“Yes, you’ll need to do better next semester, young lady,” my father says as he walks into the room. “I do remember you promising to visit at least once a month.” Calvin Calloway is tall, almost as tall as James with the same luscious dark hair that made my mother fall in love allegedly. It’s speckled with strands of gray now, but I think he’s just happy he hasn’t started to lose it. He’s lean from the constant marathons he runs and probably the fact that he hasn’t consumed red meat since I was twelve years old.

“Sorry, I just…the first semester was crazy. Getting acclimated and all that.” I hug my dad before Mom guides me towards the kitchen with Monica’s arm linked through mine and I can smell the cinnamon before we even make it there.

“Pumpkin pie?” I ask. “Already?” My mother’s infamous pumpkin pie doesn’t usually make its appearance until Christmas Eve so I’m surprised she made it four days early.

“It’s your favorite and I was so excited about you coming home and all my babies being here together, I made it early.”

“Might I add, I wasn’t allowed to have any yet,” my father adds and I giggle at the thought that he could probably consume an entire pie in under an hour which is why he wasn’t allowed to touch it.

Monica sits at the kitchen table and props her feet up on the chair next to her. “Oh, hot take. Brandon from next door grew up over this past year, and he’s already been over twice under the guise of seeing if we wanted him to shovel the driveway, but my guess is he’s looking for you.” She points at me with a grin. Brandon Woods is two years older than me and has been away at University of Oxford in England since he graduated high school. Monica was always convinced he had a crush on me, but I highly doubted it and was also highly uninterested. The whole being obsessed with my older brother thing kind of prevented me from paying attention to other guys.

A feeling of discomfort takes over as I can feel the irritation radiating off of the man I gave my virginity to just last night. Keep it the fuck together, James.

“Brandon is a pretentious Mama’s boy with zero fucking swag. What is Gab going to do with that?” James interjects and I already feel my anxiety rising at his response.

“Language,” Mom admonishes with a look that says ‘you may be thirty but I will still take you over my knee.’ “And I think he’s adorable.”

“Oh my gosh!” Monica squeals and claps her hands. “Let’s have him over for dinner.”