35. Indie
This moment was about as surreal as they came.
Having not set foot once in the Yao-Miller house since that disaster of a Christmas morning six years ago, walking toward the front door of Theo’s family home felt like a pretty convincing out-of-body experience or hallucination.
Theo carried both our carry-on bags over the opposite shoulder to his hand that was currently holding mine as we walked from our rental car up their front walkway. Giz sniffed along the edge of the grass daintily, not pulling on her leash to actually step on the lawn, though. Maybe she’d forgotten the feel of grass under her paws due to living in the heart of Toronto, where concrete abounded.
Theo gave my hand a quick squeeze. “You good?” I pushed my sunglasses—god, it was good to see the sun again—up on top of my head so that he could see my eyes; our gazes locked on each other.
“Better than I thought I would be, that’s for sure. It helps to have Emery on our team. And definitely less nervous than the last Christmas I was here.” I winked, trying to let him know that there were no hard feelings anymore. The past was the past. We had come so far in the last several months, and this was another step forward into the life we were living now.
He brought our hands up to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “I’m sorry again that I hurt you back then.”
Unable to wave away any guilt that he still might be harboring—what with him holding on to my one hand and Giz’s leash in the other—I settled for bumping my shoulder into his.
“Seriously, goalie. Even if it didn’t feel like it at the time, it was bad timing for both of us.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s much better to be here with you now.”
Theo exhaled deeply, his shoulders relaxing. “Thank you, baby,” he replied, his tone sounding less tense.
We’d reached the front door. Theo put down our bags to pull his house keys from his jeans pocket when the door flew open before he could fish them out.
In front of us stood a man I was 90 percent sure was Theo’s brother Chase. There was always a chance it was Liam; a lone freckle under one helped me tell them apart. Either way, he was dressed as…
“Are you the flipping Elf on the Shelf?” Theo choked out, laughing. “Where in the hell did you get an adult-sized version of that ?”
“Good to see you, bruh. I’d hug you, but you know, can’t get dog fur on the outfit, huh?” Chase brushed imaginary lint off both of his shoulders. “And Abbie hooked me up. Ever since she went to Anime Expo this year, she’s been going on and on about these custom costumes online.”
“Gizmo’s basically hairless, you dipshit.” Theo let go of my hand to drag his brother into a tight hug, wrapping his arms around Chase and squeezing hard if the wheezing sounds coming out of Chase were any indication. “Good to see you, man.” Theo’s voice was rough with emotion.
“Hey, Chase,” I said and waved with my now free hand. I was secretly pleased that I could still tell them apart.
“Well, well, well. Tell me, Indie. What kind of dirt does Theo have on you that he’s conned you into pretending to be his girlfriend?” Chase moved forward out of the threshold, turning his body away from Theo as much as possible, and dropped his voice. “I told you if you needed help burying a body, Liam and I were there for you. No need to involve this guy.” He jerked his thumb at Theo.
From the ground, Gizmo let out her little pre-bark “rrrruff” sound. I bent down and scooped her up in my arms.
Chase, being Chase, bent down to make eye contact with my dog and held out his right hand as if Giz were a human to shake hands with. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Gizmo Layne-Yao-Miller. Auntie Emery tells me I’m your new uncle.” He gave me and Theo a shit-disturber-type grin that let us know he was just warming up with his typical hijinks.
Gizmo batted his fingers away with her paw.
Theo didn’t miss a beat. Instead of giving Chase the reaction he was clearly after, Theo picked up his line of conversation as if he expected that everyone already knew that we were seeing each other rather than the surprise I was feeling.
Hell, with this family, maybe it was to be suspected. They were all too gorgeously innocent-looking that they could crack even the toughest person wide open. It made for a wonderful combination of being exasperated that you’d spilled your secrets while simultaneously being charmed enough to forget to be mad about it.
Big business should bottle this kind of charisma.
Even at twenty-seven, Chase’s innocence game was still as strong as when we were kids. It must have been genetic since they could all bend others to their will. Theo not getting ruffled by his words seemed to put Chase out.
“Fineeeeee. Be that way.” Chase turned around quickly, righting the elf hat on his head that had shifted when he leaned toward Gizmo. He lifted his arm and waved us in.
“Come in. Come in. I don’t know why you insisted on standing on the porch for so long.” As if he wasn’t the one who’d accosted us before we could set foot inside the house.
“Liam!” Chase bellowed as he rounded the corner of the foyer that led deeper into the house.
“Ugh. What’s happening? I just woke up,” a muffled voice answered him from somewhere inside.
“It’s good to see some things don’t change,” Theo said quietly. He had a soft, fond smile on his face. It was though a layer of stress had just fallen off him. He shifted to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Are you ready for this?”
Was I ready to be back in the only place I’d ever felt truly at home? “Absolutely.” I stood on my tiptoes to brush my lips over his.
At the same time, I was afraid of letting myself be too happy, though. My past experiences had conditioned me to not expect anything from anyone. So entering one of my favorite places in the world, after six years away, had me feeling vulnerable in more ways than one.
