I wasn’t sure what was so beautiful about the story, so maybe it was a female thing?
Stopping mid step, Rose stared at me in shock. “You were born within eleven months of your brother?”
It’s funny, this was a question I got asked a lot when people found out, and it had never made sense to me until they covered reproduction at school – then I got it. “Yeah, well, just over eleven months after he was born.”
“Were y’all born in the same year?”
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I took in the expression on her face, trying to figure out where she was going with this. “Garrett was born January fifth, I was born December twenty-third.”
Hearing this, her good eye opened widely. After applying ice this morning while I’d gone home to get showered and changed, the swelling in her eye had gone down slightly meaning she could open it a little bit, but it still wasn’t able to do what the good was currently doing. “You’re an Irish twin? Why didn’t I know this?”
“A what?”
“An Irish twin,” she repeated. “It’s when two kids are born within twelve months of each other, and usually people use the term if it’s in the same year, too. That’s so freaking cool!”
“I said the same thing,” Rissa crowed, leaving Hogan to come and join us, and she had. Although, she hadn’t used the phrase Irish twins. In fact, no one ever had, so this was the first time I’d ever heard it.
Looking at her mom, Rose said, “I’ve met Garrett once. He’s in the military and looks just like Raoul. I never knew they were born in the same year, though.” Turning back to me, she asked, “Hey, when’s he back next? Mom totally has to meet him. And Cat, is she coming to visit soon?”
For the first time since I’d woken up this morning, I was grateful for Hogan’s presence when he interrupted the excited females firing questions at me. “Can we get in the damned car already? I’m sure he’s very interesting, but I need air-con.”
The women turned and walked toward the car, leaving me with the fuming father of the woman I had every intention of making mine, not once stopping their conversation. Although they did stop asking me questions long enough for me to start the engine once we were all seated, so I guess that was something. I was aware of the heated gaze of the big man sitting beside me drilling into the side of my head throughout the whole journey, just like I’d been aware of it for the hour I’d been sitting with them while we’d waited for Rose. Apart from the odd answer to a question here and there, neither of us spoke, leaving them to talk between themselves until I parked up and cut the engine off.
And then Hogan had something to say. “Jesus Christ,” he boomed, turning to look at them in the back seat. “We get it already. Now, will you quit talking about him like he’s more interesting than the topic of ‘what came first – the chicken, or the egg’ and let’s get going.”
Both women stopped mid-sentence, staring wide-eyed at him while I looked out the side window, trying to pretend I wasn’t privy to the explosion. Was it awkward? Actually, it wasn’t – it was hilarious, and it took everything I had not to laugh. I could just feel the pressure building inside him as we drove, and every time Rissa repeated something else I’d told her, it would get worse. I also knew that one of the worst Beauregard family arguments had once centered on the chicken or egg question, and it had taken three months for them to come to an understanding after weeks of debates and smack downs. The fact he’d used this as his example was what had me biting my lip to stop the laughter coming out.
Leaning between our seats, Rissa reached out and rubbed his arm. “It’s ok, Hogie. You’re still our number one.”
“Gross,” Rose gagged. “And it was the egg.”
That snapped him out of his sulk. “It was the chicken.”
Sitting back again, Rissa sighed, “Shit.”
I had to agree, shit was pretty much how I’d describe it, too. And when Rose pulled out her phone to call Ellis, putting him on speakerphone for it, I resigned myself that I was stuck listening to it for at least another ten minutes and made myself comfortable.
RoseThe tension coming off my parents right now was hilarious. Mom liked to act like she wasn’t too involved in the chicken-egg debate, but she’d been the worst one out of all of us during debate gate.
“I thought we were going to have to call DB and Logan in for backup,” Raoul snickered as we walked toward Tana’s room.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’d had to call for help to break up a family debate, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. The one we’d just rehashed in the car wasn’t actually our worst one, there were two that we didn’t ever talk about. The first rule of Beauregard fight club was – no one talks about whether or not a hot dog was technically a sandwich, or if muffins were in fact little single person cakes or not. Unfortunately, these ‘debates’ had happened on the same day between Ellis and myself, and my parents had walked in just as it got heated. This led to them weighing in on the argument, discovering they too disagreed with each other, and ended up with Ellis trying to stick my head in the toilet after I hit him with the toilet brush. My grandparents had come over to help us and they’d given their opinions on it… basically, it had become a whole family thing. Needless to say, family meals were quiet for the week that followed, and we’d been banned from discussing it again.