Impact (Suncoast Society #32)(58)

“Great.”

“Like all the new residents trying to evacuate for a little ole tropical storm,” Tilly teased as she shut her laptop down. “Everyone loses their shit.”

“No offense, girlie? I wish you guys would move the works to Florida full-time.”

“We’re working on that.”

Twenty minutes later, Loren was behind the wheel and making her way with what looked like the rest of Los Angeles toward the Interstate.

Tilly still refused to call it a freeway. At this point, it was more to aggravate everyone else.

“You know what this town needs?” Tilly asked.

Loren tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “An enema?”

“Besides that. You know, if you threaten Gotham’s water supply, I’m going to start worrying about you.”

Loren shrugged.

“What I was going to say is I wish this town had drive-through margarita stands. Did you know that’s an actual thing in Louisiana?”

“Those are daiquiri stands, Tilly.”

“Oh. I prefer margaritas, if I’m having something.”

Loren glanced over at her. “Maybe we need to make a stop at the liquor store on the way home.”

“One of us needs to stay a responsible adult tonight.”

“And that would be me.”

“So says the woman threatening Gotham’s water supply.”

Loren smiled. “We haven’t watched Batman in a long time.”

“Is KC too young to watch it?”

“Uh, yeah. She needs to be at least ten.”

“Oops.”

“What’d you do?”

“Ten? Really?”

Loren snorted. “Yeah. Maybe a little older. Why? What’d you do? Fess up.”

Tilly snickered. Finally, something to laugh about. “I might or might not have let Laurel watch it one night when I was babysitting her. Three times in a row. To the point she was quoting the movie with me.”

“Tilly, holy crap, she’s barely eight!”

“I know, right? See? I need you, a responsible adult, to supervise me.”

“Holy crap,” Loren muttered. “You’ve got that straight. No wonder Leo is questioning if she’ll grow up to be a super-villain. You’ve been coaching her.”

“I have fun watching her. Sushi and apocalypse. Hey, that sounds like a good name for a punk-rock band.”





Cris had to finish up a couple of things before he could leave, but with the traffic he knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Landry headed home while Cris took care of his last tasks.

Sure enough, when he checked his Waze app, the roads were clogged. Instead of getting stuck on the freeway, he opted to go back roads. It wouldn’t save him any time, but at least it would feel like he was making progress.

He couldn’t stomach just sitting in a car waiting for traffic to thin. Landry had far more patience for that than he did.

It was nearly eight by the time he’d arrived home. Tilly was already showered, collared, and dressed in nothing but a T-shirt, curled up on the couch with her head in Landry’s lap.

“We left you a plate in the microwave, love,” Landry said, motioning him in for a kiss.

“How’d you make it home so fast?”

“Oh, I only arrived about twenty minutes ago.”

Come to think of it, he was still dressed in work clothes. “Oh.”

“I waited to shower until you got home.”

“Thanks.”

Cris checked the plate—meatloaf, yum!—and carried it and a glass of water out to the living room.

“Where’s Loren?”

“Here,” she said, emerging from the baby’s room with the infant. “She just had a bottle and a bath and clean PJs, so she’ll be coasting back to dream land soon.”

Cris set his plate on the table and pulled out his phone to take pictures of her with the baby. He wanted to document it all. Every last bit of it. They’d missed the first two weeks of her life, her birth.

After pictures, he switched to video mode. “This is Aunt Loren holding little Katie,” he said, choking back his tears. “Our beautiful little girl.” She had a shock of dark hair and green eyes and he was already plotting the demise of any boyfriends who tried to date her before she was thirty.

Landry was suddenly there, behind him, one arm slipping around Cris, the other reaching over to stop the recording. He took the phone from Cris and set it on the table, then turned him and hugged him.

“Let it out, love.”

At some point, Loren quietly left the room with the baby while Tilly stood and put her arms around Cris from behind, her head resting against his back. He sobbed, crying, the emotional garbage finally having festered enough to claw its way to the surface past his iron fist of self-control.

Eventually, he let Landry guide him over to the couch. Tilly brought him tissues, and Landry went to nuke his plate of food.

Tilly curled up next to him on the couch and rested her head against his hip, one hand curled over his thigh. When Landry returned with Cris’ food, he sat on his other side, an arm draped around Cris’ shoulders.

“You need to eat,” Landry said. “Then we’ll all retire for the evening.”