My nephew looked like he’d been working his ass off, to his credit. He wiped sweat off his forehead, and his cheeks were flushed. In this heat, manual labor wasn’t my favorite thing in the world.
“Fancy runnin’ into you here, Unc,” he said. “What’cha doin’?”
“I’m watching TV—what’s it look like?”
He sucked his teeth. “’Scuse me for fuckin’ askin’.” He shifted his stare to Archie. “Aren’t you gonna introduce me? Or are you embarrassed by your family?”
I let out a laugh and shook my head at the punk. Embarrassment didn’t exist in our gene pool.
“Kaden, Archie, not a marksman. Archie, Kaden, my nephew.”
Archie smirked wryly at me before offering Kaden a polite smile. “Hello.”
Kaden jerked his chin. “’Sup. I don’t know if youse’re friend-friends or, you know, friends, but my uncle ain’t as tough as he seems.” He clapped me on the shoulder, and I cocked a brow at him. Not that he noticed. “His last boyfriend ended up being a cheating scumbag, and we weren’t allowed to beat him into a bloody pulp when Greer dumped his sorry ass—”
“That’s enough, Kaden.” Maybe some embarrassment existed after all. Jesus fucking Christ.
“But my mom drove all the way down to DC and slapped the shit outta him!” Kaden still found that hysterical. “The two-bit motherfucker, not Uncle Greer. Just to be clear.”
I clenched my jaw and reached up to smack him upside his head.
“What the fuck!” He flinched away and rubbed his head. “I’m just lookin’ out for you!”
He didn’t need to do that, goddammit. Especially not in front of a complete stranger. Fuck me, I should’ve told him this wasn’t the buddy I was originally meeting up with. Not that I was sure it woulda made a difference.
“You can go back to work—that’s what you can do,” I told him firmly.
I didn’t have it in me to be genuinely angry with my nieces and nephews. They could frustrate the ever-loving crap out of me, and I could get annoyed. That was about it. But even now, I wasn’t irritated. I just wanted him to take a hike.
“Fine,” Kaden huffed. “We get off in an hour and have access to a car. Can we go to your place?”
“Of course. You know where the spare key is.” I turned back to my food and picked up a rib.
“Thanks.” He bit his lip and hesitated. “Sorry if I spoke outta turn.”
And that was why I could never be angry with the hellions. They had their hearts in the right place, meant well, and were fiercely protective of our family. My brothers and sisters-in-law were raising their kids damn well.
“It’s all good. Pretty sure you have barbecue glaze in your hair.” I bit the meat off the bone and smirked up at the kid, who was instantly horrified.
He ran a hand through his hair repeatedly and grimaced, presumably when he felt something. It made me laugh. Another perk—it made him wanna hurry to the port-a-johns to clean up.
“I have no words for what I just witnessed,” Archie said.
I snorted and scooped up some mashed potatoes. “Be glad you only met one of them. Christmases are a circus.”
I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world, though. Besides, Ben and I were Ma’s favorites when we came home for holidays and got all her attention since she saw the other three brutes all year-round.
“Big family, I take it?”
I nodded and went for the rest of the mac and cheese. “We’re five brothers, but our parents kinda adopted three of our cousins when they lost their own folks.”
My cousins’ kids were every bit my nieces and nephews as my brothers’ kids.
“Oh—I’m sorry to hear they lost their parents,” he replied carefully. “Did it happen at the same time?”
Their deaths?
I chewed what was in my mouth and wondered if I should steer the topic to something lighter. I didn’t know this guy, and we were treading dangerously close to tragedy.
On the other hand, the deaths of my aunt and two uncles had never required a lengthy explanation. If Archie was anything like most people, he’d close the topic on his own.
“They died when the towers came down,” I said.
“Fuck.” He swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. For a moment, he looked genuinely stricken. “I’m very sorry—I shouldn’t have asked.”
There we go.
“It’s fine.” It was never going to be fine, but it’d been over ten years. The world had moved on, and my family had dealt with the grief and anger the best way we could.
Now he could ask something else. Maybe about carnival games and shooting galleries.
“I went to Ground Zero a few years ago.” He wasn’t changing the subject at all, goddammit. “It’s a beautiful memorial and a painful scar. I made myself read all the names.”
The mac and cheese in my mouth went down like a chunk of lead.