if she’s yours,” Vince said, igniting the tension that always simmered between us.
I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. And also, he was right, and that pissed me off. I didn’t own Tori. She didn’t belong to me. But I’d brought her around the people who meant the most to me. The people who were the only family I had left in the world. During the worst time of our lives. That meant something.
“I thought we were grilling steak, not Liam,” Chad said, and I gave him a grateful smile.
I just wondered how Tori was handling the barrage of questions she was undoubtedly dealing with.
15
When Liam and the others had returned, I’d been talked into two glasses of very good wine and had been told stories about the guys growing up that might embarrass them if they knew.
Surprisingly, not once had Nicole and Naomi asked about Liam and me. I expected to be interrogated, but they’d taken it easy on me. I supposed, given the reason we were gathering, it shouldn’t be all that shocking that the status of Liam’s mystery date had taken the back seat.
I liked Will’s family and friends. Really liked them. I found Bob’s cluelessness charming and the way all the guys jumped to help him with the grill and slicing the meat endearing. The boys had playfully bickered in the kitchen over the right way to slice steak. I loved Deb’s protectiveness; the way she looked at Naomi and Nicole was how a mother might look at her own daughters.
Despite the joking and the teasing, there was an undercurrent of sadness that rippled through everyone. During dinner, a toast by Seth about Will had left everyone somber and quiet. Despite not knowing Will myself, there was nothing uncomfortable about being surrounded by a group of grieving loved ones. These people had a way of being welcoming even as they were mourning the loss of someone who was so deeply loved.
I got the distinct impression that dinners like these were common among this group—in brief moments it felt as if spending time like this together was as natural as a typical family dinner. But then someone would say something that blanketed quiet over everyone. A story about Will, about Will and the boys. Usually those stories began with humor and ended with a moment of quiet contemplation.
Later, after successfully beating everyone—including Seth—at Nerts, I escaped to the bathroom. I was amazed how comfortable I felt with everyone, as if there had always been a place for someone else to join their tight group. No one made me feel like an outsider.
On my way back from the bathroom, I paused in the hallway to take in the gallery wall full of dozens of framed photos. I recognized Will from photos I’d seen elsewhere in the house, but there were a lot of photos of the five boys together on their seemingly many adventures.
“There you are,” Deb said, joining me in the hallway. She slid the dimmer switch up to brighten the space.
“They’re all wearing the same shirt,” I said, tapping on a collage frame with five four-by-six photos of younger versions of each of them, with the same school portrait backgrounds.
Deb laughed and stood beside me. “That was one of their favorite pranks. They shared that plaid shirt between them and when the photos went home, they gave each mom a photo of them wearing the same shirt.”
I moved to another photo of the five of them in a forest, all of them posing like Charlie’s Angels. “They’re all in their underwear.”
“Ah, yes. Right after they graduated high school, they went camping up in Utah for a weekend. They left their stuff in their tent and went for a hike. When they came back later that day, someone had rifled through their belongings and taken all of their duffel bags. So, they only had the clothes on their back, and of course it was too hot to wear the pants they’d worn hiking, so they posed for this pic and I had it framed to embarrass them.” Deb laughed and touched the frame softly. “But it doesn’t embarrass them at all—they have the best stories from that trip.”
We moved further down the hallway to a series of photos with different settings but all with one thing is common. Leaning closer to inspect the photo better, I asked, “Is that Keanu Reeves?”
Deb let loose another laugh. “Oh, yes. Well, no. They thought it was a great