Chaos

“Yeah, I think he hooked up with her,” I answer honestly, and Kit growls.

“Why?”

“Was she hot?” Bryce suggests, and Kit shoots him a deadly look that almost makes me laugh.

“He’s Mike,” she counters, and I know what she means. Mike isn’t one for groupies or shallow girls, but . . .

“He’s still a dude,” Mason throws in. “When’s the last time he got laid?”

“Mike could have girls a lot prettier than her.”

It’s true, but none of those girls is Danica—his first love, his first lay, his first everything. “He loved her,” I say, and Kit’s face softens with worry.

“Do you think he still does?”

I know better than to try to sugarcoat it. “Probably.”

“I don’t like her.”

“None of us do.”

“I like her cousin though . . . And she was like . . . a gamer.” A mischievous smile curves Kit’s troublemaker lips, and I chuckle at the suggestion in her voice.

“So you’re playing matchmaker now?”

“I’m just saying.”

“You sound like Mom,” Ryan says, and as if on cue, Mrs. Larson’s voice winds through the house, calling us to the dinner table.

On one side of the table, it’s Leti, Kale, Kit, me. On the other, Ryan, Mason, Bryce. Under the table, my fingers twine into the denim threads barely covering Kit’s knee, and when I glance over at her, her cheeks are a pretty pink that makes me slide my hand even higher.

“So Shawn,” Mrs. Larson says, and I jerk my fingers away from Kit’s thigh so fast, Kit almost laughs the spaghetti right out of her mouth. “Do your parents both have dark hair?”

I clear my throat and shift in my chair, making sure that my napkin is positioned where it needs to be. “Yeah. It runs in my family.”

Mrs. Larson beams. “Oh, that’s perfect.” She takes another sip of her water and continues smiling at me. “I always imagined a whole houseful of dark-haired grandbabies.”

“MOM!” Kit and Mason bark while Ryan, Leti, and Kale all chuckle and Bryce continues slurping up his spaghetti.

“She’s like twelve years old!” Mason adds.

“I’m not saying right now!” Mrs. Larson scolds him with a severe crease between her eyebrows before turning another sweet smile on me. “I’m just saying . . . I mean, you do want kids someday, right Shawn?”

“Oh my God.” Kit’s face is a sheet of white when I look over at her, her big eyes and gaping jaw directed at her mom.

“I, um . . . ” I scratch a hand through my hair and almost laugh when Kit’s expression swings to me, panic flash-firing in her wide, dark eyes.

“You don’t have to answer that,” she rushes to say. “Don’t answer that.”

I’m about to answer that when Leti says, “Personally, I think Kale and I would make the cutest babies.” He props his chin on his fist and gazes lovingly at Kale. “Your hair, your eyes, my toes.”

“What’s wrong with my toes?” Kale asks through a smile.

“Dude,” Bryce says, “I know you aren’t making fun of Larson toes.”

I brace myself for Kit’s wrath before I look at her and say, “Is that why you always wear your boots?”

She laughs and swats at me while her dad chuckles and insists they got them from their mom. Mrs. Larson chucks a piece of garlic bread all the way down the table, and my arm drapes around Kit’s chair.

“They come in useful!” Bryce insists.

“Like when you’re outside weeding but don’t feel like bending over?” Leti quips, and Bryce shrugs and nods, which makes even Mason start to laugh.

In the commotion, while everyone else is arguing about the pros and cons of having hands for feet, I lean over and plant a kiss against Kit’s temple. She melts into it, and I whisper, “I love you.”

“Even my toes?” she whispers back.

“Especially your toes.”

THAT NIGHT, AS I turn my ignition off in front of my apartment building, Kit opens her door and slides out of the passenger seat before I can get out and open it for her. “I still can’t believe my mom did that,” she says over my trunk as we circle behind the car to meet each other halfway.

I think about holding her hand, stop myself, and then reach out and do it anyway. “What, you don’t want to give your parents a tour bus full of grandkids?”

Kit’s cheeks blush an adorable rose-petal pink as we cross the parking lot to my building, and she turns her chin up to wrinkle her nose at me. “A tour bus?”

I grin and thread my calloused fingers with hers. “How many then?”

“Are we seriously talking about this?”

I tug her backward when she reaches out to open the door, opening it for her and smirking at the way she pretends to be irritated, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

“Why not?” I ask.

In truth, I’d never thought about kids or a family or anything else—not before Kit. But now, during nights when she’s lying in my arms, sometimes I think of the kind of diamond ring she’d wear, of big weddings with tons of family, of how she’ll look with crow’s feet, gray hair, and a guitar still molded to her lap. And I fall asleep smiling, breathing in the scent of her hair and holding her tight against my chest.