Page 19 of The Show

The three of them took the steps in sync, Penn slowly scanning the gathering below until his gaze locked onto mine. He stopped moving for less than a heartbeat, composing himself so quickly I wondered if I imagined it, and before I had a chance to smile, he was already focused on someone else.

How the fuck was I going to keep him out of trouble when he looked like he’d invented the word?

A sharp elbow to my ribs unglued me from the spot I’d been stuck in, and my jaw closed with it.

“Look at Nancy. She looks like she wants to strangle Penn,” hissed Lauren so loudly it made my ear ring.

She wasn’t wrong. Nancy’s face had turned thunderous as she glared at him while he hugged Summer. He’d wedged himself into the group so his back was to Nancy, and it was clear he hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge her presence. The other boys were taking turns to hug Dylan before moving on to several of the other cousins and finally, after they’d said hello to every other person here, they moved over to where Lauren and I were standing.

It was at that point I realized I was still next to Lucian, and the glacial speed at which Penn had moved through the group was nothing short of deliberate.

Murray and Rafe reached us slightly ahead of Penn, hands outstretched for a shake. Murray went in first, meeting Lucian’s firm grip with one that could have cracked a coconut open.

“Happy Birthday, Sir.”

“Thank you! Good of you to drag my grandson along.”

“No dragging needed, Sir,” Rafe said, as he took Murray’s place with another powerful handshake. “Happy Birthday.”

The two of them split, and then Penn was standing between them looking directly at his grandfather with a defiant twinkle. “Happy Birthday, Gramps.”

Lucian stood there giving Penn a slow, scrutinizing once over, then held his arms wide. “Come here.”

Penn’s lip tipped into a wry smile then fell into his embrace, kissing his grandfather’s cheek, before stepping back.

“Right, my boy,” Lucian gripped Penn’s shoulder, “it’s time for us to have a talk.”

Penn’s head dropped with a slow nod. As they started to walk off along the path, Penn looked up at me, his smoky eyes meeting mine with the same weird intensity they always did.

“Lowe.”

The way he said my name - throaty and raw – set off a gentle rolling deep in my belly, making me feel like I was in one of those dreams where you were walking down the street naked. Once more he didn’t give me time to reply; instead, he allowed Lucian to lead him up and along the gravel path, his arm slung round him.

“Nice to see you, too…” Lauren’s sarcastic voice calling after her brother pulled me out of the confusion I was trying to make sense of. She turned to face the boys. “Glad you two managed to get Penn to clean up and take a shower. He smelled like a month-old dumpster earlier.”

Murray chuckled. “You’re welcome.”

“Where are the girls?”

“Your mom wanted to show them something, so they went off with her,” replied Rafe, grabbing some beers from a passing waiter and handing one to Murray. “Oh, there they are.”

“Hey!” Lauren waved enthusiastically trying to catch the girls’ eyes when they appeared out of the growing crowd.

“Are all these people your family?” asked Beulah, with a slightly dropped jaw as they reached us.

Lauren nodded with a grin. “Yeah, but I could easily disown a couple of them. Want some?”

Beulah offered nothing but a sardonic curl of her lip when Rafe pulled her into him, and kissed her head.

I’d only recently met Beulah, but knew she hadn’t had the easiest start in life, and Rafe was her only family. Not long after they officially got together, Kit decided that as the boys had their Tuesdays, we – the girls – should also have a designated night, and had announced that moving forward, it would be a Thursday. So every Thursday we met for cocktails or dinner - the four of us, along with Kit’s best friend, Payton – and it was on one of our nights that Beulah had told us about how she’d met Rafe at college, and what her life had been like before.

If she hadn’t already been under our wing as the new girl, she had definitely placed herself there firmly afterward. Lauren had taken it upon herself to include her as an unofficial sister, and, along with Rafe, we’d all decided we would be her family too, that we’d always be there for her just in case, as Lauren pointed out, her and Rafe didn’t make it on account of them hating each other for so long.

“You both look stunning, as per usual,” Kit commented, greeting us with a kiss.

“You don’t look so bad yourself.”

Kit’s caramel hair was twisted up into thick crown, emphasizing her delicate neck and shoulders, left bare and simple; instead, an enormous pair of diamond earrings, which I knew had been a present from Murray, dropped from each ear. Kit was the epitome of ‘fresh faced’, and because she rarely wore make up, the times she did made you realize how effortlessly beautiful she was – with big light brown eyes and a face covered in freckles.

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