Once we were inside the threshold, Theo set our bags down by the entryway table. We followed the grumbling sounds of the two overgrown toddlers who masqueraded as adult men coming from the kitchen.
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
Their voices echoed all the way to the front of the house.
“What do you think they’re arguing about?” I kept my voice low. Not that I thought they could hear me as the volume of their brotherly disagreement continued to increase. Sibling fights made me very confused. It seemed like this was fun for them? I just didn’t get it, but the ache inside me at being an only child made me wish that I could.
Theo, totally nonplussed by the heated voices, shrugged and said, “Siblings.” (As if that explained anything to an only child!) “More than that. Twins.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder like this was just how things were.
Like me, Giz was a little put on edge with the argument happening close by. Her ears flattened as much as they could against her head to keep some of the sound out. I stroked her back over her harness, trying to soothe her. She was used to things being pretty quiet when it was just me and Theo in my apartment.
Come to think of it, when was the last time Theo slept in his own apartment? The stray thought was soon lost to a little hitch in my breath as the twins continued to argue.
He took my hand, and we made our way toward the back of the house. The Yao-Miller house wasn’t a monstrosity like my parents’ house, but they still had about six thousand square feet. We hadn’t made it to the kitchen before I heard Emery coming down from upstairs.
“Jesus! What could they be fighting about now?” she grumbled to herself. Emery had obviously been in her studio again as she smeared white paint up her arms when she pushed her sleeves up. “Shit,” she said when she realized what she had done. She held her hands slightly away from her body now that she remembered. The commotion must have interrupted her.
When she reached the bottom step, she looked up from her arms and saw me and Theo. “T! Ind! You guys are here already? I thought you weren’t coming until after lunch?”
Theo wrapped his arms around my waist and gently pulled me into his side. He gave his sister the same affectionate smile that he’d aimed at Chase. “It is after lunch, Em.”
“What? Shit!” She swore again. Emery hated to seem scatterbrained, but I loved that she got so involved in her art that she lost track of time.
She moved forward and raised her arms but then realized for the second time that she was covered in paint. “Rain check on the hugs.”
“It’s so good to see you, Em.” Theo was looking at Emery like she was something precious. She was, and I loved that for her. I knew that Theo had been really trying to be more present for his siblings this past season.
A pang of homesickness hit me suddenly. I felt the same when I was tutoring kids at the community center back in Amado. Knowing that I’d helped a kid who was struggling gain some self-confidence was the best feeling in the world. God, I really missed my kids. I hoped they were doing okay with the other volunteers.
“Let’s find out what all the noise is about.” Theo kept his arm around me while Emery followed us into the kitchen.
She moved past us, careful not to get paint on our coats, and zeroed in on her brothers, who had yet to notice we’d entered the room. Their concentration was taken up by glaring at each other.
“What in the hell is going on now? Can’t I even get one hour to work without my noise-canceling headphones while you two are home?” she admonished, but her smile lessened their effect.
Sibling stuff was sometimes confusing.
“Hey! Cut it out!” Theo’s voice boomed over the bickering before it turned back into its regular deep but calm tone. “Let’s not scare Indie off before dinner, okay? You don’t know how hard it was to get her here. ”
Liam, now aware that there were three more of us in the room, looked over at Theo with keen interest. “Really, T? Tell us how hard it was?” Liam and Chase cackled together.
Theo just raised his middle finger at Liam without saying anything, which only made them laugh more.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re hilarious, Li. I can’t wait until you two idiots hit thirty. Then we’ll see how hard you find it,” Theo drawled.
“Ugh. You guys are disgusting. Stop talking about your dicks.” Emery pushed a piece of hair that kept falling into her eyes back from her forehead. Luckily, most of the paint on her hands was starting to dry, so she didn’t look totally like a skunk now… just mostly.
“Um, Em.” I mimed that something was on my fingers and pointed to my head.
Her perturbed face only had the twins laughing harder. “Do you two stupid-heads even have two brain cells between you? Not everything is funny!” Her voice turned a little more shrill at the end.
“I’m going to clean up.” She turned to me, her expression smoothing from irritated to pleased. “I’m so glad you’re here, Ind. We’ll talk in a bit, yeah?”
I nodded.
Emery paused to give Gizmo a little kiss on the head on the way out of the room and got a lick inside her nostril for her trouble. “Ugh! What was that?” Her nose wrinkled in response to Gizmo’s action.
Now, it was my turn to laugh. “Um, affection?”
She pointed to Theo. “You. See if you can do something with them before Dad gets home.” She jabbed a finger in Chase and Liam’s direction.
Their mutual laugh-a-thon now calmed into quiet snickering every time they looked at a new way Emery had covered herself in paint.
I smiled at her as she went back toward the stairs that led to the second floor.
Theo brought my attention back to the twins. “What were you two fighting about?”
They looked at each other and replied, “I don’t remember,” in sync before bursting out laughing again.
“Well, I guess it wasn’t too serious, then,” he said, dismissing them to turn to me. “Wanna see my room?” He winked salaciously.