Cameron Cole has a plan.
After yet another relationship ends because of certain shortcomings-literally-Cameron decides it's time to swear off dating and focus her energy into her junior year at the University of Charlotte. There's an internship up...
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I'm cold. And confused. And holding a fuchsia aluminum baseball bat I haven't touched since sixth grade when I played the damn sport.
We're somewhere off a gravel road in what looks like the industrial wastelands of suburban Arizona—flat scrubland on one side, a chain-link fence on the other, and a half-dead cactus that has seen better years.
The gravel crunches under my platform Uggs in a way that says I am one wrong step away from eating shit.
Everyone is rugged up in oversized coats and scarves, the desert chill biting through the seams. Our boots crunch over gravel, hands stuffed into pockets, and breath puffs in soft little clouds in the late afternoon light.
I tug my cream puffer tighter around my middle, my baby-pink beanie barely covering the ache behind my ears from the cold.
"Where are we?" I mutter to no one in particular.
No one answers me.
Probably because every single female relative I possess is marching ahead with grim determination and weapons.
Trixie is leading the charge in a purple sherpa trench coat, a fur-lined hood framing her perfectly curled hair. Aunt Fallon has a hockey stick slung over one shoulder like she has done this before. Aunt Lou carries what I think is a broken tennis racket. Grandma Jill has her dog nestled inside her coat like a gremlin. Even Brynn has a bat in one hand and a pack of Skittles in the other.
Nana Bea rolls along at the back, bundled in tartan and dignity, with Armand pushing her wheelchair—the only man allowed because he's technically one of the girls.
Even Ingrid is here—and she hates going out in public with us. Guess Uncle Jerry has pissed her off yet again.
Ellie, holding onto my gloved hand, beaming like a kid on a field trip, looks up at me and whispers, "Do you think we're going to war?"
"Honestly?" I say, scanning the barren road ahead. "I wouldn't be surprised if Aunt Trixie is leading us all into a cult to off us one by one for Poppa Bill's inheritance."
Ellie gasps. "I knew she was the most suspicious aunty."
Then the giant industrial gates at the end of the road groan open.
A figure appears.
Tall. Broad. Gorgeous. Like, cover-of-a-romance-novel gorgeous. He steps forward in a leather pilot's jacket, his deep brown skin gleaming in the winter afternoon sunlight, and the entire line of Cole women slows as one.
I blink once.
Twice.
Then turn to my mom, "Okay, but if we are dying, this is a great final hallucination."
No one says anything.
Because no one is capable of saying anything because they are all just busy staring at him. Then the man walks directly up to Trixie and kisses her full on the mouth. Like, not a peck. Not a greeting. A full, slow, why-is-your-hand-there kind of kiss.
