Love Is What You Make It

23. Surprise!

         Jack finally finagles some time off from his boss, and they all decide that it's time to meet Lacey's family.  "I think four and a half years is a safe amount of time to wait, don't you Jack?" Thomas remarks, throwing his feet up on the kitchen table.   "We haven't got 'er pregnant yet, shre hasn't knocked any'f us up--Mandy, it's a race ya see, down to you and me.  Jack's the dad so he can't get knocked up, but us two--"  Amanda knocks his feet off the table and Thomas goes down hard in a tangle of legs and chair; Jack and Lacey knock their heads together trying to pick him up off the floor, and Amanda laughs.

         "No feet on the table, Tommy Boy," she lectures, and Thomas shoots an unimpressed glare over the top of his glasses.

         "Well someone's not getting any of this hot ass tonight."

         "Somehow I think I'll live," she quips, and Lacey snorts into shrer hand.

***

         Asteroid had invited Jack and Amanda up to the ranch several times, but they had never felt comfortable going without Lacey.  Not to mention, Jack had never been sure he was ready to meet Lacey's family.  But Lacey has always been good at making him ready.

         They rent a car--Lacey refuses to take a bus, and shre says shre wants to see the countryside.

         It's a long drive, peeing in rest stops by day and bedding in roadside motels by night.  They rotate who sits up front, and Jack switches off driving with Lacey every hundred miles or so (Thomas's gone and let his license expire, and Amanda's expired just after she was captured, so while they keep insisting that they should take a turn at the wheel, Jack makes Lacey promise that shre won't let them).   Lacey always takes shotgun when not driving, and since shre's taller than all of them Thomas only complains a little bit.

         Amanda knits an entire blanket and loses a skein of yarn out the open window when Thomas tries to figure out her needles and bumps her arm as she's rolling a new ball.  He made the mistake of only bringing his textbooks and some snacks, so he's bored out of his mind and a little carsick by the third day.  When they stop off for gas in a small town he remedies this by wandering off and returning with three huge Stephen King novels.

         In the car he reads them aloud, handing them over to whoever isn't driving when his throat gets tired.  They're fifty miles gone from the town by the time Jack realizes that Thomas stole them from a public library.

         Jack brought his cameras and backup batteries, of course.  He wouldn't be Jack Jaquerel Jackson if he didn't.

          By the time they pull into the Aborwie ranch legs are cramped, spirits are flagging, and several wars have been started and abandoned.  They'd gotten all the way through The Stand and are working on Under The Dome.

          The house is big and barn red, three stories plus attic and cellar--Lacey pulls right up to the front door and honks the horn as loud as shre possibly can, waking Thomas with a start.

          Immediately, the hounds are upon them--literally and figuratively.  Lacey's sister owns approximately thirty dogs, and as soon as they hear the unfamiliar car roll in they lose their fucking minds.  Once they realize it's Lacey that's arrived, the barking becomes joyful and demanding.

         Jack isn't a fan of dogs.

         Oh, in theory they're great, and he likes a singular dog, sometimes even two every now and again, but the moment the number climbs above three at the very most, his comfort level plummets like the American stock market in a drought.  Amanda and Thomas are all about it--they leave him for the siren call of puppies, and Lacey is the one who does the honorable thing.