“Are you kidding? I live for this,” my mom replied. “I knew that I had a promise to Alistair and Avery, and a few extra mouths only made it that much better.”
“I cannot wait to rub this in everyone else’s faces,” Brayden said.
“Aw,” I said. “Glad to see you getting back to your roots, Brayden.”
He smiled over at me. “What can I say? There’s a jerk streak in me that I’ve been ignoring for far too long. It’s time for my inner ass to re-emerge.” Then he looked at my mom. “Sorry, inner butt.”
My mom waved her hand at Brayden. “It’s okay. We’re a family that staunchly believes in swearing.”
Avery leaned forward and her eyes started to sparkle. “Wait, really? So that’s where Cherri gets it from.”
“Oh no,” my dad said. “Did we raise a potty mouth?”
“Fuck no,” I said, and everyone at the table started to laugh.
Avery’s smile only widened. “This whole time we’ve been seeing this darker side of Cherri and hearing her swear more often, and I’ve wondered where it came from. I don’t think I’ve ever heard either of you swear.”
“Well, we try to do the right thing around you kids, but Cherri has obviously been around us her whole life, so.” My mom shrugged. “What can you do? Sometimes your kid gets your sailor mouth.”
“I cannot imagine having to get up and actually go home,” Alistair said. “We would have to move and walk and stuff and ugh.” He fell back in his chair. “I don’t wanna.”
“Sorry guys, but I’m pretty anxious to get back to Deon,” I admitted.
“I’m still angry you didn’t bring Deon,” my dad grumbled, something he’d been complaining about since I first arrived to tell them that he was alive and well.
“He had to reconnect with his brother, dad. I think that takes precedence over being interrogated by you literal hours after he was brought home from being on the run for eight months,” I said.
My dad rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“I’ll bring him by soon, I promise,” I said.
“We’ll be just fine,” my mom said. “You kids go. Tell Deon we’re glad he’s okay, and we’re looking forward to seeing him soon.”
“I will. Maybe don’t tell Gus that he missed me,” I said.
“Yeah, because we were looking forward to hearing him whine all night,” my dad grunted.
“Chris,” my mom hissed.
“Oh my god,” Avery yelped. “It’s so cute. You’re just like them, Cherri. I never knew!”
“Welcome to a look into where I get it from,” I said, then I tapped Alistair on top of his head. “Come on, buddy. It’s time to go.”
In dramatic, flubber-like fashion, Alistair rolled to the side so far that it looked like he was going to drop onto the floor, then he stood to his feet. He leaned all the way back, his long blond hair dragging behind him, and dragged himself towards the front door. Avery, Nikita, Brayden and I opted for a much less showy departure, each giving my parents a hug, and saying our goodbyes before heading out into the night. We all piled back into my car and made our way back to Nathan’s house.
Inside, Nathan, Kyle, Sicily, Colette and Jaxon were sitting in the kitchen working on a platter of sandwich ingredients. My heart dropped a little when I realized Deon wasn’t among them.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Nathan held up his hand before I could get it out. “Relax. He’s with his mom.”
I let out a sigh of relief, but I still wanted to make sure. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and quickly dialed Ciara’s number, just to curb my own fears. The phone rang a few times, and then it picked up. “I’m okay, gorgeous.”
Deon’s voice filling my ears immediately made me feel better. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure you made it okay. I won’t bother you again.”
“You are never a bother to me,” Deon replied. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said.
There was a rustle and then a new voice came across the receiver. “Cherri?”
“Hey, Ciara,” I said. “How is it having your baby home?”
“I can’t believe it. You really found him. You brought him back to me,” she said, sounding like she was on the brink of crying. “Thank you so much. Thank all of your friends for me.”
“I will. Enjoy your time together,” I said. “I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
“Okay, sweet girl. I love you loads,” she said.
“I love you too. Bye.”
The call ended and I went and sat around the kitchen island with everyone else. Despite being stuffed from dinner at my parents, I grabbed a couple pieces of cheese from the platter and started to nibble on them. It was pure stress eating. I believed that Deon was just fine at his mom’s house, and I knew Nathan had made certain arrangements to keep Deon out of the eyesight of law enforcement for a while, but after everything we’d been through, I’d always be anxious when Deon wasn’t at my side, at least for a little bit.
“Don’t let me do that shit again,” I said to the group in general. “I don’t want to be that girl.”
“It’s okay for it to make you a little nervous for a while though, Cherri,” Avery said. “He literally went missing for eight months. If that happened to Ali, I wouldn’t want to let him out of my sight.”
“Literally, at one point during our last semester, we initiated a buddy system, and we always had to be with one other person in the group, right after Brayden went missing,” Kyle said. “We even tried our best to always keep you and Sicily in our line of sight at all times. With Connor out there literally snatching people off the street, we’ve pretty much committed ourselves to always staying together.”
That actually made me feel much better. “Thanks.”
“Deon told me that my dad manipulated even Venom,” Nathan said. “I guess Felicity was one of those women like Ciara and Miss Abrams that he was using to his advantage. He was able to exercise control over Venom that way, and he was actually the one who killed and dropped that body in front of you all those years ago.”
My jaw dropped. “I can’t believe that.”
“Fuck!” Brayden snapped. “It seriously feels like the more we find out about Connor, the more we learn that he’s been pulling strings since forever. What in our lives hasn’t been masterminded by him?”
“Not much,” Jaxon said. “I fucking hate that guy.”
“Still, the other thing Deon and I were talking about is how none of us would be here if it weren’t for him. Maybe a few things here and there might have happened, but the reason The Royal Court exists, the reason Cherri made it to Maine, it’s all because of him. I really think we need to start viewing this as a silver-lining,” Nathan said. “For as much bullshit as he put us all through, he also brought us together.”
“We should never, ever, say that around him though,” Cherri said. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to give that dick the satisfaction of thinking he did anything positive in our lives.”