15)

Mr. Evans shoved his son at me. “Better talk fast son, and make it good.”

Neal opened his mouth but nothing came out as I walked down the steps and then over to him before crossing my arms and looking up at him with a scowl on my face. “Do you regret saying that?”

He snapped his mouth shut and nodded. “That was just to get my parents to shut up, I didn’t mean…”

He started to wave his hands around while he tried to find the right words… So I gave him a break and reached up to his forehead with my index finger held back by the thumb, he winced a little before I unleashed the finger of flicking, but he didn’t try to avoid it.

“Now say you’re sorry and I'll forgive you so we can get on with our day. Then I’ll only bring it up again every now and then whenever I want for as long as we know each other. That’s fair, right?”

He blinked, then nodded. “Right, sorry.”

"Mr. and Mrs. Evans, can I borrow Neal for a while? I didn't get a chance to show him the house last time.”

Mrs shopkeeper waved us off. "Go ahead, your Grandfather showed us most of everything at the party. Make sure Neal gets to see the library.”

As I set off dragging Neal behind me, I could hear Mr. Evans say something about still not believing Grandpa had a Gatling gun.

I made it all the way into the kitchen before I looked back at Neal only to see him looking awkward and I realized that I had grabbed him by the hand and was still holding it.

I let myself scream internally… but it wasn’t like he was letting go. So after giving his hand a quick squeeze, I let it go to point around the kitchen. "So the guy who was building this place originally wanted to call it Olympia, which is why we got people in Stolas I think they’re called all over the walls in here. The guy ran out of money before anyone got around to carving all the statues he was planning on, which is why we go stands for them all over the place with big planters on them.”

Neal brightened up and looked around the kitchen as he sniffed the air, “Wow, your family really likes bacon.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I rolled my eyes. “My Great Aunt’s family is Jewish, so Grandpa went a little overboard on eating as much of the “Forbidden Meat” as he could fit in. My Mom finally had to put her foot down.”

He grinned, then reached up to scratch himself in front of his ear. “Ah, I’m not sure how, or if, I should ask this, but my Grandma’s really into genealogy and she was curious where your family comes from.” He held his hands up almost defensively. "Not just your Mom, if fact she's mostly curious about your Grandpa's people. She thinks they may have been werewolves that lost their "Wolfness" from marrying regular people and that's why he's so strong."

I thought that over for a bit, holding up one finger for him to give me a moment. “I don’t mind if you ask about my family, even the Asian half, but if it starts to feel weird, I will mention it.”

I pulled out one of the kitchen island stools for him then another one for me and had a seat. "My Mom's family is one of the Itchiban families from Japan, but her Mom, my Grandmother on that side married a Korean man, my Grandfather, who runs a Korean restaurant."

On my Dad’s side, well… It’s my Grandma Bree and her Mom who came over from Europe back in the Fifteen hundreds or something like that. She left behind some bad experiences that she and her daughters don’t talk about, but it left her really hating men.”

I looked at Neal in his somewhat widened eyes. "If you meet her, just try not to say anything. Or make eye contact." He turned his head to give me a side look as if he wasn't sure if I was serious or not. So I reached out and touched his hand again. "I'm serious, My Grandmother can manipulate reality to make my Grandpa rich by having one of his weekly lotto tickets win, and My Great Aunt throws fire around that's hot enough to melt steel and both of them are afraid of their Mother."

I leaned back and crossed my arms to rub my upper arms to fight off the chill I always got when I let myself think too much about Endora Caine. “It shouldn't be too much of an issue, I’m not strong enough to be a real Witch so she doesn't care enough about me to care about my friends or show up for my birthday. But if you even meet her, treat her like… a bee.”

I looked up into Neal’s wide open but still warm brown eyes. “Don’t piss her off and she won’t go old testament on you.”

Wolf boy nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then since he hadn’t teased me about grabbing him by the hand before, I reached out to him, without quite grabbing a hold of him. And he took my hand this time.

“Let’s start on this floor so my Dad doesn't hear our voices. We’ll start with the Library.”

As we headed down the hall, hand in hand, I missed what Neal had quietly asked the first time he asked it. “Huh?”

He gave me a questioning look. “I asked if your Dad hated me or something.”

I giggled, a little too much really, but “No, I think he’s just acting like how a protective father is supposed to act, he learned most of his social skills from TV. That and I think he enjoys bullying you, I’ll make sure Aran thanks you one day for letting out Dad get it out of his system before it was his turn.”

Before the family meeting broke up I managed to show Neal the Library, but not the secret room, to which he stood wide eyed in amazement as he took in the exactly one hundred and forty four individual weapons in the room.

Including the shiny brass work of the Gatling gun.

I had found a dozen or so wooden practice weapons, some of which showed use, and some cheaper decorative things in a corner of the secret room rather than in with the rest of the collection, but I had deliberately never asked about them.

Instead, I looked up the number one hundred and forty four.

Which is a measurement called one Gross.

The old man had set up the entire room in that exact number for some lame joke he had yet to make. And I was not going to be the one to let him get to make it. At least not until he was haveing a bad day and I thought he really needed a win.