Hank stopped by the trailer park the first thing the next morning. He felt oddly guilty, even though it was no crime to hook up with someone, and he certainly hadn’t known who Eric was when he’d given him a damn hand job.

He just knew that Aunt Laura and the others wouldn’t see it that way if they found out.

Theresa made things worse the moment she saw him, although she didn’t mean to. He and his older sister hadn’t always seen eye to eye, but she’d never made him feel bad for going to culinary school or living outside of the trailer park.

“You look like hell,” she told him.

“Thanks, sis, you look good too, and work’s going great; thanks for asking,” Hank replied.

Theresa hugged him hello and then led him up to Aunt Laura’s trailer. “You need to get laid or something. Seriously.”

If only she knew. “I’m fine just as I am, thanks. So what’s going on? All I know is what Aunt Laura yelled at me about yesterday, and she was doing that thing where she talks over herself, so I really couldn’t make much out.”

Theresa sighed and led him inside. “They’ve sent another one.”

“A real smarmy asshole, too,” Aunt Laura said from the kitchen area where she was making coffee.

Mom was sitting on the couch. Hank gave her a hug hello.

“It feels like I hardly ever see you nowadays,” Mom said, smiling at him. “I wish you’d live closer to us. There’s plenty of room for you to bring your own trailer if you want.”

“Mom, please, could we not do this now?” Hank asked, sitting down in the leather armchair that had once been Uncle Frank’s.

Uncle Frank had died a couple of years ago from cancer. It felt like ever since then, Aunt Laura had only been ramping up the trailer park crusade.

Hank missed Uncle Frank. He’d been able to temper Aunt Laura. And he’d really sort of stepped into the father role that Hank and Theresa hadn’t had, since Hank’s dad had skipped out on them while Mom was still pregnant with Hank. Theresa barely remembered him, and didn’t care to, and Hank, of course, knew next to nothing about him.

He wished that Uncle Frank was still around, so he could talk to him about this whole Eric thing. Uncle Frank would probably tell him to buck up and get over it, but he’d do it in such a way that would sound just right, a way that would make Hank actually be able to buck up and get over it. Move on.

Instead, Hank was stuck with his mother and his aunt, neither of whom had a good track record of saying things in a way that made Hank want to hear them.

“You know, I’d almost hoped they’d given up,” Theresa said. “After that last guy just went…” she twirled her finger against the side of her head in the universal symbol for crazy. “I mean, he had a mental breakdown or something, didn’t he?”

“That’s what happens when you get the kids to paint his Mercedes-Benz bright pink,” Hank replied. “You’re lucky we didn’t get sued up the wazoo for that stunt.”

“We also put rotten eggs in his car pipes,” Aunt Laura snickered. “That was a stroke of genius.”

“You guys do realize how childish you’re being, right?” Hank asked. “This is why this whole thing is so ridiculous. I get that they’re assholes, but you’re not helping by pranking them like we’re all back in high school.”

“It’s the only way to have any impact,” Aunt Laura replied, handing out coffee to her sister and Theresa. “If we tell them to back off, they don’t. If we tell them we’re not interested, they still keep coming. They’re putting pressure on the city council, and they’re buying up the land all around us. Scaring them off is the only way to have any effect on them.”

“It can’t be the only way,” Hank said. “Can’t we pool our resources and get a lawyer?”

“That’s actually why I asked you to come meet with us,” Theresa said. “Your boss is married to a lawyer, isn’t he?”

“About to be married,” Hank corrected.

“Right.” Theresa nodded. “We were hoping that you could ask him to look into this. That maybe you could take the lead on this one.”

“You mean you want me in charge?”

Hank couldn’t remember the last time his family had actively trusted him with something big. They were always telling him to come and live with them, and ragging on him for not participating in the family enough, but they certainly never wanted him doing anything important. They probably thought he wouldn’t care enough to put the proper amount of work into it.

Aunt Laura shrugged. “I wasn’t sure about it, but Lenny raised the same points to me that you have. We can’t keep pranking them and bugging them forever. A time’s gonna come when we have to meet them in court, and I want us to be prepared for that.”

