Chapter 64
Okay! So, what can I tell you guys?”
“How about your
name?” Laura asked. “I’m Laura, and this is my sis—”
Gorgeous Guy burst
out laughing. “Oh, jeez, I know who you
guys are. Or maybe you didn’t notice that she looks exactly like the busy lady in the
office.”
“It hadn’t escaped
me,” Laura admitted.
He was looking from
her to me and me to her, and his grin was so open and sunny I had a
terrible time not smiling back. But most of me was still stumbling
around in shock, mentally speaking. There was a lot of info to take
in, and there hadn’t been much time to do it.
Our tour guide was
taller than both of us, a good two inches more than Laura (yeah, my
sis: prettier, smarter, thinner, taller . . . bitch!), and slender,
with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He was wearing khaki pants
and a blue T-shirt, practical clothing that didn’t disguise his
flat stomach and (I assumed, and would check out the first chance I
had) awesome butt.
He was pale—not
sickly or unhealthy, but the guy hadn’t been getting a lot of sun,
which made his shock of black hair seem darker and his blue eyes
bluer. His jaw bloomed with dark stubble, but despite the slight
beard, he gave off an air of youth and exuberance and—it was hard
to explain—good times.
Some people, they
just seem cheerful all the time, and when you’re around someone
like that, it’s hard to stay worried or grumpy.
“Come on,” he teased.
“You guys can’t figure out who I am? You both know me, back in your
when.”
So he knew us
(obviously) and knew we were time traveling. (Also obviously, since
Other Me had clearly prepped him.) But who could we know who was
around now—when—ever now was—but who
also—also—
“Holy God!” I cried.
It was the hair, really. That shock of black hair, startling on
someone so fair-skinned. It was the first thing I’d noticed about
him.
About my
brother.
“BabyJon!”
“Aw, man.” Gorgeous,
grown-up BabyJon covered his face, then dropped his hands and shook
his head. “I outgrew that nickname a while ago, Mom.”
“Mom?” I nearly
yelled.
“Okay, technically
you’re my big sister—like you’re Aunt Laura’s big
sister—”
“Aunt
L—”
“—but I grew up
calling you Mom. But if that’s freaking you out, since I’m still
shitting in my crib where you come from—”
“That’s a weird way
to put it,” Laura said.
“Look, I’ll try to
master the whole toilet thing as quickly as I can, but bottom line,
right now in your when, I’m suffering
the heartbreak of fecal and urinary incontinence.” He threw up his
hands. “I’m owning it, okay? Don’t judge.”
It was too much. I
burst out laughing. And Babyjon—Jon, I s’pose—joined me. It was
kind of nice. I remembered it for a long time, because it was about
the only nice moment we had the ninety minutes we were
there.