I was only a couple steps into the home before a girl tightly wrapped her arms around my neck. Trying not to be rude, I put my arms around her waist, but there was an awkward bump in between us. From the way Jimmy was laughing, I could tell that my face looked shocked. How else was I supposed to act?

When the girl pulled away from me, I saw that she had short auburn girls that ended at her shoulders. Her thin lips spread into a gigantic smile. Her torso was swollen and it was easy to tell she was pregnant. Seven months was my guess.

She tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. Her touch was soft, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. It had been so long since I have seen another feminine face.

“You’re so beautiful,” she told me.

“Emmie, get back here,” a male voice said while snapping his fingers.

She turned around and went back to him; almost hiding behind his shoulder.

This must be Taylor. It was easy to see the family resemblance between him and Jimmy. They were roughly the same size and had the same colouring. His hair was a lot shorter and he had freckles scattered along his face. His lips curled into a smile and he hugged Jimmy before letting his eyes settle on me. Jimmy pushed me in front of him and lace his fingers through mine so I couldn’t move.

“She’s right; you’ve got a pretty one,” Taylor told him.

“I know,” Jimmy said kissing the top of my head. “I’m lucky.”

I couldn’t stop the heat from rushing up to my cheeks. All of their eyes were intensely on me.

“Welcome to the family, Juliet,” Taylor said warmly.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

Jimmy and Taylor both went outside to get our things out of the truck. Emme went into the kitchen and I followed her.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” I said while shaking my head.

She opened up the fridge and pulled out a blue plastic water bottle. It was only a quarter full. She unscrewed the cap and drank out of it.

“Taylor makes me drink a couple of these a day,” she started to tell me. “He says it makes the baby healthy. It makes it a boy.”

She stroked her hand down her stomach and I bit down on my lip. What if it wasn’t a boy? Or worse, what if she died giving birth?

I tried to shake these thoughts out of my mind. I had to believe that it was a healthy boy or I wouldn’t be able to look at Emme again.

Jimmy and Taylor came back inside, and Jimmy had our bag over his shoulder. They walked by us and I heard them as they walked up the stairs. I stayed down here with Emme; he didn’t tell me where to go. They came back down the stairs and walked into another room. Emme stayed where she was, so I decided to do the same.

“How old are you, Juliet?” she asked me.

She just asked me a question. Girls must be able to ask other girls questions. Jimmy never told me that, so maybe she’s just doing it because they can’t hear us. I could hear their murmured voices in the next room. This was the second time today that I could ask questions.

“I’m almost twenty,” I said. “And you can call me Julie.”

“Well, Julie,” she said like she was exercising a new word on her tongue for the first time. “I’m twenty, so we don’t have much of an age difference at all.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

“My sister, Gabe’s wife Lindsay, is seven years older than me. It’s nice to have another girl my age around here.”

I noticed that there was something weird with her nose. It would wiggle, almost representing a bunny rabbit. I had to control myself so that I didn’t do it myself. I didn’t want it to look like I was insulting her.

“Do you ever get lonely during the day?” she asked me. “I find that sometimes the day just seems to drag on and on. Well, being this big doesn’t help either. I tend to talk to myself until Taylor comes inside.”

“Yeah, it does get a little annoying,” I said.

“Well I it’s what, less than two years until Tommy gets his girl. Just be happy they were born close together. I couldn’t imagine how long the days would have been for Lindsay. She at least had Jenny though. You’ll love Jenny. You’ll love them both actually. They’re like the sister and mother I never got.”

I let a smile appear across my lips. I hadn’t put much thought to what it would be like when Tommy got his girl. It would be nice to share the chores, but would I have to mentor her in some sort of way? That would be Tommy’s job, wouldn’t it be? Jimmy is the one who taught me, so Tommy must have to do the same with his girl.

I already feel a bit sorry for her. They will be protecting her from the outside world, but she’s stuck with Tommy. I cringed to think of the way he touched me and what he may do to his girl.

