Page 210 of Speechless
Liz was waiting to give me another hug. “Welcome to the family,” she whispered. Then, at full volume. “I’m still marrying your dad, though.”
Laughter filled the room. “That’s why we thought it might be weird, but we met before we knew how we were connected, and we didn’t grow up together. It was meant to be.”
This time when I sat down, I tucked myself between Logan and Brooks. The way they immediately made room, keeping me close, had Dad looking at them with a kind of awe.
“Will you have a ceremony?” Liz asked.
I shook my head. “Probably not. I’d rather go on one hell of a honeymoon.”
“We can make that happen,” Aiden said. “Anywhere you want.”
The front door opened to reveal Val and Matt, Paige following close behind. Val’s face soured immediately upon seeing us. She was going to like the news even less.
“Oh. Company.”
Dad bounced off the couch with a big smile. “Turns out Trinity scent matched with the Breaker Pack. They came over to tell us the good news.”
Val’s smile was so brittle it could break. “That’s nice. We’re tired, so we won’t bother you.”
Logan scoffed under his breath. “Nice try.”
I leaned into him and shrugged. “What else is there?”
“The truth.”
“Yeah…”
A hand landed on my thigh. Brooks. They’d asked if I wanted to talk about everything that happened during this visit, and I hadn’t been sure. I still wasn’t sure. We were in such a nice, warm bubble. And yet it wasn’t true, because everything else that needed to come out was under the surface.
Liz asked Dad about something and distracted him.
“I think I can do it,” I said in the quietest whisper. “At least part of it. As long as you’re with me.”
Brooks squeezed my thigh. “We’re with you.”
“Dad,” I cleared my throat. “I have a couple things to talk to you about. I’ll just use the bathroom first.”
“Sure.”
I washed my hands and stepped back out of the bathroom and nearly smacked right into Val, glaring at me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
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TRINITY
Istepped back against the bathroom door to put some distance between us. “What do you want, Val?”
“I don’t know what shit it is that you’re pulling, faking this scent match so you can infiltrate our lives more, but it’s not going to work.”
“Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Very.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved past her into the kitchen. “You can’t fake a scent match. I don’t know if you have the direct line to the universe or something, but take it up with biology. And believe me, I don’t care about you enough to ‘infiltrate your life.’ In fact, I do everything I can to stay out of it.”
“So you justhappenedto scent match with the son of your father’s fiancée? Which means that not only will they be here all the time, butyou’llbe here all the time? I thought I made myself clear when you moved out that you weren’t welcome and to minimize your time here as much as possible.”
