TWELVE
“Jessica, come on. I’ll help you with the babies and we’ll—”
“Mom, leave BabyJon where he is.”
“—get out of— What?” She wasn’t used to a calm tone from me, shrieking and bitching being my go-to emotions for pop-ins. It was the age of social media, for God’s sake. You could call or text or e-mail or poke; there was no excuse for a pop-in these days!
“BabyJon stays here, Mom. But yeah, help Jess with her babies.”
My mom started to reply, but Jessica cut her off. “I’ll say hello to them. I’ve met Michael before. Then we’ll go.”
“But—”
“Dr. Taylor.” Whoa. Jessica almost never called my mom that. Heck, sometimes she pretended to slip and called my mom Mom. “We moved out because of the people we don’t know, like eight dozen reporters hanging out in front of the house doing God knows what. And nobody knows where Laura’s devil-worshipping minions are—they could be on the block right now, planning to get in here and start some shit. So yeah, we moved out.”
“Then why—”
“But I know Michael Wyndham. I’ve met him and his wife and his kids. I’ve been a guest in their home. So I’m going to say hello like a civilized person and welcome them to town and then I’ll take my babies and leave. But I’m not scuttling off like some pathetic loser.”
“Can I scuttle off like some pathetic loser?” Will asked, and whether he meant to or not, that broke the tension.
We heard measured footsteps—Sinclair and I did; the others probably couldn’t hear anything—and knew Tina was calmly going to the door to let them in. Because Jess was right: we didn’t hide. And we didn’t scuttle. And also, Smoothie Nation was waiting for us to settle this and make smoothies. We’ll never let you down, Smoothie Nation.
“I’ll go through the mudroom and calm the puppies down,” Mom said. “But, Betsy, I really think I should take BabyJon.” She paused, then added wistfully, “Though it’d be fun to meet more werewolves.”
Fun? Wasn’t my mom adorable? “Trust me—that baby’s in no danger from werewolves.” Or vamps. Or witches. Or ghouls. Or mermaids.
“I don’t see how—”
Sinclair, who’d already scooped up our dozing boy, turned to my mother. “He is impervious to paranormal harm.”
“What?”
“Nothing paranormal can hurt—”
“No, I heard what you said, I just— What?” She turned to me. “Since when? I spend more time with him than you two; why wouldn’t you tell me this?”
“When the hell would it have come up? ‘Hey, he’s getting another tooth and by the way, a werewolf tried to bite him and BabyJon thought it was hilarious.’”
My mom stared at BabyJon. “Well, that’s pretty interesting. It must be the link to your father.”
“Let’s leave Dad out of this. And everything else. All the time. Forever.”
Disobeying me yet again, she continued. “He’s had three children—”
“That we know of,” Marc piped up. “What?” In response to my aghast look. “Your dad’s kind of a slut.”
“We’re not going to talk about my dad being a slut, either.”
“—and one of those children was the prophesied vampire queen, one was the Antichrist, and now his youngest can’t be harmed by any means paranormal.” Then: “You still should have told me, and we’re not done discussing this.”
“Of course, Dr. Taylor.”
“I’ll leave, though.”
“As you like, madam.”
“And this explains why almost overnight our boy went from being a pain in your ass to ‘our boy.’”
“You should have seen those other werewolves,” Sinclair said, tenderly patting BabyJon’s back and definitely not bragging. “They were terrified. Of an infant! Think when he’s in his prime.”
“Hmph. See to your guests. We’ll talk later. Jessica, I’ll be glad to stay here with the twins while you pay your respects.”
“Thanks.”
“And I’ll stay with you while you stay here with the twins while Jessica pays her respects,” Will piped up. “If . . . y’know. If you want me to.”
“You don’t have to stay,” Marc pointed out.
“No, no . . . I mean, I want to. I’m not the kind to scuttle off, either. Usually. I’ll, uh, hold my ground. Help you hold your ground, I mean.” He didn’t look like he could hold his own urine, but whatever. But he’d come on the run to warn us. A lot of people would have just kept their heads down and waited for the storm to break.
“It’ll be fine,” I assured him. “We know these guys. They’re probably here to bitch about something, and then they’ll do some posturing, and then we’ll decide everyone’s going to keep being friendly, and then they’ll go back to the Cape and do whatever it is they do when they’re not bugging me. Just give us five minutes with them.”
“Well, you sure sound confident.” Will let out a nervous laugh. “Gotta admit, you guys can be a little unnerving.”
“Well, it’s what we do.”
“It was kind of you to warn us, Mr. Mason.” This from Sinclair, who had nudged the kitchen door with his foot and was now holding it open for us to precede him into the parlor.
“Yeah, well.” A shrug. That bashful smile again. “That’s what I do.”
Adorable!