Dana froze.

She had inadvertently opened up a scan of her PSU ID. It was the original one, identifying her as David Reed. Her thoughts were a hot, rushing tide. Amidst her panic, there was also self-recrimination. She couldn’t believe she’d kept the document. She’d simply forgotten all about it, heedless of the possibility that anybody else might ever see anything on her computer.

Jules gently placed her hand over Dana’s and closed both the file and the document folder. She placed the whole thing in the cloud sharing folder, which is what they had been doing when Dana had made the mistake.

Jules, Louise and I had been in positions to see the screen. The twins and Josh had not.

I saw Louise’s eyes widen and immediately sent her a message. “Say nothing!”

Her eyes turned to me and she frowned. “As if I would,” she thought, knowing I would hear it.

Dana’s eyes travelled around the room, mentally counting up those that would have seen the picture, wondering if we had realized what it signified. I heard the hope in her mind that we hadn’t made the connection - that maybe we thought that it was her brother or something.

“Don’t be dumb,” she chided herself. “Why would my brother have a pass to PSU? Besides, I already told them I’m an only child!”

“It’s late,” she said. “I should be getting back.”

“I’ll drive you,” I offered, but she shook her head.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d rather walk.  After that dinner,” she qualified with a sickly smile, “I need the exercise.”

She stood up. We all copied. “Thanks for fixing my computer,” she said to Jules, who stepped to embrace her.

“It’s what friends are for,” Jules replied with a soft smile.

Dana immediately tried to step away, but Jules held onto her for a moment. It was difficult to say if it was the right choice; not even Dana really knew. After she was released, she maintained her distance from the rest of us, scared that we might try to hug her too.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said, making her way to the door. “It was lovely.”

“Any time,” I said. “Maybe next time you’ll get a chance to use the hot tub.”

She nodded uncertainly, and then she was gone.

“Well, that got weird quick,” said Josh. “What was that all about?”

Louise looked at me, then said, “Dana just outed herself by mistake. Poor thing must have been terrified.”

“Outed herself?” asked Josh. “What do you mean?”

“Dana is trans,” I explained. “Her father wouldn’t accept her transition, and so she only managed to start to live her own life when she came to PSU. Since her application had to be in her biological name, she was issued a campus ID in that name. She accidentally opened it on her laptop just now. Now she knows that we know, and she is terrified of the fallout.”

“But we don’t care about…” began Josh.

“We know that,” said Jules, “but she doesn’t. Expect that she will avoid you like the plague. If she sees you coming, the likelihood is that she will turn around and walk in the opposite direction.”

“So, what do we do?” asked Louise.

“Nothing,” said Jules. “Just wait her out. If you try and approach her, she will probably bolt. Let her see that nothing has changed. If you do interact with her, then do nothing different than you would have done before you found out. She needs to know, from us, that her being trans has not made the slightest difference to the way we feel about her - that we are still her friends. Don’t talk to her about it unless she broaches the subject.”

I stood up.

“Where are you going?” asked Jules.

“I think I need to take a walk,” I said. “I’ll be about an hour.”

It was only just after nine, but it was dark out, and I wasn’t comfortable with the thought of Dana walking back to the campus on her own. Ours wasn’t a particularly rough neighbourhood, but the closer you got to campus, the worse it got, with a lot of low-rent housing nearby.

I scanned ahead and located Dana about three blocks ahead of me, and I contented myself with hanging back. I couldn’t see her, and therefore she wouldn’t be able to see me. I could keep an ‘eye’ on her though, and, if there was any trouble, be with her in less than a couple of minutes.

I needn’t have worried. She made it back to her dorm with no issues, and I turned around and started back to the house as soon as she entered.

“No trouble?” asked Mary when I returned.

I shook my head. “No, she got back to the dorm no issues.”

“Did you speak to her?” asked Jules.

“No,” I said. “She didn’t even know I was there.”

“Good,” said Jules. “Give her time. She’ll come around.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “She’s not likely to do anything drastic, is she?”

Jules thought about that for a moment. “I don’t think so,” she said, “but now you have me worried.”

I picked up my phone and sent her a text.

­­­_Dana, nothing has changed. We are not going to tell anyone, and we would all still very much like to be your friends.

_It doesn’t matter anymore, came the response.

_Why?

_I’m sorry.

That worried me. I showed it to Jules.

“Oh no,” she said. “We need to call 911.”

“That will cause her even more problems,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Jules and I piled into my truck. We made it back to the dorms in less than five minutes. Fortunately, there were no traffic cops to catch me speeding. When we got there, I used TK to open the main door. Jules and I entered the dorm block.

“What room is she in?” I asked. Jules shrugged. I scanned the building and found her on the third floor. We took the elevator, and once again I scanned the floor and found her in a room at the end

Jules went and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again, louder.

Losing patience, I once again used TK to open the door, adding another count of breaking and entering to my ever-growing list of crimes and indiscretions. I didn’t much care.

Dana was laying on her bed, a bottle of tablets open on the bedside cabinet beside her. It still had a large number of tablets in it; After a little digging, I found out that she had taken two sleeping tablets. Technically it was an overdose, since she should only have taken one, but it wasn’t a real attempt at anything. She just wanted to sleep.

Unfortunately, despite the sleeping tablets, us breaking into her room had woken her up. She looked up at us, confused and a little afraid.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

Jules smiled at her ruefully. “I was worried about you,” she said. “I know how I felt when I first got outed, and I thought you might do something drastic. Caleb agreed to come with me to check on you.”

“When you got outed?” Dana asked thickly. Although we had woken her up, her sleeping tablets were still doing their best to do their job.

“Go back to sleep,” said Jules. “We’ll talk tomorrow. We just wanted to know that you were safe.”

Dana looked sleepily between us, and then, to my surprise, nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, at breakfast.” She rested her head back on her pillow and was soon asleep again. We locked the door after ourselves and went home.

The next morning, I made breakfast for everyone bar Jules and me. We went into PSU early and were in the cafeteria waiting when Dana came in. I saw her look around; her eyes widened when she saw us. She came over and sat down, not even bothering to collect breakfast on the way.

“So, it wasn’t a dream,” she said. “You two really were in my room last night?”

“’Fraid so,” said Jules. “After your texts to Caleb, we were worried. I wanted to check on you, so Caleb and I came over.”

