Chapter 447 - 447: Sunday's Lunch.

Anthony Jnr. was waiting at the window.

Kyle saw him the moment Gerald pulled up outside the tall Victorian townhouse in Kensington. A small face pressed against the glass, wild hair sticking up in every direction, both hands flat on the windowpane. The second he spotted the car, he vanished.

By the time Kyle opened the car door, the front door of the house had already flown open.

"Jasmine!"

Anthony Jnr. came running down the steps in his socks. Michelina appeared in the doorway behind him, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Anthony! Shoes!"

He didn't hear her. Jasmine had already climbed out of the car, the Hamleys bag hidden behind her back, and the two of them stood on the pavement grinning at each other like it had been years instead of a week.

"Hi," Jasmine said.

"Hi," Anthony Jnr. said.

Then they both ran inside.

Tony stepped out onto the top step, laughing. "Hahaha! Well, that's the children sorted." He came down and pulled Kyle into a hug that nearly lifted him off the ground. "My boy. Come in, come in. Michelina has been cooking since dawn. If you don't eat everything, she'll be offended. If you do eat everything, she'll be offended there wasn't more."

"I'll do my best," Kyle said.

"Don't worry about it," Tony said, glancing past him at Jane. "I have faith in your team."

Jane turned pink. Ella laughed so loudly the neighbor's curtains twitched.

Michelina met them in the hallway. She hugged each of the women in turn, then held Kyle at arm's length and looked at him the way a mother looks at a child who has just told her he's moving to another country.

"Monday," she said. "Tony told me. Monday."

"I'm sorry. It came up quickly."

"Don't apologize. Just eat." She took Junior's carrier from Cassandra without asking and peered down at the baby with open delight. "Oh, look at him. So this is the famous Junior. Have you been feeding him butter?"

"Mostly milk," Cassandra said, smiling.

"Well, he looks wonderful." Michelina kept the carrier and swept off toward the kitchen with it. "Come, everyone. Rachael, take their coats."

Rachael was perched on the windowsill in the living room, exactly where she had been last time, scrolling through her phone. She didn't move.

"Rachael."

"I'm going, I'm going." She slid off the sill and held out her arms for the coats. When she took Ella's, she paused and looked her up and down. "You're leaving tomorrow?"

"Afternoon flight."

"Shame." Rachael folded the leather jacket over her arm. "Dad's going to cry at the door. Just so you're prepared."

"I am not going to cry," Tony called from the next room.

"He cried at the end of a cooking show last week," Rachael told Ella in a loud whisper.

"It was a very moving soufflé!"

-

Lunch was a full Sunday roast.

Beef this time, carved thick and pink in the middle, surrounded by roast potatoes, glazed carrots, buttered greens, and a mountain of Yorkshire puddings that Jane stared at like she had seen the face of God.

"What are those?" she whispered to Rebecca, who was sitting beside her.

"Yorkshire puddings," Rebecca said, already sneaking one onto her own plate before the meal had officially started. "You put gravy in the middle."

"In the middle?"

"Trust me."

Jane trusted her. She took one. Then, after a moment of careful thought, she took two more.

Tony caught Kyle's eye across the table and raised his glass very slightly. Kyle raised his back.

Thirds. As promised.

The conversation never once turned to business. Tony wouldn't allow it. Instead, he told the story of the night he met Michelina in a bar, trying to impress his friends, and how she had looked him up and down and told him he was full of himself. Michelina corrected every second sentence, and Rachael rolled her eyes at both of them, and Rebecca laughed so hard she choked on her water.

Kyle sat back and watched.

Cassandra, feeding Junior tiny pieces of soft carrot. Ella, arguing with Rachael about music and losing for the first time in her life. Jane, on her fourth Yorkshire pudding, eyes closed in bliss. Jasmine and Anthony Jnr. at the end of the table, whispering and giggling and kicking each other's feet under the chair.

Rachael leaned across the table and pointed her fork at him.

