9
GAVIN
The next several hours went by in a sort of blur of delight. My family was ecstatic. To put it mildly. My mom cried at the sight of my grandma’s ring.
Suddenly, Whitley and I were whisked around the backyard, and I was introducing Whitley to all my King cousins, plus dates and friends and children. It was an overwhelming number of people on a first visit. Whitley handled it like a champ, laughing and greeting everyone like this was a common occurrence.
“Okay, remind me of names again,” she said with another secret grin.
“There’s a lot of them. I don’t expect you to remember everyone.”
“I’m going to get it right,” she said determinedly.
“All right. Malcolm, Margaret, Trent, Nathaniel, Cora, and Lawrence. We call them Mal, Maggie, Trey, Nate, Cor, and Law.” Which I realized wa
