“Music?” Ford’s eyes go wide. “Since when do you like music?”

Grey shrugs, digging his phone out of his pocket and scrolling through what I can only assume is his music library. A second later, David Bowie starts to play on the speakers above our heads.

It’s “Young Americans.” One of my favorites.

“Ziggy Stardust?” Ford smiles. “Heck yeah.”

My heart—my stomach—my feelings—

They all bottom out. In the best way.

Grey catches me staring at him. He winks.

“Just in case the exorcist doesn’t show.”

“What’s an exorcist?” Bryce asks, trotting into the kitchen.

Ford picks her up, smoothing her shirt. “It’s what we’re going to need to make sure the kind alien life force that’s taken up residence in Uncle Grey’s body sticks around for a while longer.”

“Let’s eat,” Monty says. “By the way, is this song about what I think it is?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Greyson

I can’t take my eyes off her.

Julia doesn’t know my family. Hardly knows Ford. I assume she doesn’t regularly dine with three-year-olds who somehow always manage to get food in their hair and/or vomit whenever they eat.

But she’s still fucking radiant at the table across from me. At ease. At home. Chatting with my dad. Charming my mom. Cleaning her plate and going back for seconds, and then thirds, of Mom’s famous collards.

Julia and Ford wig out over their shared love of eighties rock and some poet named Paul Neruda (or maybe it was Pablo? Damn it, now I wish I paid more attention in lit class). She laughs, eyes lighting up mischievously, when he tells the story of my Jonas Brother-style tuxedo pants.

“So are you going to pull a Patrick Swayze?” she asks me. “You know I like to dance.”

“Lordy do I love that man.” Mom sighs. “I’ll be his Baby anytime.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Dad says.

“Greyson hasn’t danced in years.” Ford looks at me, Bryce dangling from his knee. “Julia, you gonna help us change that?”

She grins. “Only if he promises to wear those tux pants.”

It’s obvious my family genuinely enjoys her company, too. They brighten any room. Any mood. But with Julia here, too, that brightness is almost blinding. She’s witty and real and interesting, and they can’t get enough of her thoughts, ideas, stories.

I can’t, either. I just sit and stare like a slack-jawed, lovesick jackass. Soaking up her every word and every expression. The way she puckers her lips and pulls them to the side when she’s thinking about something. How she surrenders to laughter, a whole-being exercise that involves eyes and mouth and belly.

The way her gaze always catches on mine. Like she’s feeling this too.

This.

The stupid happy certainty that you’re exactly where you should be, with exactly the right people.

Your people.

Julia is my person. At least I’d like her to be.

I am downright obsessed with this woman.

Bryce is drooling on Ford’s shoulder by the time Dad brings out a dish of his brown sugar pecan bread pudding. He retired young and took up baking to keep busy. In the years since, he’s become one hell of a scratch baker.