Page 90 of Stay Toxic

She held out her hand to me, and I took it, shaking it lightly before letting it go.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said simply.

“You, too.” She smiled, her eyes that she shared with her sister pivoting to take in Brecken. “He’s cute.”

“I know,” she sighed dreamily.

I, for fucking real, had a blush hit my cheeks.

Jesus, what the hell was that?

“Y’all disgust me,” Tibbs said as he came into the room. Then, almost as if the words had been dragged out of the pit of his soul, he asked, “Do you need help or anything?”

“No.” McCoy grinned, taking pity on him. “JJ and I are already done. All you need to do is find yourself a drink and sit down. We’ll be finished with everything in a few minutes.”

I looked over at Brecken. “Why did you allow me to eat breakfast knowing we were coming to this?”

She shrugged. “I guess maybe I didn’t give it much thought. But I have faith in you.”

That made one of us.

I wasn’t nearly as hungry as I probably should be for a feast of this magnitude.

I kept looking around at the food, and a wave of grief assaulted me.

This.

I’d missed this.

My sister, Maven, had this.

But the rest of us? We’d really never had this, and what small amount we’d had had been from a grieving mother that could barely be in the room with all of us as she thought about her lost child missing out on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

After Maven had been taken, everything had just been…subpar. It was like Mom and Dad put on a show but never really went all the way with it.

“You okay?”

She would notice.

“We’ve never really had anything like this,” I admitted. “My brother and sisters would’ve adored this.”

“Invite them. Right now,” she urged.

I was already shaking my head. “No, I can’t…”

She pulled my phone out of my pocket, used my face to unlock it, then started typing in a message.

I read over her shoulder as she went to the group chat thread that had all of my siblings in it, including Maven’s husband, Auden.

“If you invite them all, y’all are going to have six extra mouths to feed, at minimum,” I pointed out.

She continued to text.

“And my niece, Lola, eats like a linebacker,” I continued.

“You have a niece?” she asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah, and a nephew,” I confirmed. “But Brando is still breastfeeding and doesn’t like anything but boobs.”

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