Page 38 of Black and White, Twice the Might (Cadenbury Town #8)

W e all move to the kitchen, and I help Emily put the food out on the kitchen island. She’s also brought paper plates and hot water urns for coffee.

Sly kisses her cheek. “Thanks for this, Emily.”

“You’re very welcome, dear. I bet you can’t wait until the front door closes tonight and you spend your first night in your new home.”

“We really can’t. It’s been a long time since we had somewhere we could properly call home.”

“It will be good knowing if we don’t want to go out, we don’t have to,” Enoch says, eating another sausage.

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to that as well. Fancy coming to Sunday lunch next week?” I ask.

“That will be lovely, thank you, Ebby,” Emily says, drinking her coffee.

We get yeses from everyone else.

“Lunch will be at one,” Sly adds.

“We’ll be here, thanks,” Titus says, saluting us with his mug.

Justice puts his empty plate down. “It’s my weekend to work, but I’ll drop in if I can.”

“If you can’t make it, we’ll send you a plate home,” I tell him.

“Thanks.”

We finish lunch and get back to unpacking, which goes much faster using magic, well, it would, but we keep messing around.

I’m in the master suite with Justice. He clicks his fingers and I laugh as our clothes are hanging in mid-air in the bedroom and our bed is set up in the large walk-in wardrobe.

“I can’t believe the size of your wardrobe,” he says, shaking his head.

“I know, we have our own shopping mall. We won’t even fill half of this with the amount of clothes we have.”

I hear a whistle from behind and see Titus standing behind us, gazing in wonder at our walk-in wardrobe.

“This is literally my dream wardrobe.”

Justice and I laugh.

“You could probably fill it with just your suits alone,” Justice says, grinning.

“I really could. Not sure I’d want my bed in there though.”

We laugh again, and I click my fingers, and now the bed is where it should be and our clothes are in their proper place, and yep, we don’t even fill half of it.

“And now you have space to buy more clothes,” Titus says.

“Yeah,” I reply unenthusiastically. I loathe clothes shopping. I’ll happily shop for anything else, but not clothes.

Titus and Justice burst out laughing.

“You should chat with Nix, he breaks out in hives even at the thought of clothes shopping,” Justice informs me.

“That’s fine, the next time you all want to take a shopping trip, Nix and I can stay behind and thank our lucky stars together.”

“A shopping trip?” Sly asks, walking in with Ernest. “I’m up for one.”

“I’ll message everyone and get a date we can all do,” Ernest adds.

“I’ll message Nix and find something else to do.”

“Ebby hates clothes shopping,” Sly tells Ernest.

Ernest shakes his head. “Why are we even friends?”

I laugh. “Because you claimed us before you knew us?”

“My bad,” Ernest replies.

“Bad luck, Ernest, you’re stuck with us now,” Sly says, grinning at him.

“Fine, we’ll keep you.”

“We were going to anyway,” Titus replies, smiling my way.

“So anyway,” Ernest says. “I came to tell you everything has been unpacked. We didn’t touch anything that looked like it might be things for your chocolate making, that’s still boxed up and in the utility room.”

“Thanks. I need to wash the workshop down before I think of unpacking anything,” I say.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Thank you all for your help over this weekend and this morning,” I say, looking at those gathered.

“It’s what family does,” Adhan says from the doorway. “You have a supermarket delivery. Those who are downstairs are helping to carry it all into the kitchen. You did a lot of shopping.”

“We needed everything. I’ll come down and help,” Sly says, turning and walking out of the bedroom.

“We can all go and help,” Ernest says, leading the others out.

In no time at all, the shopping has been brought into the kitchen, ready for us to put away.

“Oh, before I forget, all crockery is clean,” Sal says, waving to everything stacked on the side. “We thought we’d let you put them away.”

“Thanks, Sal,” I say.

“Are you coming for dinner tonight, or having it here?” Adhan asks.

“Here,” Sly says. “I can’t wait to cook something.”

“In that case, we’ll get out of your hair. Enjoy your first night in your new home,” Adhan says, wrapping an arm around Ernest.

“Thanks,” Sly and I say at the same time.

“Justice and I will add our protection around your place as we leave,” Ernest adds.

“Thanks,” both Sly and I say at the same time.

The family turns to leave, Adhan and Kean carrying out the hot water urns. Jude collects all his tools, and Sal finds Connie in one of the front rooms with Nora.

There are hugs and more thank yous, and finally, after waving everyone off, we close our front door.