“How did you even get in?” she said. “The door was locked.”

“Misspent youth,” I said. “Picking locks is easy for me. Look, here is not really private enough to talk. Can we go somewhere and have a conversation?”

Dana nodded. After grabbing some food from the counter, we went to my ‘office’ near the library. Dana looked around as we sat down.  “What is this place?” she asked.

“It’s an office I rent from the university,” I replied. “Nobody will disturb us.”

Jules sat forward on her chair. “Do you remember when we first met,” she said, “and I said that we all had secrets?”

Dana nodded.

“I guessed, from what you said, that you were carrying a heavy secret,” began Jules. “I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t matter. I - we - liked you. As I said then: we all have secrets. I’m sorry that we had to discover yours in such a way. I want you to know that it makes absolutely no difference to us. We still like you, and still want to be friends.”

Dana looked at me. “But I’m a…”

“You’re a very interesting person,” I said. “Jules told you that everyone had secrets. One of mine, although it’s not too much of a secret anymore, is that I’m pansexual. My struggle with it was nothing like yours, and I don’t mean to compare the two. Still, though, it’s something about myself that’s outside the norm, and there were definitely times in my life when I wouldn’t have wanted anybody finding it out without my consent. I can imagine how bad I might’ve felt – how scared.”

She looked back to Jules.

“I’m ace,” said Jules.

Dana’s eyes widened. “But you and the girls… and Caleb…” she stuttered.

“Caleb’s attraction to me wasn’t sexual,” Jules said. “We met on the top of the science building, where I was just about to step off the ledge. He and the girls talked me down, and showed me that my sexuality didn’t matter. They saved me. We got to know each other, and we fell in love. I don’t think that is what you are looking for, but I think that having some friends would be an improvement on your current situation, right?

“The other thing is that, now that we know, you can be yourself around us. There’s no need to hide any more. We have your back. Maybe being allowed to be yourself with us will help you learn how to be yourself at other times too. I see you, Dana Reed. I know who you are, and I like what I see. Will you be my friend?”

“I…” began Dana. “I don’t understand.”

“What is there to understand?”  I asked.

“Why?” she said. “Why would you want to be friends with me?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” countered Jules. I could tell immediately she was more comfortable with the tough-love approach. “That’s not really a rhetorical question, Dana. You’re a person, just like everyone else. You’re not a puppy-murderer, as far as we know. We go to the same school. We’re roughly the same age. You and Caleb share a class. You don’t need to be a rock star or a saint to somehow ‘make up’ for your secret. That’s the whole point. Also, like we already said, this isn’t a marriage proposal.”

Dana was a little taken aback by the shift. I couldn’t resist adding my two cents. “If somebody in class were trying to construct an argument for why nobody would or should ever want to be friends with Hypothetical-Dana,” I offered, “do you really think it’d hold up? It’s an extreme position to take. Would you just roll over and concede?”

I thought I saw a few gears start turn behind her worried eyes. Unfortunately, her phone beeped, and she jumped.

“I have to go,” she said. “I have an appointment with the student counsellor.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’re going to do something tomorrow night. I don’t know what yet, but we had so much fun bowling that we decided we were going to make Friday night a night out. None of us is really into the bar scene, so when we decide, I’m going to text you. Will you come too?”

“Maybe,” she said.

We all stood up, and before Dana realized what was happening, Jules had enveloped her in a hug.

Dana stood stiffly for a second, and then softened and returned the hug. “Thank you,” she said to Jules.

She released Jules and faced me. I cocked my head to the side and opened my arms. Dana hugged me briefly, and a little bit stiffly, but I returned a warm hug. When I felt her pull away, I didn’t resist. I had a feeling the sentiment wouldn’t be nearly as well-received from a man with a considerable height and weight advantage.

“Thank you,” I said to her. She gave the merest of nods – still scared, but a little less so – and hurried away.

+++++

I was just coming out of my first class when I heard my name being called. I turned and saw Jamie, the student counsellor, walking up to me. “Do you have a minute?” she asked.

Since I was free until after lunch, I nodded. “Sure.”

We walked in silence to her office, then sat down on either side of her desk. She looked at me through narrowed eyes.

“Why is it,” she asked, “that you are in the middle of everything? First Jules, then Rachel, now Dana. Why does your name keep popping up all over the place?”

“Just lucky I guess,” I said.

“Dana said you broke into her room last night,” she said sternly. “You could be arrested.”

“I was concerned for her welfare,” I said. “She had just outed herself, inadvertently, and then run away. When I checked up on her by text afterward, this is what I got.” I showed her the texts. “Tell me that doesn’t concern you?”

Jamie read the texts and grimaced. “I guess I would have been concerned on reading that,” she admitted. “But why didn’t you call 911?”

“Because what if we’d been wrong?” I asked. “How traumatic would it have been for EMT and police to go barging into her dorm? It took us less than ten minutes to get there. If she had been in trouble we could and would have called then, but I didn’t want to cause her any more upset.”

“Dana is conflicted about you,” she said. “Not just you - all of you. She is not clear what you want from her, but she likes being around you. What she doesn’t understand - and I have the same question is what do you want from her?”

I sighed. “Why do we have to want anything from her?” I asked. “I seem to remember you asking me the same about Rachel. I met Dana in my ethics class. She is an intelligent and interesting girl. I didn’t know anything more than that about her. When she met up with the girls, they also liked her.”

“So, you weren’t trying to get her into bed?” asked Jamie.

“You know,” I said, my temper starting to rise, “for someone who is supposed to be non-judgemental, you seem awfully ready to jump to conclusions. You did the same with Jules, and with Rachel. What was it you said at my house? ‘You’re a very healthy college-aged boy that’s already having sex with multiple partners on a regular basis.’ You still seem to be of the opinion that I - we - only have one thing on our minds any and every time we meet up with someone new.

“I can understand why Dana is nervous. I don’t take that personally; she has a lot going on right now. You? I’m starting to take it personally. Why don’t you go ask her who started flirting with whom first? Then you can go and accuse her of being a predator and a pervert too – except you won’t, because you know that that bullshit might actually get you in real trouble.

“I have literally anywhere else to be,” I finished curtly. “Good day.”

“Caleb,” she called as I exited her office, but I ignored her, closing the door behind me.

