Page 7 of The Family Friend

"Mom made a salad," Harriet says, smiling at Gram and wringing her hands.

Gram eyes the salad the same way you look at a gnat on your steak. "Nobody at my age aims to be healthy. I don't want to live forever. That's just exhausting."

"Ma." Harriet's mom sighs. "You could at least try⁠—"

"I could try a lot of things, like pissing in public. Doesn't mean I will." Gram piles more lasagna on her plate, maintaining eye contact with Harriet's mom. "Pass the meatballs. I'd also have the regular soda, not the sugar-free one."

Juliet snorts. "You'll outlive us all out of pure stubbornness. I'm older, I go first, so quit hogging the drama."

"You're older by twenty-eight months and you never let anyone forget it."

"Damn right I don't. Not until the day I die."

Like I said, a lot of talk about death for a birthday weekend.

They bicker—about how the lasagna needs more bechamel or the burger buns are too dry—while sitting close enough to share an armrest. Harriet catches my eye across the table and rolls hers, and I have to bite back a grin.

Then the twins show up, the only ones I've been avoiding ever since I heard one of them yell how he would gain a hundred thousand followers if people found out who he was partying on the weekend with.

Jake and James barrel out of the house. They spot me and freeze.

"Holy shit," one of them breathes. "That's him."

"Language," three different adults say at once.

"Sorry. Holy crap. You're Heath Donovan."

"Guilty."

They're identical, these two, but Jake's wearing a jersey—not mine, but my teammate's—and James has a phone already halfway to my face.

"Dude, can we ask you some stuff? Like, that catch against Denver last season? The one where you basically climbed that safety's back?"

"That wasn't as hard as it looked on TV."

"Bullshit," Jake says, then glances around at the adults. "I mean, bull. That thing was impossible. You were like thirty feet in the air."

"More like eight. Felt like thirty though."

James is holding his phone up, thumb hovering over the screen. "Guys, you are not going to believe who's here. This is insane⁠—"

"No." Harriet's voice cuts across the table. "Put it away and stop embarrassing us."

"Come on, Harriet, this is⁠—"

"He's here as family, not content. Phone down or I'll lock those up until Sunday."

Gram backs her up without looking up from her lasagna. "You heard her. Put it away before I throw it in the lake. You ever film Heath secretly and you answer to me. And by answer, I mean I'll toss that ugly-looking game thing you attached to my TV. Or I'll probably just set it on fire. Will depend on my mood."

The boys deflate, but they rally quick. "Okay, but can we get some photos? Just regular ones? We won't post it this week. Just once we're back home."

I nod, and they're off their chairs in a heartbeat, crowding around me with the phone. They take about fifteen shots from different angles, and spend the next ten minutes hunched over the screen, arguing.

"This one makes my face look weird."

"Your face always looks weird. We're twins."

"You look weird too then."