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Casper scans over his friends. “You’re all very loud.”
“You love us,” Kelly smiles.
“I withstand you.”
“High praise,” Logan adds.
Kelly sticks out her bottom lip. “Aww! I withstand you too, big guy.”
One at a time, people migrate to the living room, spreading out while balancing plates on laps and the coffee table because the house is too small for anything else and somehow that makes it seem more like family.
Thor claims the armchair while Frankie sits cross-legged on the rug. With Logan and Kelly squeezed together on one end of the couch, Casper takes the other, and I settle comfortably on the floor between his legs.
A groan escapes out of Logan. “Goddamn, this is good.”
Kelly points at him with her fork. “You sound obscene.
“I’m having a private moment with my lobster mac.”
“I’ll take the compliment,” I say, spearing a mushroom onto my fork. “I couldn’t have pulled this off without everyone’s help. It means so much to me that you could be a part of this.”
Casper hums his agreement behind me. “Thank you.”
“I still can’t believe you were able to finish it in two days,” I add.
“It helps that it’s a smaller house.”
Thor chuckles. “And that we worked like abused children in the mines.”
Kelly cuts him a look. “You had the easiest part! Frankie and I did all the trim!”
“You took approximately fourteen breaks,” Frankie says, nodding in agreement. “Minimum.”
“Excuse me, I built an entire house with my bare hands for him.”
I raise a brow. “You mean, the one built for a possum?”
“Yeah, a fat fucking possum.”
Kelly gasps. “How dare you not loves curves on a woman.”
“First of all, that’s slander. I fucking love curves,” he corrects her. “Second, let’s not pretend that tiny home out there was just some doghouse. If Deb was any bigger, Casper would be applying for permits.”
Frankie waves them off. “Casper, you should have seen how organized your girl was. She had a whole plan, color samples, placement mockups, it was taped and ready to go when we arrived.”
I chuckle. “We were on a time crunch.”
“She executed a vision,” Kelly says.
“Bossy as hell, though,” Logan mutters under his breath, giving me a friendly wink.
“You’re the worst,” I say, shaking my head.
I crane my neck up to look at Casper. He smiles wide, like he’s smugly satisfied with my alleged bossiness.
The conversation rolls on easily, bouncing from the house to the shop to client tales and tattoo disasters to Thor telling a story so dryly it takes me at least a minute to realize he’s joking.
Casper’s hand sweeps my hair to the side and settles on my shoulder, his thumb rubbing absent circles. It’s so effortless and instinctive, I don’t even know if he’s conscious of doing it. I love how natural it feels to be tucked in the middle of everyone with him behind me; no one notices or says anything, which for some reason feels more like acceptance, not just of me, but of us.