I mentally pulled up my schedule for the day. I was due at the range in about an hour for a hypnotherapy session. I decided to go there early and see if there was a lane free. I briefly thought of myself as an old man retreating to a golf course so that nobody would bother me. In that moment, I understood the impulse completely.

“Nope,” said Hoss when I entered the range.

“What?” I said.

“Something’s got your ire up,” he said. “You’re not going on my range while you are all riled up like that. It’s no good for your shooting, and it’s no good for range safety. Come and sit and have a coffee with Clive and me and cool down.”

I went and sat in the office with Clive and Hoss. They left the door open so Hoss would be able to see the reception and go out if he was needed. Clive made coffee, and we sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. I looked at Hoss, disinclined to start a conversation.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, what?” I asked.

“You going to tell us what got you all riled up?”

“No.”

“Thank heavens for that,” he said with a grin. “I have enough problems without taking on yours.”

I laughed and took a sip of the coffee. It was awful. I winced.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” said Hoss, indicating the cup. 

I looked at Clive; he seemed totally unconcerned. "It’s fine,” I lied, trying unsuccessfully to take another sip without wincing again.

“He does it deliberately,” Hoss said, “so I won’t ask him to make the coffee again.”

“And yet…” I said, raising the cup.

“I thought you needed something to take your mind off whatever got your dander up,” he said with a grin. “Round about now, people realize that we don’t actually expect them to drink it. The relief at that usually puts them in a better mood.”

“You deliberately give people bad coffee to cheer them up?” I asked, incredulous.

“Seems to work,” said Hoss.

I chuckled, noting that the pantomime, if nothing else, had distracted me from my sour temper.

“Leave your cup on the table,” said Hoss. “Lane seven is free if you want to shoot. How much ammo?”

In a far better mood than when I’d first entered the range, I collected my Glock and went onto the lane. I spent thirty minutes practicing, then stripped and cleaned the weapon before returning it to our locker. I paid Hoss his fee, and was just in time to wash up and then meet my hypnotherapy client.

After the session was over, Mary contacted me.

“Are you finished with your hypnotherapy appointment?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“The student counsellor is looking for you.” she sent.

“Tell her to fuck off!” I responded, the remnants of my temper rearing up again.

I felt a surprised query from her, so I sent her the memory of my interaction with Jamie.

“She’s only concerned for Dana,” sent Mary.

“She’s immediately assuming the worst of me,” I responded. “Of us. She did exactly the same with Jules, and with Rachel. I’m sick of her. She can go fuck herself.”

The stray thought popped into my head that she could only go fuck herself because I’d helped her.

“So, what should I tell her?”

“I already said. Tell her to fuck off!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then tell her I have no interest in talking to her.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“She has repeatedly implied that I am some kind of sexual predator, despite me giving her no reason to think so. She bases that purely on our living arrangement. She is a bigot.”

“You’re not coming back to campus today, then?”

“No. I’m heading home. I’ll see you there. Love you.”

“Love you.”

I matched actions to words – unspoken though they’d been - and headed home.

I’d been home about thirty minutes when there was a knock on the front door. I opened it to find Jamie standing on the porch.

“Caleb,” she said before I’d even opened it all the way. My first instinct was to slam it in her face, but even I recognized how childish that would have been. I just stood and waited for her to say something more.

“May I come in?” she asked.

Several responses sprang to mind, but, once again, I knew how childish they all were. I stepped back and indicated for her to enter, which she did. I closed the door and walked into the kitchen. She followed me.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said. “You were right in what you said - both to me and to Mary. She told me about your conversation earlier.”

I made coffee. I knew how she liked hers, although I couldn’t remember how I knew.  I placed her cup in front of her.

“There’s something about you,” she said. “It screams a warning to me, although you have never done anything to deserve my suspicion. Even when I know you could have taken advantage of situations, you acted honorably.” She was blushing a little. From her reaction, I knew which particular situation she was thinking of.

“I said before that I don’t understand your arrangement with your girlfriends, and I still don’t, but it’s no less an alternative lifestyle than any other. I am supposed to be able to interact with students without my own values prejudicing me against them.

“Not only that, but you have helped me both personally and professionally, and yet I still treated you like some kind of sexual predator. I’m sorry.”

“You confuse liking sex and having multiple sexual partners with being a sexual predator,” I said in a low voice. “Maybe it’s so deeply ingrained that ‘get over it’ isn’t useful advice, but it really hurts when somebody I thought I had an actual relationship with can’t treat me as an individual. It’s even worse when I start getting whiffs of hypocrisy on top of that.”

She bristled at that, but I stared her down. I gave her a nudge: remember that time you suggested maybe Caleb should sleep with Rachel?

As far as she knew, she was simply remembering something relevant to the conversation at hand. She backed down.

“I’m not running a cult, here, Jamie,” I continued. “We are just seven people who have enough love for each other, and enough security in our relationships, that we can allow ourselves to play with others sometimes.”

“Seven?” asked Jamie. “Josh and Louise are part of your…”

“Not a part of our family,” I answered. “But they live here. They have their own relationship, and they love each other. But they also love us, and we them.”

“And you want Dana to be a part of that?”

I sighed heavily. “Asked and answered, Jamie,” I replied. “Do we really have to go through this again? You’ve said the words and changed your tone, but you’re interrogating me – and worse, on matters we’ve already discussed. That’s a cop move. That’s what they do to suspects when they don’t believe them and think they’re guilty.”

“There’s an argument to be made that you are guilty of something,” she replied, “but I can see your side of it too.”

“I suppose we’ll see what the jury thinks, then,” I said.

Jamie grimaced. “I don’t think it needs to come to that,” she said. “Dana wasn’t going to report the incident, and neither was I.”

“And yet you threatened me with arrest.”

“I didn’t mean… wasn’t… oh hell, I don’t know what I was thinking!” she said finally. “For some reason being around you makes me nervous. I don’t know what it is. But…”

“But you do know,” I responded.

She looked at me wide-eyed. “I don’t,” she maintained.

“Really?” I asked. “You have no idea? You have no idea why you feel guilty every time we are alone in the same room? Come on Jamie, be honest - at least with yourself.”

Her aura and her thoughts screamed the reason, but she refused to put the pieces together. It was taking quite a bit of effort on her part not to.

