Page 14 of Inked Beasts

I take a seat between Kai and Gage; Mrs. Sanchez sets a final dish on the table and sits down, and I bite my lip to keep from tearing up again.

Mr. Sanchez catches my eye. If he makes a speech I am absolutely going to cry, so I smile and say, “It’s so good to be here.”

He takes my cue gracefully and lifts his glass of water. “To Lexy.”

“Hear, hear,” Thorn says.

I lift my own water. “To family.” We all clink glasses, and then get down to the serious business of eating. There’s some polite conversation about my father’s wedding bringing me back to Vegas, but mostly we concentrate on the food.

Señora Sanchez must have known I was in town and been planning to invite me before Kai’s oh-so-casual comment about family dinner, because she’s had time to make all my old favorites—pozole, enchiladas, carne asada, and so many accompaniments. It’s not just a meal, it’s a feast, the kind that’s normally prepared for large groups on special occasions. Emotion swamps me again that I’m being not only welcomed, but celebrated.

“Even more delicious than I remember,” I announce. And it’s true; I’m not just saying it to be polite.

Mrs. Sanchez beams at me.

“She keeps getting better,” Gage agrees. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Señora Sanchez apparently has no upper limit on her culinary magic.”

“That won’t get you out of helping with the dishes,” she teases him, and we all laugh.

When we were kids, Mr. Sanchez always did the “tell me one thing you learned at school this week” question. Gage was very dutiful about always having an answer ready; he would tell me, at some point during the week, and I would write it down in the little notebook where I’d recorded my own response. I was always the organized one, even then.

Thorn usually had an answer, too. He didn’t love school, but he didn’t mind it.

Kai was the one who struggled.

He hated school; it was too confining for his restless nature. I always thought he would have liked it more if he could have had his classes at the same time as he was dismantling a car engine, or if all the books could have been set to music, or if he’d been able to listen and draw what he heard.

Despite Kai’s distaste for formal education, his father wouldn’t let him get away with sarcasm at dinner (“I learned that Bobby Wilcox cries like a baby if you hit him. No, not me! It was Pedro!”). He had to give a genuine answer. So we kids would have a little huddle, every week before dinner, to help him figure out what his response could be.

It’s those memories, combined with a sudden mischievous impulse, that have me asking, “So, what did everyone learn this week?”

LEXY

Mr. Sanchez smiles, quietly pleased. Thorn grins. “I learned that cinnamon and thyme taste amazing together.”

“Really. Who would have guessed that?”

“They make a great marinade, along with a few other ingredients. I’ll make it for dinner some night.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I smile at him, knowing that I’ll be here at least a little while to share meals and other moments. The certainty wraps around me like a soft, warm blanket.

Gage says, “I learned that I prefer bamboo sheets to linen or cotton.”

Thinking about Gage in a bed, regardless of the type of sheets, makes my face go warm. I curse my tendency to blush and say brightly, “Okay then! Would you like to share with the class your research into the different fabrics?”

Thorn snickers. Kai is too quiet for comfort.

Gage smiles, shrugs, and says, “They’re all good fabrics, but I find that bamboo gives me the best combination of comfort, softness, and durability.”

This makes me think about activities that are hard on sheets, which has me blushing again. Dammit! I turn to Kai, willing him to play along. “Anything?”

He eyes me, and I know he wants to say something about what he and I learned together this afternoon in my hotel room. But he’s not going to say that in front of his parents, or they and I will all kill him.

Finally, he says, “I learned that people can surprise you, even when you think you know them.”

I don’t ask for details. “Okay, that concludes our quiz for tonight. Thanks for playing along, everyone.”

“Wait a minute,” Thorn says. “You didn’t go.”

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