Chapter 21 #2
The front door opened from behind her, and Micah called, “Whit and Jeremiah are going to join us.”
Trap groaned. “Momma, really?”
“It’s fine,” she said in a near whisper, and she got to her feet as not only Micah came into the back of the house, but someone who looked very much like him and a dark-haired woman with bright red lipstick.
Lila Mae had met them too—Whitney and Jeremiah Walker—and she knew they were JJ’s parents, and that Jeremiah had largely run Seven Suns as Trap had grown up. His Uncle Skyler also had a property here on the ranch—right across the street, in fact.
Lila Mae painted on her best smile, and she turned her hand over to squeeze Trap’s, hoping to let him know that extra people at lunch really was fine. In fact, more people meant less pressure on her to do any talking.
“Howdy, Walkers,” Jeremiah said, and Lila Mae definitely got a glimpse inside Trap’s childhood, because Simone, Trap, and Laurel all chorused back, “Howdy, Walkers,” and every single one of them laughed or smiled.
Lila Mae sat there completely out of her element, yet feeling a warmth, an acceptance, she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before. She had a distinct feeling this was what it felt like to be a family and have real relationships with the people in said family.
She wanted this feeling in her life all the time, and she simply looked around at everyone in the room, a keen sense of missing out on a childhood like Trap’s while also basking in the warmth of the Walker family.
It was an odd juxtaposition of emotions, but Lila Mae let them flow through her, so she could riddle through them later. While Trap had told her plenty about his family, it was different experiencing it in person than being told a second-hand story through his perspective.
“You guys were playing games without me?” Micah asked, and Laurel quickly swiped the Taco-Cat deck off the table.
“We can play again.”
“Oh, my word,” Trap said, but he didn’t get up from the table as his aunt and uncle and father joined them, and they started another round of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, this time with all seven of them trying not to be the last to slap the pile.
As they played, Lila Mae had never laughed so hard. And yes, she’d hit the table too hard, and her chest too hard too on the special cards, as one was a gorilla, and she was supposed to beat her chest like a gorilla when that card was played.
Trap laughed with his aunt and uncle and his parents, and he called out his sister when, according to him, she tried to stab him with her fingernails.
Micah won the round, and then Simone and Whitney got up to go work on dinner. Lila Mae pushed away from the table too and joined them. “Can I help?”
“Sure,” Whitney said, and she pushed a stack of what looked like flat baskets across the table. “You can go set these outside on the picnic table and turn on the fans and misters. There’s a huge bank of light switches at the bottom of the steps.”
“I’ll help too,” Trap said, and he picked up the stack of paper plates while Lila Mae collected the baskets.
Outside, he said, “My Momma and Daddy got married right here.”
“Did they?” she asked, taking in the backyard. It was beautiful, but small—nowhere near a facility Lila Mae imagined would hold all the Walkers.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a pretty funny story, actually.”
“How did they meet?” she asked.
“Over where my Uncle Liam lives—remember where the beehives are?”
“Yeah,” she said, as they had wandered along the ranch where the beehives existed a couple of weeks ago.
“That actually used to be a different ranch,” he said. “My momma’s family owned it. It was called Shining Star. But Aunt Evelyn married Uncle Rhett first. They were next-door neighbors, and then her older sister married my uncle Liam, and then my momma married Daddy.”
“So the three sisters owned the neighboring ranch, and they married three brothers who’d moved in next door.”
Trap grinned as he set down a paper plate inside each of the baskets. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right, and now it’s all just Seven Sons.”
Lila Mae paused at the end of the oval-shaped table and watched Trap lay out the plates. He was just so good, and she really enjoyed learning more about him and being in his presence.
“But Momma and Daddy had known each other for a while. Apparently, they tried dating once, and it didn’t go very well, so Momma broke up with him and didn’t want to go out with him again.”
“So what happened?” she asked.
“They’re pretty cagey about all of it,” he said, glancing over to her. “But I got my grams to tell me this story once, and basically what happened is they both auditioned for the same play, and they accidentally got married during the audition.”
Lila Mae froze, and the smile fell from her face. “What?”
Trap chuckled. “Yeah, and I guess they decided to give marriage a try.”
“Give marriage a try?”
“Do not recommend, by the way,” Simone said,
Lila Mae’s gaze shot over to where his momma now glided down the steps to the patio. She handed Trap a stack of cups, giving it to him with a healthy side-eye. “I didn’t know you’d asked Grams about that.”
“Well, I had to ask someone,” he said. “You guys act like it’s a national secret.”
“Oh, we do not.”
“Anyway,” he said. “Later, after they were really in love, they got remarried here in the backyard.”
“We all did,” Simone said. “Because Micah’s parents hadn’t been around for any of the weddings, so we had a big ceremony here. I was pregnant with Trap at the time.”
He nodded. “It’s part of the scandal.”
“It’s not a scandal,” his mother said. “Your Daddy and I were married.”
“Sure you were,” he said.
She swatted at him with a bundle of silverware that had been pre-packaged together with a napkin. Trap smiled at her, dodged, and chuckled as he arrived at Lila Mae’s side. “No, they were, and I’m told they were mad for each other by the time I was born.”
“That’s a great story,” Lila Mae said, looking from him to his mother to try to judge her reaction. “And you and Micah are obviously in love.”
Simone smiled at her, something soft in her expression. “Yes, but we definitely didn’t have a traditional start.”
The sliding glass door opened again, and Whitney came outside with a big blue bowl in one hand and a stack of napkins in another. Lila Mae went to help her, but she’d started a parade of people all bringing out various lunch items.
She went around the table, laying out the napkins beside the baskets she’d already put at several places while the noise intensified around her.
Micah and Jeremiah were obviously close, as were Whitney and Simone, and Lila Mae loved watching and listening to them talk to one another, interact with Trap and Laurel, and she was once again reminded of how very different Trap’s family was from hers.
One, her mother would never willingly eat outside, off paper plates and with plastic utensils.
Two, family meals were a formal affair, and while none of them had changed out of their church clothes, the men had removed their ties, and Simone currently walked in bare feet as she said, “I’ll grab the buns, and we’ll pray. ”
“Lila Mae.”
She looked over to Trap, realizing she’d gone inside her own head for a few minutes there.
“Come sit down, sweetheart.” He pulled out the chair beside Laurel, and Lila Mae moved to sit down. He sandwiched her between them, and she realized he’d put her in the safest place possible.
His mother returned with a bag of buns, and she tossed them into the middle of the table, where the rest of the food had been put. “All right, Micah.” She sat down beside her husband. “Let’s pray and eat—oh, and Trap has rules about him and Lila Mae.”
“Rules, huh?”
“No questions,” Simone said, her dark eyes glittering in a teasing way that Lila Mae had seen several times on Trap’s face.
“No embarrassing questions,” Trap said. “Can we just be normal?”
His uncle laughed, and that didn’t bode well for Lila Mae.
She didn’t care, and she slipped her hand into Trap’s using the table as cover.
She met his eye, and while he looked like he might start committing crimes, Lila Mae smiled, because she was here with him and there was nowhere else she’d rather be.
At least until Micah looked at her with a devilish glint in his midnight eyes. “So, Lila Mae, you live in a tiny house, right? What’s going to happen if you and Trap end up married? Is that place big enough for both of you?”
That was technically three questions, and a squeak came out of Lila Mae’s mouth as Trap growled, “Can we just pray and talk about the sermon like we always do?”
But now all Lila Mae could think about was sharing her tiny house with Trap, the width of his shoulders, and all those muscles.