“You feel guilty,” I went on, “because you, a married woman and a student counsellor at the university, have urges toward one of the students under your care. You feel the urges, and blame me for them.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with having such urges. Neither of us is going to act on them. You would lose your job, and probably your marriage as well, and I would not put you in such a position. But you cannot keep shifting the blame for this onto me. I have done nothing wrong. We have done nothing wrong. What happened in your office was a side effect of a sudden removal of a mental block. Nobody knows about it except you and I, and nobody ever will.”

Jamie was staring at the floor by her feet.

“I think I’d better go,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I stood up as she did. She walked to the door and opened it. “Thanks for talking to me at least,” she said. “I half expected you to close the door in my face.”

“I nearly did,” I said, “but that would have solved nothing. Hopefully we can put this behind us?”

She nodded. We walked out onto the porch, and then suddenly she turned, pulled me into a hug, and kissed me. I was stunned into immobility for a second; by the time I had decided what to do, she’d broken off and was backing away.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. She walked to her car, got in, and left.

As she drove away, I looked across the road and saw our HOA Nazi neighbour. He was standing in his window with a camera in his hand and a look of satisfaction on his face.

I went back into the house. A couple of hours later everyone arrived home, and I shared the memory of my ‘encounter’ with Jamie with the girls.

“It seems that some people are more susceptible to your influence than others,” Jules observed.

“I think you should probably avoid her whenever possible,” said Mary. “For her sake.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “I don’t know what possessed her to kiss me like that. If that got back to the university, she could lose her job. Her husband didn’t seem like they type that would take it in stride either.”

There was a knock at the door. I went to answer it. It was Tom Pritchard, of course.

“Hi,” he said cheerily. “I thought I would come over and see if you had changed your mind about joining the HOA.” He had a folder of papers in his hand.

“No thank you,” I said. I waited for the utterly predictable escalation: blackmail.

He smiled a little evilly at me and then opened the folder he was holding. “Are you sure?” he asked, showing me the picture of Jamie and I on the porch. I had to admit it was a good picture - very clear. It looked far more incriminating than the actual event.

I looked him in the eye. “What do you intend to do with that?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “If you sign up to the HOA, you can have the picture, and we’ll say no more about it.”

“And if I don’t?”  I asked.

“Then I would be honor bound to show it to your fiancée,” he said, “and let her know what you get up to when you are home alone.”

“Blackmail?” I asked, pretending to be surprised. “To join the HOA? A little extreme, don’t you think?”

“Blackmail is such an ugly word,” he said, smiling maliciously. “I prefer to look on it as ‘encouragement.’”

“Blackmail is the legal term, however,” I said, pulling out my FBI ID, “and it’s a crime.  So go back home and await a visit from law enforcement.”

His eyes widened. “What?” he said. “I think you misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood?” I scoffed. “You threatened to show that picture to my fiancée unless I signed up to the HOA.”

“I didn’t mean…” he said.

“Amanda,” I shouted through the door.  She joined us on the porch.

I took the picture from him and showed it to her.

“That’s a great shot,” she said. “We should frame that and put it up in the living room. Can we keep it?”

Prichard nodded dumbly.

“Go away!” I growled. He fled.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to report it,” I said. “At some point I feel we are going to need to get a restraining order against that dick, and I want all the evidence I can get to support the application.”

I asked Jules to download and save the security camera footage from the event and we looked at it. It was amazingly clear and came with full sound. We could hear everything perfectly. I was surprised at the quality of the recording.

I sent that and an email to Dianna, outlining what had happened, and asking her what I should do about it.

I was making dinner when my phone rang. “Hey Dianna,” I said. “How you doing?”

“I’m good,” she said. “What do you hope to achieve with this blackmail charge?”

“Just evidence to take to a judge if he continues to harass us,” I said. “I didn’t expect anything more.”

“Okay then,” she said. “I’ll get one of the interns to write it up so there’s a record of it. That’s really all I can do. The DA would laugh me out of his office if I took that to him.”

“Maybe I should go and speak to the rest of the residents, and find out what made them join the HOA. If he tried this with me…”

“With what goal in mind?” she asked.

“Getting rid of the HOA,” I said, “and pissing him off. He literally stood toe to toe with Amanda, yelling into her face. He’s lucky I didn’t punch him.”

She sighed. “Quiet life, Caleb,” she said. “Keep your head down and don’t draw attention. That’s the best plan.”

“If you say so,” I said. “Fine. I’ll behave.”

“Why does that worry me more than you arguing with me?” she asked wearily.

I laughed. “Why don’t you come over for dinner at the weekend?” I asked. “The girls would be happy to see you.”

“That would be nice,” she said. “What day and time?”

“Actually, how does Sunday lunch sound?” I said. “Say, one o’clock?”

“Perfect,” she said. “See you then.”

I hung up. I turned to see both Mary and Amanda looking at me, identical smiles on their faces.

“Thank you,” they said in unison.

“What for?” I asked. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen her. I’m surprised you haven’t invited her already.”

We decided that, despite it being Thursday - our usual day for the range - we would have a quiet night in. I had already been to the range, so I was happy enough with that, and the others weren’t as fanatical about practicing as I was.

“We’re going up to see Nana Babi on Sunday,” Louise informed us over dinner. “We won’t be here for lunch.”

“Give her our regards,” I said. “She’s a nice old lady. I seriously think you should tell her that Keenan raped you, though. Just because you got off on it doesn’t mean he should get away with it. If he’ll do it to you…”

Louise looked uncomfortable. “I don’t want to cause her even more strife,” she said. “I’d rather just forget about it.”

I looked at Josh who shrugged. “It’s up to Lou,” he said. “I’m not saying I won’t break something if I ever set eyes on him again though.”

“Don’t go getting yourself arrested,” I said. “He’s not worth it.”

We finished dinner and I cleaned up. Afterward, we talked about what we might do on Friday. “We could go bowling again,” said Josh. “Make it a regular Friday thing.”

“I liked it,” said Jules, “but I’m not sure I liked it that much. Let’s see if we can find something else to do.”

“Movies?” suggested Amanda.

“Is there something worth watching on?” I asked. We hit the internet and found some candidates. Of course, the girls all wanted to see some rom-com, while Josh and I voted for an action movie. We lost.

I texted Dana and told her that we would be going to the movies the next night, and what the girls had decided they wanted to see. I asked her if she wanted to join us. I got no reply. I didn’t see her at all on Friday, either. Saturday, the six of us caught up on chores and schoolwork, and there was still no word.

