“It’s Thanksgiving. I got my boys. I got my family and I got my woman. What I don’t wanna get is pissed off,” Brock said low and Levi held his eyes.

Standoff, and I didn’t think this was good. Levi was questioning his brother’s judgment and it might be for protective reasons but Brock was the kind of man who wouldn’t appreciate that. Brock had also both said and demonstrated that he intended to protect me, and a full-frontal assault to test me within ten minutes of arriving for Thanksgiving, if Levi didn’t back down, was not going to go down well.

It was time to institute damage control and I did it by looking to Lenore, who was studying Levi with both concern and bafflement.

I took her in and then said, “Lenore, I really like your boots.”

Her body jerked and her eyes came to me. Then she whispered, “Uh… thanks. I was, uh…”—her eyes shifted to Levi, then back to me—“thinking the same thing about yours. And that’s a really nice sweater.”

“I have a friend who works at Neiman’s,” I told her, and now I did, for with Elvira came Gwen, Tracy, and Cam, and Tracy was generous with her discount. My sweater cost a whack but, as all girls knew, I needed the perfect sweater for Thanksgiving dinner with Brock and his family so, like the nightie, I’d splurged. And, unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing I bought.

I really needed to sell more cupcakes.

“Employee discount,” Elvira muttered over her potatoes.

Lenore gave another searching glance to Levi, then to me, “Cool.”

I studied her and it hit me.

She liked Levi, a lot.

He was with his family and she was just his latest piece.

But to her, this was important. To her, this was meeting his family and she was reading this as a hopeful occasion when, with the way Levi was behaving with her, it was not. She was noting this and therefore understandably confused. And with the way Levi was behaving, in the not-too-distant future, she was going to be heartbroken.

I looked back at Levi to see him opening his mouth to say something but Fern got there first.

“Men, out. You’re underfoot, you have no intention of helping, and if you tried, you’d mess it up. Go turn on a TV somewhere. Take those crackers and cheeseball with you. And the bowls of nuts. And the chips and dip.”

Elvira looked over her shoulder at me and with her head she gestured to the kitchen table, which was covered in bowls and plates filled with pre-Thanksgiving nibbles that might defeat the purpose of Thanksgiving. She gave me an approving look that said Fern was not Ada and this clear plus was to be reported to Martha at her earliest opportunity.

“Tess! These pies are just beautiful!” Laura exclaimed and I looked to her.