Page 87 of Surviving in Everton

“Party at Rowe’s?” Kayden offers.

“Party at Rowe’s!” everyone agrees and I just laugh and shake my head at them all.

“What exactly makes it apartyand not just a normal day at my house?”

“Well, obviously we’ll be inviting people. Duh. I’m sure the parents would love to celebrate with us… even if they didn’t know anything was wrong to begin with,” Ayden rambles.

“Yeah… I’m sure that won’t cause any problems at all. I can see it now. ‘Why didn’t youtellus?! You mean you could havediedand we didn’t even know what was going on?!’ I’m really looking forward to that.” I roll my eyes.

“Well, okay. Maybe we don’t tell the parents what we’re celebrating… at least notnow. We can tell them after one of them watches the kids for the weekend,” he suggests.

“What? Watch the kids?”

“Yes,A Stor. Tonight’s celebration will be a family one. The six of us though? We’ll be celebratin’ all weekend. And no kids are allowed,” Declan decrees.

“You won’t get any arguments from me! Now that the magic is gone and I’m feeling better, I think I could definitely use an adults only weekend. I’ve got some serious gratitude to show my super sexy boyfriends.” I wink.

“Can the weekend startnow?” Ayden whines.

“Nope!” I pop the p and wrap my arms around one of his. “Now, come on. I wanna get home so we can watch this news conference in an hour!”

* * *

I textedQuinn on the way home and she’s waiting for us on the porch when we get there.

“What’s going on? You know you can’t just text me ‘get to my house NOW.’ That was not cool, Rowe. For all I knew something was seriously wrong!”

“Oops?” I cringe. “Guess I should have given you a bit more information, huh?” I give her my brightest smile.

“Ya think?” She glares at me, not having any of my nonsense.

“Well, I’m sorry. We just watched West arrest Britney and I was still a little stupefied.”

“What?! West? Arrest Britney?!”

“Yeah… that’s… pretty much what she said,” Ayden deadpans.

Quinn turns her glare on him. “I’d shut your pie hole if I were you.”

He makes a show of snapping his mouth shut and miming zipping it and throwing away the key.

“You.” She points a stern finger at me. “Get in here and tell meeverything.”

Oh this should be fun. “Y’all go invite everyone to the party while I talk to Quinn. You got thirty minutes before the news conference starts so hurry up.”

Following Quinn into the living room, I take a seat, waiting for the barrage of questions I’m sure she’s going to hit me with.

“Let’s start with the doctor.” She crosses her arms as she sits beside me and we face each other.

“Short of it? I’m as good as new! Well… maybe a little better than new.”

“What do you mean, better than new?” She furrows her brows and tilts her head.

“Ugh… I guess the potion worked a little better than we expected?” I fill Quinn in on the beefed up magic and the stronger empathic abilities. Explaining that Dr. J wants me to come back in a week to see if there’s any more change.

“Wow! That’s amazing! I’m so fucking glad it worked, Rowe! So you can feel them now? You think that’s new? Or did you always feel them and it just wasn’t as strong as it is now?”

“No idea. But now there’s also the added complication of all ofthemfeeling not just me, but possibly each other!”

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