Sunday at just after twelve thirty, Dianna arrived.

I saw her car pull up to the house, and then she walked across the street and knocked on Tim Pritchard’s door. I watched, intrigued. She flashed her badge and then entered his house. Fifteen minutes later she re-emerged, and then walked back over to ours.

I opened the door as she climbed onto the porch, standing back to allow her entry.

She grinned at me as I closed the door behind her. “I doubt you will be having any more trouble with Mr. Pritchard,” she said. “He damn near shit his pants when I showed him my creds.”

I laughed. “Thanks. He’s not a huge problem, but it’s one more that I don’t need.”

The twins came out of the living room and hugged Dianna. “Hi Grams,” said Amanda. “We’ve missed you.”

Jules, who had been doing something in her workshop, padded down the hall, went straight to the older woman, and hugged her.

“Hi,” she said.

Dianna smiled. “Hi.”

“Lunch is almost ready,” I said. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”

“Where’re Josh and Louise?” asked Dianna as she took her place at the dining table. I was still pottering around, finishing up and spooning food into serving dishes that I was carrying to the table. The rest of the girls had sat, knowing that I would rather they just let me get on with it. I could see that when Ness arrived there might be sparks in the kitchen as to who was in charge.

“They went to visit Nana Babi,” said Amanda. I found it interesting that she didn’t just give Dianna the memories, but was spending time explaining it. I should have realized why, but I didn’t make the connection.

Dianna looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“What?” I asked.

“What do you have planned for this Keenan character?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I did consider some kind of retribution, but I decided it’s not my fight. If he was still hurting Josh and Louise, it might be different. They came out of it okay - perhaps even better than okay - so I’m not going to get involved.”

Since all the dishes were on the table by then, I sat, and we began to eat.

“How’s the Healing coming along?” asked Dianna after a few minutes.

“He’s doing amazing,” said Jules. “Look.”

I glanced at Jules and could see that she was offering a memory to Dianna. I saw Dianna take and assimilate the memory before she smiled softly.

“She’s right,” she said. “That was amazing.” Then she turned her gaze to Jules. “And thank you.” I felt a wave of gratitude and love wash over the table. Jules felt it and accepted it, smiling at Dianna.

After a few moments Dianna looked at the twins. “When are your exams starting?” she asked.

“Another few weeks,” said Mary, “then we will be breaking for summer. Ness and her family are coming here for a few days. After that I don’t know what we are doing. Maybe going up there for a while, or maybe doing something else.”

“It’s your birthday soon?” Dianna directed that at me.

“It falls just after we finish the year,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll be having a party though. Bad memories.”

There were cries of dissent from all the girls.

“We ARE having a party,” announced Amanda. “I’m organizing it. We’re having it here.”

“And before you ask,” said Mary, “no, you don’t get a say in it.”

I looked at Jules and she just shook her head. I had no allies.

Dianna chuckled. “I’m sure I remember mentioning something about you being ruled by your women.”

I grimaced. “I thought you were joking,” I grumbled.

“Just go with it,” she advised. “Don’t tilt at windmills.” Then her face took on a more serious note. “Speaking of which, the Council want to meet you.”

“The what?” I asked, surprised.

“The Council,” she repeated. “They are the ones who make the rules for our families.”

“I thought you were the Matriarch,” I said.

“I am,” she replied, “but that is a title given to the oldest, most direct female descendant in a line. The Council is made up of a number of people who are senior in the families but not in the line of succession. Think of them like the brothers and sisters of a king. They are not on the throne, but they are still senior royals. They, in fact, hold all the power.”

“When you say ‘make the rules for our families,’” I asked, “are we just talking about the Eversons and Stotts, or all the powered families?”

“Just us,” she said. “The other families have their own councils, but they do communicate with each other.”

“And who is on this ‘Council?’” I asked.

“Maggie is the only person you know,” said Dianna. “There are three other people - all elders. There are two men from the Everson line, both of whom are my great uncles, then another female who married into the Everson line from another powered family. She is, I guess, my great great aunt – in -law.”

“So, three Eversons and only one Stott?” I said. “Not exactly fair representation.”

Dianna grimaced. “I know where you are going with this, but…”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think I want to meet with them.”

Amanda and Mary both stared at me. I got the impression that refusing an invite from the Council was equivalent to refusing an invite from the White House.

Dianna sighed. “Maggie said you might say that,” she said. “Can I ask why?”

“Because I do not recognize their right to rule over me,” I said bluntly. “I recognise the federal, state, and local governments. With them, I literally get a vote. If I accede to every busybody that wants to stick their nose into my business then I might as well go sign up for Tom Prichard’s HOA as well.

“Besides, I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to meet with them. It will almost inevitably end in us going head to head. I’m still more than a little pissed about what they did to me. They will tell me I must do something, and I will tell them to fuck off! It’s a recipe for conflict. Like you said: keep my head down and don’t draw attention. Make up some reason why I can’t go. They’ll probably recognize it for what it is, but hopefully they won’t push it.”

“You’re not going to change their minds by going head to head with them,” she said. “You are surprising them at every step. Every time something happens, they predict that you will do one thing, and you do something else.”

“And you want me to pretend to respect them?” I asked. “How many of these ‘predictions’ of theirs have been wrong? What kind of leadership gets to be wrong over and over again without suffering any negative consequences themselves?”

“Most,” Dianna answered wryly.

“Fair enough,” I said, “but you get my point. They’re not even prejudiced at this point. That might be slightly less awful.  They actively want me to take the ‘dark  path’ to justify their subjugation of my family. Being right – predicting I’ll do the ‘right thing’ – gets them nothing they want or need. That’s fucked, so fuck them!”

I was starting to heat up, and Jules, who was nearest, put her hand on my arm. I took a breath.

“You are making progress,” Dianna said. “They are slowly coming around.”

“And I don’t want to jeopardize that,” I explained. “What’s the first thing that they will ask of me? What is the first thing that any power user I meet for the first time asks of me?”

She looked at me for a second. “They will want to see your strength,” she said.

“And when I refuse to drop my shield?” I asked. “Because there’s no way in hell I’m standing in front of four power users I neither know nor trust and doing that. Even if I wasn’t worried about them attacking me in that moment, I am not giving those who I still think of as my enemy any more information than they already have.”

