He gave my shoulder a firm squeeze and then turned back to his family as I sat down.
“Nice to meet you,” I said to Aidan, and I smiled at Ethan and his mother. They were gone minutes later.
“That man,” Jeremy said thoughtfully. “The one who didn’t talk. He looked kinda sad.”
“Oh yeah?”
He shrugged. “But maybe not.”
My nephew was perceptive and sensitive, and I was there to make sure that no one ever berated him for it. “Hey, tell me about karate. How’s it going with that?”
After dinner, we went for dessert, and I realized that my face hurt a little, so once ice cream was consumed, which made no sense to me in the middle of winter, I dragged them with me to the supermarket to buy something stronger than what I had at home.
“How ’bout this?” Amanda offered, holding up a box for me.
“He doesn’t have diarrhea, dink.” Jeremy rolled his eyes at her.
I chuckled, watching them and remembering how I had treated my sister, their mother, like an idiot every single day of her life until she was old enough to hit me. It came with being an older brother.
Back in the parking lot, my phone went off, and it was Brian on the other end, reminding me that I was supposed to be driving him to the airport. Since it was a Friday night and the kids wanted to go, I called Theresa and got permission to take them with me.
“What did they eat?”
“Pizza.”
“What did they eat for dessert?”
“What makes you think I bought them—”
“Leo,” she said flatly.
“Ice cream.”
“It’s the middle of winter.”
“This is what I said.”
She let out a huff of breath.
“So, what, you gonna do their dad?”
“Oh my God, you’re a pig!”
But she didn’t say she wasn’t going to have sex with their father. “Yeah, you knew that.”
“Take care of my kids, jerk.”
“Big talker. Who’s takin’ them if you get hit by a bus, T?”
She hung up on me because that was the truth. My sister loved my parents, but she had named me in her will as legal guardian of her kids if, God forbid, both she and Paul should die. She did not want my mother raising her children; she felt that I would do less damage. It had made for a really fun Sunday night dinner.
Brian was surprised to see that we had company, but it was good, since it kept him from talking about or asking about Charlie. I was thankful.
By the time we were headed back it was late, well after eleven, and Amanda had passed out in her booster seat. Jeremy, who was as hardcore as I had been at eight, kept popping back awake even as his eyes rolled back in his head. Once I turned the heater on, he was a goner.
When I finally made it back to my sister’s house, I was going to drop the kids off and get out of there—pleased to see that that Paul was spending the night—but both he and Theresa wanted to talk to me. I understood. She needed to thank me, and so did he. It made sense, but it lasted a long time. I finally staggered into my loft by three. I didn’t make it past the couch.
5
The knock on the door woke me at five in the morning. I stumbled to the door, and there were Trey and Dave, two of the guys from my crew.
“You look like shit,” Dave assured me, passing me a large cup of coffee and a bag with a donut in it.
I just looked at him.
“Nice eye.”
No one had commented on it the night before, so I was guessing that while it had been red, it had not been so noticeable. The day after, though, was when a black eye started looking pretty.
“Why are you here?” I whined, though I took the cup and the bag. The coffee smelled way too good to turn away.
“Because you insist on us doing charity work one weekend a month,” he snapped at me. “And it’s that weekend, dickhead, so get dressed so we can all get out there and freeze our balls off.”
Shit.
“It was your idea,” Dave bit out before he turned and muttered all the way down the hall to the door that led to the stairs.
I lived in a converted warehouse without an elevator. You had to climb three flights up to get to me, and the stairs were on the outside, uncovered. The homeowners’ association was trying to put in an elevator, but for only twelve tenants, the bill was kind of high.
“So,” Trey said, slurping his coffee, “let’s go, princess.”
My body hurt, I was tired, and I wanted to go back to sleep.
“And D’s right, really nice eye. What’s the story on that?”
“Fuck.”
He laughed at me as he walked into my apartment, and I went to get ready for the day I had forgotten all about.