Page 102 of Yolo

“You came up with the recipe?” I heard Maven ask.

“Here, baby. I snagged you one,” I heard Auden say.

“Oh my god.” Maven groaned. “They are fan-fucking-tastic.”

“You should put these in your bakery,” Hollis, Quincy’s wife, called out. “They’d sell out every single day.”

“I’d have to pay to use the recipe,” Maven said. “Would you allow that?”

I snorted. “You can just use the recipe. I can’t gatekeep it. I mishmashed a few recipes together to come up with it.”

“Well, how about free cookies for life?”

“Deal!” Garrett called.

I giggled.

“Who’s ready to eat?” the matriarch of the Carter clan called out. “Because I’m starving, and there aren’t any more sausage crinkles!”

I felt a hand catch mine and got up.

“There’s a step,” Lola whispered.

I stepped up into what I assumed was the dining area.

“Whose bright idea was it to put the dining room up on a pedestal?” Garrett asked.

“The contractor who fucked our concrete up,” Quaid grumbled darkly. “They got all the kinks worked out, so everyone else’s house was normal.”

“I kind of like it,” I admitted as I was helped into a seat. “It differentiates one room from the other without me having to guess.”

“That’s true, I guess,” Ellodie agreed. “I guess I never really thought of it that way. Okay, everyone be quiet so I can tell Bindi what’s on the table.”

Everyone quieted down and I listened in shock as everything that was on the table was told to me.

“I don’t think I have a big enough plate,” I admitted.

“She’ll take this, this, and this.” Mom must’ve been pointing.

“Oh, and that one,” Garrett chimed in. “She loves sweet potatoes.”

“She loves rolls,” Atlas said. “I paid her in rolls last week when she helped me watch the kids for a bit.”

I felt my heart get so full it might burst.

I loved this family.

They were all so freakin’ welcoming it was overwhelming.

Tears formed in my eyes, and a soft, tiny hand curled around my hair from behind and said, “Aunt Pepper, do you think you could make me a wig out of Aunt Bindi’s hair?”

“No, Catherine,” Shayne tittered. “Because Aunt Bindi wants her hair.”

“I do,” I admitted. “But I might consider growing it out and then cutting it later.”

“Ohh,” Catherine said. “Please?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “But it might take a while. My hair grows really slow.”

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