Home
“Oh, God. Not the DS. You didn’t go anywhere without that thing. What was the game you played all the time? Indiana Jones?” Daisy asks.
“LEGO Indiana Jones,” I answer.
Jos taps her fork to her plate, grinning wide. “Shit, you were obsessed with that game and the movie.”
“He dressed up as him for like six Halloweens in a row,” Daisy adds.
Aurora picks up the last grape on her plate before Daisy can get to it and lifts it in front of her smirk. “I was the same way with Lara Croft and Tomb Raider.”
Fuck. Of course she was the female equivalent of Indiana Jones. And she still doesn’t believe in fate? Not a goddamn chance.
“Maybe you two should dress up in matching costumes for Halloween. There’s always a big party for it at Peakside to celebrate our birthday,” Daisy says.
Rory turns to me, surprised. “Your birthday is on Halloween?”
“Yeah, darlin’.”
“I hate sharing a birthday with a day like Halloween, but it could be worse. We could have been born on Christmas,” Daisy says, scrunching her nose.
“I should have asked you this before, but when’s your birthday?” I ask Rory, scooting my chair as close to hers as I can. When our knees touch, I stop moving.
“May.”
“Jos’s birthday is in May,” Daisy butts in.
I’m grateful that Rory and I have finished eating already because I’m desperate to get her away from my family. I love them to death, but they can be a lot.
“I think I heard that Darren and his daughter just got here,” I announce, standing and beginning to collect our empty plates. “It would be rude not to welcome them.”
Daisy looks around the yard. “You did? I didn’t hear anything.”
“Oh, well, we’ll go check it out anyway.”
Staring up at me with a knowing glint in her eyes, Rory lets me pile her plate atop mine. She gets to her feet and walks with me to the garbage bin I hauled in from the street for my moms this morning.
“You could have made up a better excuse than that,” she says, holding open the lid for me to dump our plastic plates inside.
“I wanted to be alone with you so badly I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“You’re a cheeseball.”
“Yet you love me anyway,” I tease.
She rolls her eyes and drops the lid. “Yeah, I do.”
“I’m sorry for my family. They were just excited to meet you and have another woman to talk to, as if five weren’t already enough.”
“I like them. It’s nice to be surrounded by so much family.”
“Yeah?” I can’t help but grin, tucking my finger into one of her belt loops. “Can you imagine yourself here often? Not with this many people around, of course. But with my parents and sisters?”
She keeps her eyes on mine, her gaze open and honest as she says, “Yes.”
My lips part on words that never come when she lifts her hand and, in one steady movement, steals the hat from my head before dropping it on hers.
It’s too fucking big for her, drooping low in the front to shade her eyes but not low enough to hide her beaming grin. I focus on that smile while flicking the hat back and gripping her nape, tipping her head back.
“You make a claim like this in public, and there’s no coming back from it, darlin’.”