“Maggie already knows your strength,” Dianna pointed out.

“Then there should be no need for me to drop my shields,” I reasoned. “But you know they will ask - partly to see if I have developed any more since Maggie last saw me in action, and partly to establish who is in charge. Well, they aren’t. They are not in charge of me.”

She nodded. “You’re probably right,” she said. “It would not be a good idea for you to be in the same room as them. But you are going to have to deal with them at some point.”

“If they want to meet me,” I said, “Then I’ll be happy to meet them individually. I won’t be summoned in front of them like some miscreant or serf. Nor will I be dropping my shields around them, ever!”

“You said ‘four’ power users that you still think of as your enemy,” Dianna queried. “You still think of Maggie that way?”

“Not as an enemy,” I responded, “but I still don’t one hundred percent trust her.”

“And me?” she asked.

Everyone was staring at the pair of us, their lunches forgotten. I could feel Mary and Amanda almost holding their breaths. I locked eyes with Dianna… and dropped my shield.

Her eyes widened slightly, and I thought I saw them moisten a little. I half expected to feel her touch as she examined my mind, but she made no attempt to do so.

“Thank you,” she said. “But please don’t. I’m under their orders.”

I re-shielded, and, breaking the stare with Dianna, returned to my cooling lunch. I heard a muffled sniffle from one side and saw that Mary had tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she sent to me. “You have no idea how much that meant to her, and to us.”

We finished lunch, talking about other things, and then the twins and Dianna went into the living room while I cleared the table. Jules stayed in the kitchen – ostensibly to help.

“I think you surprised her,” she said, as I was scraping the last of the food off the plates into the disposal.

“I surprised myself,” I replied. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. When she asked me the question, I was already asking myself the same thing. Despite what happened at home, I think I actually do trust her. But I know who she answers to, so while I trust her, I don’t trust them. I guess I needed to show her that.

“Also, I think Mary needed to see that. It was partially for her.”

“I love the fact that you think of my parents’ place as home,” she said, smiling. “I know that they like it too.”

I sighed. “I’m becoming increasingly distant from my own parents. I need to do something about that. It’s not that I don’t love them. I just feel like they betrayed me, and I can’t get past that.”

“We’ll invite them up for your birthday,” she said, “and maybe we could go stay over there for a few days during the holidays – maybe reconnect?”

“You wouldn’t mind?” I asked.

“Hey,” she said, with a cheeky grin. “I have to learn to get on with my in-laws too.”

I grinned back at her. We finished up in the kitchen and joined Dianna and the girls in the living room. They’d been catching up, and they were giggling as we went in. I wondered what they were talking about, until Amanda looked at me and cocked an eyebrow.

“You seem to have forgiven Grams,” she said. I wondered where she was going with that, but then it clicked: my plan.

“Mostly,” I said.

“Only mostly?” said Dianna, a twinkle in her eye “What could I do to make it all the way?”

“Did you tell her?” I asked Mary and Amanda together.

“Not specifics,” sent Mary, “but Amanda told her you had a plan as to how she might finally be fully forgiven.”

I looked at Jules. Ideally, I had wanted Jules to be ‘active’ for my plan. I wasn’t the only one that Dianna needed to apologize to.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I sent to the twins, “or I might have set up the playroom.”

Amanda smirked at me. “It’s all ready,” she said. “I did it while you were clearing up.”

I stood up. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” I asked Dianna in a low voice. “Because once we start, there’s no backing out.”

I saw her nostrils flare, and her golden orbs fixed on me, although it was difficult to see the color of her eyes just then; her pupils were that large.

“I need the blindfold,” I sent to Amanda.

“Blindfold, handcuffs, collar, and lead are in the drawer,” she sent, indicating the unit under the television with a nod of her head.

I kept my gaze locked with Dianna. After a moment, she nodded.

I held my hand out, and the blindfold flew from the drawer into it. Dianna jumped slightly, but sat still as I stalked across the room, my eyes holding hers. It remained so until I placed the blindfold on her.

“You have a lot of apologizing to do,” I said to her in a menacing voice, “and not just to me. Are you prepared for that?”

I could see that she was trembling slightly. “Yes,” she whispered.

With my TK, I gently, but irresistibly, moved her from her chair to a kneeling position on the floor with her hands behind her back. Once she was in place, I released the hold. If she had wanted to, she could have moved. She didn’t.

Both Amanda and Mary were watching wide-eyed as I approached Dianna. Standing less than a few inches from her, I slowly undid my zip. I saw her breath catch as she felt me so close, and heard the rasp as the fastener released.

I didn’t even need to tell her. As I fished out my rapidly-hardening cock, she opened her mouth.

I stood still, my cock hovering an inch from her parted lips. She was panting a little. Already I could feel the need building in her. I was sure that her pussy was already soaked just from the little I had done so far.

I placed my hand on the top of her head, grabbing a handful of her hair and holding her in place, as I steadily advanced my rigid tool. I made sure to rub the underside against her tongue as I pushed in in a single slow stroke. I didn’t stop until her nose was pressed against my belly and my crown was nestling in the back of her throat.

She accepted me all the way in without gagging. She swallowed once, and then again, her throat muscles wrapping around the head of my manhood and causing me to shiver in pleasure. I felt my cock begin to drool, and she swallowed again, giving me another shiver.

Pulling back, I allowed her to take a grateful breath, and then once again pushed all the way in.

Dianna closed her lips around me and began to suck, not moving her head, but working her mouth and her tongue as I began to slowly facefuck her. Once more I pushed all the way in and held her there. I wanted her to feel that she wasn’t in control. I was. I saw her face flush and could almost feel her chest start to burn as my cock stopped her from breathing, but she never even flinched. I got the impression that she would have passed out before she moved. I smiled a little, holding for a few moments longer before thrusting slightly further forward, surprising her and causing her to gag before pulling all the way out. She gasped for air, and a mixture of drool and precum rolled down her chin.

I stepped back. “Strip her,” I said to the twins - partly to establish more dominance, and partly because I didn’t want her clothes to get messy. I’m nothing if not a thoughtful dom.

There was a moment’s hesitation, and I turned my gaze to the girls. They saw something in it, and it made them hop-to. They stood Dianna up and quickly removed everything except the blindfold before returning her to her former position on her knees.

