I sighed. “That was the old Laurel. Behold—” I gestured at myself, and took Titus’s hand. “The new and improved me. Now at least fifty percent more appropriate, in the necessary situations, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Autumn said, sighing with the fading gales of laughter. “But really? Only fifty percent?”
I smirked at her. “I can’t be totally appropriate all the time, can I? I have to stay on brand to some degree, after all.”
Dinner wound down, with the vast majority of the food being devoured—largely by the men. Once it was done, Titus got Isabela’s attention.
“So.” He squeezed her hand gently. “Want to see your room, now that it’s all made up?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“All right, let’s go.”
I went with them, and found myself trailing behind Titus and Isabela as they ascended the stairs, watching once again as they held hands and chatted on the way up the stairs.
Isabela’s room was a little girl wonderland—a white loft bed overflowing with pink bedding and pink pillows and a bookshelf under it, a dresser, a desk, and an open-top chest full of toys—beside the chest was a storage shelf of square boxes filled with more toys, which were the things Isabela had brought with her, along with her clothes.
I hadn’t seen this room get done—I’d been overseeing the kitchen. “Wow, where did all these toys come from?”
“Jer and Bex,” Titus answered, his voice quiet as we watched Isabela explore the room. “They’re all things that Kenzie has grown out of or doesn’t play with anymore. We can get her new stuff, obviously, but this gets her going, right?”
I elbowed him. “Why aren’t they here?”
“Who? Jer and Bex?”
I nodded. “They should be here. Next time, invite them. They’re part of the crew now, too.”
He nodded. “They’re the closest thing I’ve had to family, since Tommy.” A tilt of the head. “And I guess since they have so many kids, they’d be a good place to get some advice, huh? When things get challenging.”
“And hopefully Isabela will have fun playing with their kids.”
Isabela looked around. “It’s all for me?”
“Sure is, kiddo,” Titus said, pointing at the shelf. “That’s all your stuff—what you already had. The stuff in the box there was given to you by some friends of mine. They have daughters around your age, one older by a year or so, and another two younger than you. You’ll meet them soon.” He pointed at the dresser and the closet. “All your clothes are there, and the shelf under the bed is all your books from your old room.”
Isabela noted the huge, overstuffed beanbag chair, so big Titus could have sat on it with room to spare. “Can I sit on that?”
Titus laughed. “Course you can. It’s yours, and that’s what it's for.”
She just stood in the center of the room, staring around. Finally, she looked at us. “I like it.”
Titus sat on the beanbag chair, flopping down heavily, and gesturing to her. “Come here, huh?” She sat down on the bean bag, not quite cuddling up to him, but not on the edge either. “I know it’s not…your old room. I know it’s different.” He reached up behind him and grabbed a book at random, glanced at the title. “Fox in Socks. Huh. Looks weird.” He glanced at Isabela. “You like this one?”
She gave a funny little smirk. “Yeah. But you have to try to read it superfast.”
He tilted his head and frowned. “Why, is it a tongue twister book?”
She just snickered. “Yeah. It’s funny.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Well, good thing I happen to be an expert at tongue twisters.”
She blinked at him. “You are?”
He nodded. “Oh, for sure. Whenever I’m ready to go out on stage, I do a bunch of tongue twisters to warm up.”
“You go out on stage?”
He hesitated. “Did, um…do you not know who…I mean, what I do for a living?”
She shook her head. “Mommy didn’t tell me. Just that you were busy all the time traveling.”
“I’m a musician. Um, like, in a rock band.” A clearing of his throat. “Although nowadays I’m sort of a solo act.”
“Are you famous?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Like, how famous?”
A chuckle. “I mean, there’s not, like, a scale of reference. But, I do have my own Wikipedia page.”
“I don’t know what that means.” A puzzled frown. “Are you more famous than Channing Tatum? Mommy says he’s the yummiest man who ever was.” The frown became more puzzled. “But I never got that. How is he yummy? Did she try to eat him?”
“I mean, Channing Tatum is pretty famous. I don’t know about yummy, that’s probably more of a question for Laurel. But I guess I’m sort of…on that level, yeah. Most people know who I am.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, you’re six. Do you listen to a lot of heavy metal?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, duh. I don’t even know what that is.” A pause. “Mommy always listens to the radio songs in the car. And she sings along, but she doesn’t sing very good and it hurts my ears. She says it doesn’t matter because I’m the only one who ever hears, and I can’t make fun of her because I’m her kid.”
My throat closed—everything about her mom was in present tense.
“Your mom…uh.” He cleared his throat. “She sounds like she was pretty special.”
Isabela was quiet. “Yeah.” A deep, serious look up at Titus, then. “She’s really gone? Forever and ever?”
He had to whisper his answer. “Yeah, kiddo. Forever and ever.”
A long, long silence. “Can you read the book, now? And you gotta do it fast.”
He cleared his throat again. “Uh, okay. Here we go. Never read a book to a kid before, so, you know, cut me some slack.” Quieter, then, mumbled, “I also quit school sophomore year, so I don’t read very well to begin with. But, here we go. Fox in Socks.” He cleared his throat one more time. “Uh, okay. Fox, socks, Knox, box.” A pause, and a glance at her. “How’m I doing so far? Pretty good, right?”
She gave a little laugh. “You just started, silly. Keep going.”
I watched as he read the book, picking up the pace as the rhythm increased, and by the time he got to the Tweetle-beetle battle, he was really into it, trying to go faster and faster until he inevitably stumbled over a wrong syllable.
When he finished the book, Isabela was smiling. “So, what’s my grade for my first time? A-plus, right?”
She shrugged. “Maybe a B. You’ll have to practice.”
“Oh boy. I dunno, that was tricky.”
“You said you were good at tongue twisters.”
He snorted. “Yeah, short ones. Like, ‘Sally sells seashells by the seashore,’ and ‘red leather yellow leather,’ and ‘the big black bug bit a big black bear and the big black bear bled black blood.’”
“That one sounds hard.”