Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
“Okay, then.” Edgar knocked softly and whisper-yelled, “Allie?”
The door opened, but it was Poe on the other side, and he was making wild hand motions for Edgar to get the hell out of here.
“What the—”
Poe had a black bandana tied around his face. “Save yourself,” he croaked, then darted back inside.
Edgar followed him inside. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Oh god, it’s everywhere,” Allie groaned from the bedroom. She appeared in the doorway, holding both hands away from her.
Suddenly the smell hit Edgar, and he stepped backward toward the door. “What on earth…?”
Allie turned tired eyes to Edgar. “Save yourself,” she groaned.
“Too late,” Edgar muttered, pulling his shirt up over his nose. “What are you feeding that kid?”
The smell was bad. Very bad. Edgar was used to cleaning out litter boxes and wiping dingleberries from unfortunate cats’ backsides. But this was a whole other kind of reek.
“Edgar. My child is a demon,” she said. “The family’s range of abilities expandeth.”
“Nameless Bebe shat all over themself in their sleep, then wriggled around in it, and then all over the bed,” Poe explained.
“Poe, do you have any other useful superpowers you wanna share? Like the ability to burn a bed without catching the apartment on fire?”
“Alas, sister, I have not the ability,” he said formally, placing his hand over his heart.
“Er,” Edgar said, backing toward the door. “I seem to have come at a bad time.” For me. “Maybe I’ll just—”
“Edgar Vincent Lovejoy,” Allie said in the tone that had stopped him in his tracks since childhood. “If you take that coffee away from me, I will never forgive you. Put it in the kitchen before you go.”
Edgar was looking at his siblings. Allie, both hands held aloft; Poe, bandana covering his face and his sleeves rolled up to the biceps. They looked like they were battling some radioactive alien species.
He snorted, put the coffee and beignets on the counter, and walked into the bedroom.
The baby lay in their crib, naked, kicking their fat little legs at the ceiling and drooling.
Allie’s bed was, admittedly, a disaster. But Edgar scooped the blanket and top sheet into a garbage bag to take to the laundromat, sniffed the mattress gingerly and, finding no remaining smell, concluded it had been a surface-level explosion.
He put a diaper on the kid and took them and the garbage bag back into the living room. “These need a wash, then you’re good to go. Maybe consider a waterproof pad for your bed if you’re gonna have Smoosh on there,” he suggested. “Coffee?”
Allie—who had cleansed herself of her offspring’s foul offering in the meantime—crossed to him and put her arms around him awkwardly. “Bless you.”
“You know how to change a diaper?” Poe asked.
“I changed your diaper,” Edgar informed him.
Poe took a huge bite of beignet, seemingly in an attempt to stop himself from responding.
“So,” Allie said, helping herself to a coffee. “What brings you here? Other than saving my life.”
“I need your help.”
“Er, much as I deeply want to help you,” Allie began.
“Not yours. Poe’s.”
Poe, who had been concentrating on pastry said, “What now?”
Actually, what he said was, “Whfnm?” because his mouth was full, and he blew powdered sugar when he spoke. But Edgar was pretty sure that was what he meant.
“I want to cook a really nice dinner for Jamie. Can you teach me?”
“How to cook?”
“How to cook something fancy.”
“When’s this dinner happening?”
“Um. Tonight?”
Poe looked to the heavens and pursed his lips. “Yeah, sure, I can teach you how to cook in one day. What could possibly go wrong?”
***
Everything, it turned out.
“Listen,” Poe said three hours later. “Jamie’s rad and I like them a lot. And that is why I simply cannot allow you to feed them anything you cook.”
“I can cook!” Edgar insisted, frankly a bit indignant. He had, after all, lived by and cooked for himself for years. “Just not this kind of stuff.”
“Edible stuff,” Poe said under his breath.
“Maybe you could take them out to dinner?” Allie suggested.
Edgar shook his head. “I want to do it. That’s the whole point. I wanna show them I’m committed and, and—”
“That you’re completely fucking hung up on them?” Allie grinned.
“Well. Yeah. Kinda.”
“Awww, you really love them, huh?” Allie asked, her eyes warm and her smile peaceful.
Edgar choked on the bite of unpronounceable sauce that Poe had just been trying to show him how to make.
His cheeks grew warm.
Poe circled him, eyes narrowed. “Are you—are you blushing right now?” he asked, incredulous.
He and Allie exchanged aw looks.
“Shut up,” Edgar muttered, as he’d done so many times as a kid.
“He does!” Allie and Poe crowed together.
“Jinx, bitches,” Edgar said. But they didn’t seem to care, too busy grinning like fools.
“Dude, come on,” Allie said. “Our family is straight-up cursed, and it’s a relationship ruiner. Give your poor loveless siblings some hope that things can end happily.”