"Last week I asked about your love life," she said. "This week I'm only asking one thing. Are you good to them?"

The table didn't go quiet, exactly. It got softer.

"I'm trying to be," Kyle said.

Rachael studied him. Then she nodded and went back to her beef. This was a far more appropriate question compared to last week.

"Good answer."

-

After lunch, while the adults were still groaning over their plates, Jasmine stood up very straight.

"Anthony," she said formally. "I have something for you."

The table went quiet.

Ella grabbed Kyle's arm under the table and squeezed so hard it hurt.

Jasmine walked around the table holding the Hamleys bag in both hands, exactly the way she had practiced all weekend. Then she stopped in front of Anthony Jnr. and opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

She had forgotten every single word.

Kyle watched her face go from confident to panicked in about half a second. Her bottom lip wobbled. Her eyes darted toward him.

Kyle gave her a small nod.

Jasmine took a breath and just held the bag out.

"It's Wolverine," she blurted. "Because you gave me yours. And then you didn't have one anymore. And I didn't want you to not have one."

Anthony Jnr. took the bag. He pulled out the box and stared at it.

Then he looked up at Jasmine with his gap-toothed grin.

"Wicked," he said.

Ella made a strangled sound and buried her face in Kyle's shoulder.

"I'm not crying," she muttered into his shirt.

"You're crying."

"I'm not."

Anthony Jnr. jumped off his chair and ran out of the room. They heard his footsteps pound up the stairs, then a crash, then more footsteps pounding back down. He reappeared in the doorway, breathless, holding a large green figure in both hands.

"Then you need Hulk," he said, pushing it into Jasmine's arms. "Wolverine needs someone to fight. Otherwise he gets bored."

Jasmine looked down at the Hulk. Then up at him.

"You can't give me Hulk. He's your best one."

"That's why," Anthony Jnr. said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

This time, Michelina was the one wiping her eyes with her apron.

-

Later, Tony found Kyle on the back step, looking out at the small garden.

He didn't say anything at first. He just sat down beside him with a grunt, reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a single cigarette.

He held it out.

Kyle looked at it. Then at Tony. Then he laughed.

"I still don't smoke."

"Neither do I," Tony said. "But you'd be surprised how many conversations can be started with a cigarette in this country."

It was word for word what he had said the day they met. The day Kyle had looked at this strange, smiling man and decided he was nothing but a nuisance with too much free time.

Kyle took the cigarette and turned it over in his fingers.

"Take it with you," Tony said. "For when you need to start a conversation in America. Or end one."

"I'll keep it safe."

They sat in silence for a while. The garden was small and tidy, the grass still wet from the morning.

"Thirty-eight years with Michelina," Tony said eventually. "And she still surprises me. Family isn't about how long you've known someone, Kyle. It's about who you let in." He clapped Kyle onWolverine?

"You let us in. Don't forget that when you're back in your big American house."

"I won't."

"Good." Tony stood up, his knees cracking. "Now come inside before Michelina gives your Jane the rest of the roast to take on the plane."

-

She did, in the end.

Three containers, wrapped in foil and tied with string. Jane hugged them to her chest like they were treasure.

At the door, Rebecca pressed a folded drawing into Jasmine's hand. Rachael gave Ella a hug she clearly hadn't planned to give and said, "Don't be a stranger," in a voice that sounded like she meant it. Michelina kissed every cheek she could reach, including Junior's.

And Tony cried.

Not much. Just a little, at the very end, when Jasmine hugged his legs and said, "Bye, Uncle Tony."

"It's the onions," he said, wiping his face. "Michelina used too many onions."

"There were no onions," Rachael said.

"Hahaha! Then it's the wind!"

-

Gerald drove them back through Kensington as the light faded.

Jasmine fell asleep before they reached Hyde Park, the Hulk clutched against her chest. Jane had already opened one of the containers. Ella's head rested on Cassandra's shoulder. Junior snored softly in his carrier.

Kyle looked down at the cigarette in his hand.

One more morning. One more conversation.

Then home.