“Collar,” I said to Amanda, and she collected the collar I had used on Mary and fastened it around Dianna’s neck. Dianna tensed when she felt it click closed. She knew what it was instantly. She tried to bring her hand up to confirm, only to find that my TK was holding her hands in position behind her. I didn’t need cuffs. She began to squirm. Even standing above her, I could see her pussy starting to drool, her arousal building.

I stepped up in front of her, and once again she opened her mouth obediently. I slid my cock back in, gripping her head with one hand and cupping her chin with the other. While the girls had been stripping Dianna, I had also removed my clothes, and I reclaimed her entire mouth with my cock. Then I began to fuck her face.

I wasn’t gentle about it, although I started slow. Apologies weren’t supposed to be easy, and hers, to me, was only just beginning. I don’t think she realized how much farther she had to go.

Dianna was an expert, though. She had barely gagged even when I had shoved myself as deep as I could go. I had an idle thought that I needed an extra inch or so, and would ask Jeevan if it was possible. In the interim, though, I made up for what I lacked in length with vigour. I held her head in place and rammed into her, giving her no opportunity to do anything other than take my cock and gasp some quick breaths between strokes. A mix of drool and pre-cum was flowing from her mouth and covering her breasts. I fashioned a TK cock, and, without any warning, I rammed into her mouth and her drooling cunt at the same time.

She screamed around my cock as her orgasm hit. She wriggled, trying to move against the sudden intrusion in her pussy, but once it was in, it just sat there, stretching her out but doing no more than that, while I continued to ravage her mouth.

I was starting to feel my climax approaching. For a moment I debated pushing it down, but discarded that idea.  I knew I wouldn’t lose my motivation post-orgasm; the type of satisfaction I was seeking was only tangentially sexual. My pace increased as I continued to pound into her, spit and precum flying from her mouth as I ploughed in and out. She had begun to gag; the sudden intrusion in her pussy had broken her composure, and she had yet to get back into the rhythm. She was struggling to breathe around my cock, and was gasping and choking as I raped her mouth.

Dianna’s face was red; I could see the veins standing out on her neck as I continued to pound in and out of her. Even so, I could tell that she was getting back into the swing of it,  managing to time her gasps around my thrusts, but I didn’t care.

I was getting close to my release, and I wasn’t going to give her any warning. She was either going to swallow my cum or drown in it. I am sure she must have felt that I was close. Reflexes had taken over, and I was just shoving my cock into her faster and faster. My cock swelled in her mouth until finally, with a groan, I shoved as deep as I could and came, emptying my balls straight down her throat.

I held her face against me as I jerked and spasmed, shooting jet after jet of cum directly into her gullet. She didn’t even need to swallow; it went straight down. She didn’t fight, but just sat there and let me use her throat like a fleshlight. I ground into her face to get maximum stimulation. Although there was no need for her to swallow, she did, using her throat muscles to massage my cock as I came, increasing the sensation and prolonging my orgasm. Long after I would have thought she would have passed out from lack of oxygen, she continued to milk me with her throat. The only reason she stopped is because I yanked my cock out of her.

She sat for a moment, unmoving, and then pulled in a huge lungful of air. I could almost feel the oxygen rush hit her, and I twisted the TK cock in her pussy as it did. She squealed again as that combination caused her to have another orgasm. She shook and shivered for a few moments, still panting as her body tried to both recover from the climax and reoxygenate.

I went to the drawer, pulled out the lead, and then connected it to the collar. Dianna stiffened. I got the impression that she thought I was done with her. “You think it’s that easy?” I asked her rhetorically.

I was about to lead her through to the playroom when I had another thought. I remembered the last time I had been in a similar situation, and how I had regretted not being able to see the view from behind as I had led Mary to the playroom. I held the lead out to Mary. “Take her through,” I ordered.

After a moment, Mary stood and took the lead from me. She tugged at it, and Dianna took the hint. I had released her hands, and she began to crawl, following Mary’s direction with the lead. I got to watch her ass as she crawled across the floor and down the hall toward the playroom. It was not the ass of a fit twenty year old, but it most certainly wasn’t the ass of a sixty-seven year old. If I’d not known her, I would have aged that ass around mid to late thirties. It was round and firm, and even though I had cum only moments before, it brought me back to full mast almost instantly.

Amanda followed Mary and Dianna, and I was surprised to see Jules follow also.

When I got into the playroom, I had Mary make Dianna kneel again while I made some adjustments to the pillory. I removed the head and hand restraints. That left the bench and a post that a collar could be attached to.

Once that was done, I got Amanda to strap Dianna in. Her legs and body were immobilized in a ‘doggy’ position and her neck was attached to the upright, where the head restraint would have been, by a short chain. That allowed her a small amount of movement, plus the use of her hands. She would need them for what came next.

“Strip!” I sent to the twins once Dianna was strapped in. I glanced across at Jules, who had taken up station on the two-seater – the very same one where she had fisted Amanda when I’d last used the pillory with Mary. I raised my eyebrow to her, but she shook her head. She was grinning though. It appeared that she was thoroughly enjoying the show.

“You abused your power,” I said to Dianna, “but it wasn’t only my trust that you abused. Therefore, it’s not only me that you have to apologize to.” Since she was still blindfolded, she couldn’t see that I had picked up Mary with my TK. Mary squeaked in surprise, but soon got the idea as I laid her back and opened her legs. A few seconds later, her pussy was an inch from Dianna’s face.

“Say you’re sorry,” I said. Dianna opened her mouth to speak, only to find it pressed hard against her granddaughter’s pussy. To give her credit, Dianna barely missed a beat, and began eating Mary’s very wet snatch. Realizing she had the use of her hands, she brought them into play, initially stroking the younger girl’s legs and ass, and then slipping a couple of fingers inside her drooling twat.  She began a slow pump as she feasted on her. I wondered idly if she could tell her granddaughters apart by taste. I had another idea, and, with a mental note to myself to apologize to our housemates, I located and collected the ‘strap-on’ that Louise often used on Josh. I handed it to Amanda. The dildo was double ended, and Amanda, who’s pussy was already dripping, had no trouble inserting ‘her’ end, and was soon ready for action.

