Page 146 of Just This Once

I preened, grinning up at Parker. “I reallyhavebeaten you every round we’ve ever played together, haven’t I?”

“That was years ago,” he muttered under his breath.

Over by the house, Lawson was still gawking. “The Langston who bought you your lucky graduation socks that you wear every freaking time we play Nintendo Switch?”

Swinging my gaze to Lawson, I blinked at him before whipping right back to Parker. “I thought youlostthose socks.”

“Shh,” he hissed, bumping his arm into mine as he looked at the kid.

“I had no idea Langston was agirl,” Lawson exclaimed.

“Well…” Parker skimmed his gaze over me, and by the way his mouth tightened, I thought he was going to burst out laughing all over again. “Clearly, she is.”

I narrowed my eyes at him in warning, which only seemed to entertain him more, and I turned back to the family.

“Hi,” I greeted them uneasily. “It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you. Sorry about the…yeah. Sorry for flashing everyone.”

Sharon lifted her eyebrows in censure, obviously not forgiving me for ruining her grandson. Her husband smiled way too widely and waved at me, and when I made eye contact with Lawson, he blushed and whirled away to run back inside.

I cleared my throat, and my smile turned tense. “Yeah, I’m going to go too.”

When I turned toward the pool house, however, Parker was standing right there, snickering.

“You are so dead,” I warned him in a low tone as I darted around him to hustle barefoot back to safety.

“Me?” he demanded, keeping pace with me. “What did I do?”

“You—you—how could you let me just?—”

“Letyou?” He blurted out a laugh as he followed me inside the pool house and shut the door behind him. “I was dead asleep when you decided to add a new item to your list. I didn’t let you do shit.”

“Well, why the hell didn’t you warn me that you didn’t live alone?”

“Wow. I’m so sorry,” he gushed insincerely as he set a hand against his chest. “Was I supposed to mention it between the vomiting or your passing out cold in my truck?”

“Oh my God,” I growled, still utterly humiliated by the entire situation and needing to lash out. “You are such a?—”

But I couldn’t think up anything bad enough that I really wanted to call him.

He lifted a single eyebrow, still looking way too amused. “I’m a what?”

“I don’t know!” I snapped, throwing up one arm in frustration. “I just—who are those people, anyway? And why did you hide me away in the damn pool house?”

“Well, the pool house is where Ilive,” he told me, beginning there. “Because there’s only one of me, and there are three of them.”

“So you just…have the helplivewith you?”

He made a face, then shrugged. “Yeah. I met Lawson at the grief center. He lost both his parents in a car accident about a year and a half ago, so we kind of bonded. And when I found out how much his grandparents were struggling to find work?—”

“You brought them here,” I finished for him softly, my lips parting as everything started to make sense.

“Yeah,” he muttered a bit self-consciously as he winced and scratched at the back of his head.

He’d brought them here, and then he’d moved from his own home to give them a place to live.

“You tried to buy yourself a new family,” I realized.

He blinked up in surprise, then sent me a short frown and muttered, “Shut up,” before he glanced away and ran a hand over his face. Jerking his arm down a moment later, he sent me another scowl. “I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing when I did it, okay? And now it’s—well, it’s not like I can kick them out just because I’ve finally discovered how stupid I was being.”

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