"Who are all these people?" Lucy asked, amazed.
"My cousins," Hope smiled. "Well, mainly. He's not. That's Jordan. He's the son of my Uncle Ike's cook."
"Wow! You sure have a lot of cousins."
"Yep! This is Esme and Carmen and Morgan. This is Lucy."
"Hi Lucy," Esme, Carmen and Morgan greeted.
"Hi."
The five girls got on like wild fire. At one point, Rogue and Storm tried to join them, but soon went back to tormenting their brothers by having their Furbies say mean things about them.
After lunch (which was a novel experience for Lucy) the girls decided to stay inside. A few hours later a black jeep Cherokee pulled up in the street outside the house and a dark-haired young man climbed out of the drivers seat.
"Who's that?" Isaac asked Zac.
"It's Lucy's brother," Zac answered before standing up and waving. "Yo! Jesse!"
Jesse grinned.
"Hi Zac. Visitors today huh?"
"Yep. These are my brothers Taylor and Isaac. And umm, most of the kids scattered around the place are his fault," Zac replied, pointing a finger at Isaac.
"You're just jealous."
"Jealous? Of what? He has more identical sets of twins than... than... than umm, something. Even his wife is an identical twin."
"And you dated the other one."
"I'm surprised he doesn't get his kids mixed up."
"It's hard to get your kids mixed up when you name them things like Storm and Cyclops and Cosmo," Taylor commented with a sly grin.
"You're kidding," Jess laughed.
"No, and what's more there's twenty of them," Taylor replied.
"Twenty! My parents can barely handle two."
"Well, that's a hint if I ever heard one," Zac grinned, then stuck his head in through the doorway. "Yo! Lucy! Ya bro's here!"
"Say, have we met before?" Taylor asked suddenly. "It suddenly strikes me that you look familiar."
"Jesse! You're back!" Lucy screeched from the hallway, running out and giving him a hug.
"You didn't miss me at all, did ya?" Jesse grinned.
"Oh. My. Gosh," gaped Morgan, stepping outside.
"That's where I've seen you before!" Taylor said triumphantly, snapping his fingers. "Morgan has your face plastered all over her bedroom."
"Da-ad!"
Jesse laughed.
"Always happy to meet a fan," he smiled. "Would you like an autograph?"
"Could I?"
"Sure. Umm, anyone have a pen? And paper too for that matter."
"Here," Isaac said, passing both over.
Jesse wrote something and then gave her the paper and handed the pen back to Isaac. He turned to Lucy.
"Well, now we really have to get going. Later dudes!"
The second they left, Morgan freaked out completely.
"Oh my gosh! That was Jesse Trewin! I got Jesse Trewin's autograph! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!"
"Quick! Snap her out of it before she hyperventilates!" Esme giggled.
But just as they thought she had calmed down, she looked at the paper and freaked out again.
"Oh my gosh! I have his e-mail address! He gave me his e-mail address!"