“Now you need to make it up to the other granddaughter,” I said, positioning Amanda behind Dianna. Amanda wasted no time. Without so much as applying lube, she plunged the full ten inches of the strap-on into Dianna’s drooling twat. Dianna shrieked into Mary’s pussy; the sudden, brutal intrusion sent her into yet another huge orgasm. Amanda wasn’t finished with her, though, and immediately began to pound her matriarch from behind, forcing the dildo deep into both of them with each thrust.

Once again, Dianna lost her co-ordination. Her assault on Mary’s pussy faltered as Amanda fucked her. Mary grabbed her head in both hands and reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing. Dianna picked up the pace, slurping and lapping at Mary’s clit whilst pumping two, then three, and finally four fingers into her gushing quim.

I could feel both twins getting close to their climaxes, and I stood behind Amanda as she screwed the ass off her grandmother. I reached around and began to play with her nipples. She moaned and turned her head to kiss me, lost in the motion of simultaneously fucking and being fucked by the strap-on. I was about to set my TK on Mary when Jules stood and walked up to her.

She grabbed Mary’s face and kissed her deeply while also playing with her tits. Dianna all but fisted her while slurping and savaging her clit. Mary screamed into Jules’ mouth as she came, a gallon of girlcum squirting into Dianna’s face and running up her arm. She pulled back a little, off of Dianna’s fist, and then thrust her gushing cunt onto the older woman’s mouth, forcing her to swallow her cum. She continued to grind against Dianna while Jules held her in a kiss and mauled and pulled at her nipples.

Amanda came - partly because she had shared Mary’s, and partly because of the stimulation from the dildo that she was ramming frantically into both their cunts. I suspected, though, that the two fingers that I had shoved up her asshole had had more than a little to do with it too. I still held her in a kiss and was controlling her breath, prolonging her orgasm, which in turn fed back into Mary and caused her to have yet another. Her twat was glued to Dianna’s face by the orgasm equivalent of rigor mortis.

Dianna was willing to surrender her body to us, but she wasn’t willing to give up her pride in her own skills. Despite having cum at the same time Amanda had, she’d never let up on what she was doing to Mary. I saw Mary start to squirm as the stimulation became too much. I pulled her away from Dianna’s face and allowed her to sink to the floor, where she lay panting.

Amanda too, was on the floor. She had sunk to her knees behind Dianna, the strap-on still bobbing up and down as her pussy twitched with aftershocks.

Dianna moaned.

“Are you all cummed out?” I asked her. I figured she’d cum at least four or five times.

“Y-yes” she said.

“Shame,” I said, “because we’re still not finished.”

I stepped up behind her, and, after swabbing my cock up and down her soaked channel a few times,  pressed my slippery crown against her brown star. She gasped.

Dianna was no stranger to anal sex, and her asshole unfolded around my head with comparative ease. Her ass was searing hot and tight around my cock as I slid into her. I went balls deep in a long, steady, single thrust. Dianna groaned.

I gave her a few seconds to acclimatize, and then began a slow thrusting movement. I gave her no other stimulation. I didn’t care if she enjoyed it - if she liked it, even. It was for me, not her. I was going to use her asshole to get off and dump a load into her.

I began to speed up my thrusts, and I felt Amanda move behind me. Still on her knees, she parted my asscheeks with her hands. Each time I pulled out, she ran her tongue up and down my crack and over my asshole. I moaned in pleasure. Mary climbed to her feet and walked around Dianna. She came up to the side of me and dipped her head, taking one of my nipples in her mouth, licking and sucking at it while she played with the other.

With all that stimulation I couldn’t hope to last long, and I began to pound Dianna’s ass faster and faster. Amanda pressed her face into my ass and began to rim me hard. She stabbed into my ass with her tongue even as I was ramming my cock into her grandmothers.

It was Jules who finished me off. She came over, grabbed my face, and kissed me, forcing her tongue into my mouth. I came harder than I had in a long time. I jerked my hips forward, plunging my cock deep into Dianna and holding it there. She felt me pulsating in her ass and she hissed - almost in triumph, I felt - as she clenched, increasing the pressure on my spurting cock and prolonging my orgasm. I began to thrust in time with my spasms; as my orgasm tailed off, I broke the kiss with Jules.

I synchronised my words to my final thrusts. “You. Are. Forgiven.”

It took me a few minutes to catch my breath while my cock softened inside her ass. It slipped out, and a gout of cum flowed out of her gaping hole and across her pussy before dribbling down her leg.

I stepped back, and Amanda and Mary began to undo the straps, holding Dianna onto the bench. I removed the blindfold and collar as she stood up, somewhat stiffly.

She looked up at me, her eyes soft and filled with love. “Thank you,” she said. She looked around at the twins. “All of you.” Then she looked at Jules. Even though she didn’t have power, Jules could tell what Dianna was thinking. She came over and pulled the naked woman into a hug.

“I forgive you too,” she said. Then she sniffed. “But you stink. I’ll go run a bath.”

Dianna and the twins spent an hour in the bath, while Jules and I had a quick shower.

I kissed her neck as I washed her back. “I didn’t think you were ‘active’ just now,” I said.

“I’m not,” she said, “but it’s steak night.”

I laughed.

By the time the girls had finished in the bath, I had made dinner. Jules had given me the idea, and we had steaks with baked potato and salad.

“I thought you might be hungry,” I said to Dianna as she returned to the kitchen, having re-dressed.

“Not too hungry,” she said. “I ate quite a lot today.”

Amanda giggled. “But this is real meat,” she said, “not a meat substitute.”

Jules snorted.

“I don’t know,” said Dianna. “The meat substitute I had earlier wasn’t bad.”

I shook my head.

Almost immediately after dinner, Dianna said she had to go. We’d surprised her; she’d planned on getting some work done, and the deadline was the following day.

She hugged the three girls, and I walked her to the door.

“Caleb,” she said, “thank you. You have given me back my family. I did stupid things, and I could have lost you all forever.”

“Not forever,” I said. “Mary and Amanda will always love you. I was royally pissed at you, yes, but once I calmed down, I realised that I still loved you too. I think that Jules is pretty much there also. There’s only Ness who probably will still be a little wary of you, but I’m sure that once she is here full-time that will fade.”

She smiled at me and pulled me into a hug. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, releasing me and opening the front door.

“Bye, Grams,” I said as she crossed the porch. She stopped and looked back for a second, then got in her car and drove away.