Page 108 of Tulips and Lost Time

“Your family is toxic and weird,” Kane grumbles. “What the hell is wrong with you, Blondie?”

“Oh, shut up!” She smacks his arm. “You’re literally begging him for the sordid details. I was asking, but that was only because I thought she was banging someone not related to me. But you—you!—are completely aware, and yet, continue to ask for every description. Don’t talk to me about weird.”

Weeks after my first night with Kari, I sit on Marc’s back porch and drink a beer with everyone else. Marcus. Scotch. Ang. The twins, Britt, and of course, Kari.

The grill has been fired up, and the laughter rolls.

Marcus, after all, is happiest when he has his little sister safe and within his sights.

“Apple?” Jess tosses one into Kari’s lap, uncaring that it smacks her friend’s stomach first, bouncing off and almost tumbling to the ground if not for Kari’s fast hands. “That’s a reasonably sized apple, right? Kinda thick. But if we’re just talking, like… length size…”

Kari flattens her lips, unimpressed as she sets the fruit on the table in the middle of our group. “No, thank you.”

“A banana, then?” Laine joins in, grinning as she places the long, yellow fruit on the table next. “It’s on the smaller side, I guess. And not crazy thick. So it’s just, like…” she shrugs, earning a curious tilt of Ang’s head. “A snack.”

“I don’t want a banana either.” Kari smiles, angelic and yet, intolerant. “Not hungry.”

“Is an eggplant a fruit?”

“They are, actually.” Marcus, that dumb motherfucker, tips his beer back and takes a sip. “They’re often considered a vegetable,” he rumbles, clueless to the fact that he’s participating in a game of, ‘how big was Kari’s secret dick?’ “But they technically grow from a flowering plant and contain seeds, which makes them a fruit.”

Britt beams, glancing back toward the house at the fruit bowl overflowing on Marcus’ counter. “Would you like an eggplant, Kari?”

“No.” Furiously playing with the label on her beer, she picks at the paper instead of looking up. Instead of looking at me. “No eggplants for me, please. I’m saving my appetite for dinner.”

“Oh come on!” Jess scowls. “Giant carrots, then? Not those pesky little snack kinds. But the big fat, farmers had a good year, kind?”

“What the fuck is with the food discussion?” Marcus peers across to me. Like I can somehow be his backup. “Did they have a stroke?”

“One of us did,” Britt snickers, losing her cool and bouncing off her chair before she ruins all their fun. Her eyes glitter with unreleased laughter as she trudges into the house. “There’s a whole watermelon in here! It’s like, the size of a basketball. Surely that’s too much for any one person to consume.”

“I’m gonna cook the steaks.” Shaking his head, Scotch stands and follows his sister into the house. “They’re being weird, and I don’t recall inviting them here with us anyway.”

“I invited them,” Marcus declares. “I don’t see my sister enough these days.”

“Could be because of the farmer’s fruit markets she keeps going to,” Britt cackles, throwing her head back and holding on to the kitchen counter for support. “She’s busy working and fruitin’.”

Kari looks at me, her face stony and hard. “She’s strange.”

“Yep.” I bring my beer up and sip. “She sure fuckin’ is.”

34

LUC

CLUB NIGHTS

“We’re going to Club 188 tonight.” Kari wanders into her room, grinning when she closes the door and I’m laid out on her bed. A single sheet affords me modesty, while my clothes lie on the floor, rumpled into a ball. She carries a coffee mug in one hand, and a metric smile on her face. “This band is playing; you might’ve heard of them?”

I steal the coffee from her hand the moment she’s within reach, then I set it on the bedside table and hook my arm around her hips instead. Her yelp of surprise rings out, echoing from wall to wall. But we’re here all alone. Which means I could walk through the apartment naked as the day I was born, and that would be okay.

I mean… I wouldn’t. Because fuck knows the pain I’d be in if someone dropped by unexpectedly. But still. The opportunity is there. Sort of.

“I heard the drummer is the sexiest of them all.”

She snickers, rolling to her back and holding on so I practically rest on top of her. Her long hair fans out, covering her pillow and tickling my arm. “Considering that band is made up of my foster brother, actual brother, dude I grew up with, and you…” She purses her lips, though her eyes dance. “Yeah. I’d say, aesthetically, of course, you’re my favorite.”

“Aesthetically.” I lean in and nip at her bottom lip. “What are you wearing to the club?”

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