Jimmy and Taylor came back into the kitchen. Jimmy wrapped his arm around my waist and Taylor put his hand on Emme’s shoulder. She gulped down the rest of the water.

“Do you have dinner ready yet?” he asked her.

“It’ll be done in a couple minutes. I wasn’t sure when they’d get here, so I didn’t know when to put it in the oven,” she explained.

“Okay, Jimmy and will be outside for a bit,” he told her.

“I’ll try keep it warm.”

Taylor leaned in and kissed her. I felt Jimmy press his lips against my cheek and pat my hip before he let me go.

Emme opened up the oven to check on the food inside. She cradled her belly as she bent down so she could see. It must be difficult to do all of this work at that size. I felt bad for her.

“Can I help with anything?” I asked her.

“The plates are in that cupboard over there and the cutlery in that drawer, if you want,” she said. “It’s always nice to have a bit of help. Noah and Jenny come over a lot for dinner and I love having another girl in the kitchen.”

“Yeah that must be nice,” I said taking the plates out of the cupboard.

I walked over to the dining room and began to place them on the table. The only thing separating the two rooms was a counter and a glass cupboard full of coffee mugs. Emme leaned over, with her elbows on the counter, so she could still see and talk to me.

“It sucks you don’t you don’t have Marilyn. You’re all alone in that house all day,” she told me.

“Marilyn?” I asked putting the last plate down on the table. I hadn’t heard the name before.

“She was Charles’s girl,” she said. “I guess they wouldn’t talk about her too much. People deal with that kind of thing differently, you know?”

“Yeah.”

I walked back into the kitchen and opened up the drawer she pointed to earlier. I picked out forks and knives and brought a handful of them over to the dining room table.

“What did you do before you got here?” she asked me. “And I don’t mean like the car ride over. I mean like when Charles brought you home.”

I didn’t know what I was supposed to tell Emme. Jimmy never told me. I didn’t want to start saying a bunch of stuff that he was trying to hide. I didn’t want to be embarrassed about me.

“Don’t be afraid,” Emme told me, like she was reading my mind. “This is just girl talk. I won’t be telling Taylor any of it. You can’t tell Jimmy either though.”

“Sounds good,” I said looking up to flash her a smile. “I was a stripper.”

“Really?” she asked in disbelief. “I can’t see you as one. You seem so shy. Well shy to me, but that doesn’t mean much. Some people think I talk too much, but I don’t think so. I wasn’t always this way though.”

“Why are you now?” I asked.

I looked over at Emme to see that she was twirling one of her curls around her fingers. She shrugged her shoulders.

“People would say that I fried my brain, but I don’t believe it,” she told me.

“Fried it?” I asked arching an eyebrow. “What? Were you sitting in the sun for too long?”

She started to laugh and I started to giggle along with me.

“It’s a brain, not an egg, Julie,” she said continuing to laugh. “I use to like to go out and have a lot of fun. I drank quite a bit, but I don’t think that’s what they were talking about. I was taking any drug I could get my hands on. I mostly did LSD, and they say that’s what destroyed me. My parents even forced me into a hospital when they heard me talk to the voices.”

“The voices?” I asked her, trying not to sound too freaked out.

“You never hear any?” she asked me, sounding a bit confused. “They forced me into hospitals and wanted to lock me away forever. I got released and ran away from my parents. A couple days later Noah found me and brought me here. Taylor makes me just as happy and he doesn’t care about the voices. Now that is what love is.”

The lock turning in the door was loud and Emme backed away from the counter when she heard it. Jimmy and Taylor came in, and Emme pulled a roast out of the oven. I finished putting the forks around the plates.

They sat down and we began to eat.

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Author's note: Thank you everyone for reading. I knew a few people really wanted to meet the rest of the family, so I hope this doesn't dissapoint. The rest of the family is coming up in the next update. Please comment your thoughts and what you think will happen next please :)