’Fess up. Why did you really move?

The door had barely clicked closed before I grabbed my phone and started texting away, the sleepiness I’d felt only a half hour before completely gone. What did they know about Roxanne that I didn’t? And, more importantly, what did it have to do with them and the future I was beginning to forge with them?

It’s eleven p.m. Why you are bugging me?

The response came quite a few minutes after I sent it, which could be legitimate since she is pregnant and spends far more time in the restroom than normal, but the way she talked around my question told me she knew something I needed to know, which was not her, not at all. My stomach started to sour.

Nice try, it’s eleven here, not where you live. You’re deflecting. Now ’fess up.

Two seconds later, my phone began to ring with my video chat ringtone. What the heck?

“Hello. Who’s calling?” I stuck my tongue out at her, trying to lighten the mood because of the heavy feeling in my core.”

“Har har.” She mimicked my gesture. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad. “What’s bringing this up?” He sweet girl was sound asleep on her lap, or at least what was left of her lap now that baby number two was so close to arriving.

“The guys wanted to know if I knew.” I shrugged in an effort to appear far more nonchalant than I felt.

“The guys or your guys.”

Wasn’t that the ten-thousand-dollar question. I felt more comfortable with both of them than I ever had with any other guys this new in our relationship. Shit—ever really. They had a way of making me feel as if I belonged with them even though to the outside world that notion was ridiculous. Most importantly, it felt like there was something missing when they were gone, as if I was less complete with them across the country. Yeah, they were mine.

“I think the second.” More like I knew it, but they needed to be the first to know. They had been nothing but upfront with me about their feelings, and I owed it to them to return the favor.

“Good on you.” She sounded like Barry, and it was all I could do not to tease her about when they would be that couple who even started to dress alike when they went out to play bocce ball. “Okay. To answer your question, the hubster had family obligations.”

“Thanks for the non-informative answer. Those are always swell.”

“I wasn’t done. Pipe down.” Her daughter stretched in her arms, and Roxanne settled her on the couch beside her, allowing her phone to capture the perfection that was her sweet sleeping face. “As I was saying, hubster had some family obligations. When his dad got sick, he had to take over.”

“Isn’t your father-in-law a dentist?”

“That wasn’t what he had to take over.” The phone was still focused on her sleeping daughter, and I wondered what she didn’t want me to see. She wasn’t lying to me. This I knew from her lack of stuttering. She would suck at poker from that trait alone. What other family obligation could there be? She’d have mentioned a sick or elderly relative needing care or a family business which only left…

“Shit. Are you married to the mob?”

“You watch too much television.” She barked out in laughter as she finally turned the phone back on herself.

“So, no?” Of course, he wasn’t. Barry was many thing, but a criminal mastermind wasn’t one of them.

“No.”

“Then what?” Her non-answers were beginning to get to me, more so than normal thanks to a combination of exhaustion and nerves.

“He’s sort of in charge of the people in his family group.”

And, like any rational person would, I groaned before getting up and pacing the small distance between my couch and the kitchen counter.

“Roxy, the rate you’re going, she’s going to be old by the time you get to it.” How long had Barry been listening, not that I wasn’t grateful, given his desire to speed things along. “Turn your phone around.”

She did, and I found myself looking at Barry who wore a smile he usually reserved for when he thought he was funny. This could get interesting.

“Hey, Maddie. Watch this.”

And with that, he pulled his shirt over his head and began to unbutton his pants, the view quickly moving up his body thanks to my quick-thinking friend holding the phone.

“Ewwww, your husband is getting naked. Please tell me he’s not a stripper.” So not the kind of family business I expected, and double ewww on her father-in-law.

“Focus, Maddie. Focus.” Because focusing on my best friend’s naked husband was always a good idea. The man was officially off his rocker. “And Roxy, for the love of Pete, keep the camera off my junk.”

“I like your junk.” Which she had thankfully already kept for her eyes only.

“I don’t need to see his junk.” I affirmed that junk seeing was not on the menu. At least, not his. I could think of a couple of others I’d be happy to check out.

I must have blinked too fast because before me stood a freaking lion. In her living room, where her sweet child lay asleep, with no screaming was to be heard. No freaking way.

“Holy fuck. He’s…he’s…he’s…”

“The best-looking lion around.” Her calm, albeit proud proclamation told me all I needed to know. Shit. She was married to a lion. A ginormous, full-on maned, big-toothed lion.

“How is that possible?”

“Really? You come from a family with people who speak to the dead, can move small things with their minds, and play the stock market a little too well, and you are asking how it’s possible?”

She had a point. I did come from a family of weirdos and a couple of drunks, which was why I lived in the city and not my hometown. I had no idea how they could do any of those things and was thankful on more than one occasion that I couldn’t do any of them, especially the dead people gig because, nope, I like to communicate with live people thank you very much and quite often not even them.

“But I can’t do any of those things.” My point was weak. My not being able to do those things didn’t mean spit in this context.

“And I can’t change into the king of beasts,” Roxanne added and had me thinking, could her daughter? The trouble she could get into once she sprouted fur. Oh my!

“He’s gorgeous,” I murmured as he shook his head, his eyes catching the light just so.

“Thanks.” And then Barry was back. Or, at least, human Barry. Technically, Barry had always been there. Or did the lion take over? Processing all of it was going to take a while. “Roxy, camera up, please.”

“Sorry, dear. Good call on the in-your-face method. I’d still be talking clans without using the words.” She was going on and on as if I were no longer there or there-ish, given I was only there via technology.

“She has a freaking necromancer in her family, and you were worried about her not understanding shifters.” He was mostly right.

“I do not have a necromancer in the family,” At least not that I knew of. Grandpa Joe was referred to as dark a lot, so who the heck knew anymore. If people could turn into animals, maybe Grandpa Joe could raise the dead. I officially lived in a world gone mad. “My mom just talks to dead people. Not the same at all.”

“Dead is dead. I gotta go.” He grabbed his shirt off the floor before kissing Roxanne on the cheek and caressing his daughter’s head. “Meeting. Say hi to the guys. You could do worse.”

Not the best endorsement ever, but I didn’t need one. My heart had already decided. I was just waiting for my brain to catch up.

“Bye?” I called out as he left the view of the camera.

“You know meeting meant watching the game.”

I hadn’t, but that sounded about right. “You’re married to a lion.” Because I was tired and bushes no longer needed to be beaten around. “Tell me all things.”

And tell me she did.