“I don’t think Adam handles this kind of law,” Hank admitted. A part of him, he had to confess, was sitting up, ready to jump for joy at the idea of his family actually trusting him enough to ask for his help with something that was so important to them. But he wasn’t about to get their hopes up unnecessarily.

“He can advise you though, at least, can’t he?” Mom asked. Mom was as stubborn as Aunt Laura, but she was gentle about it.

Hank sighed. “Yeah, I can ask him and see. I wouldn’t get too excited, though; I don’t know how much help he’ll be.” Especially since the guy that Hank was going to be asking Adam about was Adam’s work friend.

“You’ll deal with this guy for us?” Theresa asked, hope creeping into her voice. “I know you don’t live here, but Hank, we’re your family. And I know you don’t want to see us get pushed out.”

“Well, of course I want you guys to have what makes you happy,” he replied. “Just because I personally don’t want something, doesn’t mean I’m judging you guys for having it. I mean, I could judge you all for getting married to the opposite gender, if we’re going by that logic.”

Theresa snorted in laughter, but Aunt Laura didn’t look amused. “This isn’t a joke, Hank. We’re asking you to discuss this with that lawyer, and then go and stick it to that company rep.”

Hank could hear the don’t screw this up in her tone. “I get that you think I’m the enemy for some reason, but I promise that I actually care about what you guys want. If you guys want to stay here, then I’ll help you with that.”

“You think that we should move,” Aunt Laura replied.

Hank sighed. “I think that you should stop pressuring me to move in here; that’s not the same thing.”

“No, you said that it wouldn’t be a big deal if we moved—”

“Exactly. That doesn’t mean that you should, I’m just saying that if you did, it’s not like we’re on the Trail of Tears here. We’re not getting kicked out of our ancestral home by the evil colonizers, we’re literally just moving into some houses half an hour away.”

Aunt Laura rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to make it sound like we’re being overdramatic. Yes, this is nothing like those situations, but it’s still where your grandfather was born and raised, and it’s where we were all born and raised, including you. You telling me you don’t feel any nostalgia for this place?”

“Home is family, not a place,” Hank replied. “You wouldn’t have to leave the town, you wouldn’t have to be scattered—”

“It wouldn’t be the same,” Mom said quietly. “We’re all together here. We all have our own personal space, but we also can so easily reach one another. There are a lot of memories here. And what would I do in a big empty house? And in apartments, you don’t get all of this green, all of this open space.”

Hank sighed, dropping his face into his hands. He knew he was a sucker where his mom was concerned, and he supposed that she had a point. Having a bunch of houses on the street wasn’t the same thing, and none of his family had ever really wanted a whole lot of space. A big house really would be too empty for Mom. And houses were a lot more expensive to maintain than trailers, and neither the houses nor apartments would be out in nature like this.

“All right,” he said, sitting back up. “You guys have a point. But I want to prepare you for the fact that I might not be able to do anything.”

“But you know fancy people like that,” Aunt Laura replied.

“You are really not helping your case,” Theresa added.

“I don’t know fancy people, Aunt Laura, for crying out loud. I’m a cook at a bar. I’ll talk to Adam, see what he knows about the law, and see if we can get these guys off your back once and for all. I can talk to the development rep as well; did he give you his name?”

“He just said Eric,” Aunt Laura said. “I didn’t let him get any further than that.”

“Yeah, I bet you didn’t,” Hank grumbled. “Have you spoken to Grandpa about any of this?”

Aunt Laura and Mom nodded. “He’s not moving, Hank,” Mom said. “I suppose the rest of us would be okay if we move—”

Aunt Laura snorted.

“—but you know how upset Grandpa would be. And we don’t know how much longer he has.”

Hank wanted to roll his eyes, but restrained himself. Mom had been talking about Grandpa having one foot in the grave for a decade now. But now that his grandfather was in fact a great-grandfather, Hank was pushing thirty, and some of his cousins had kids, Mom might have a point about Grandpa maybe not having a lot of time left.

If Grandpa had needed a nursing home or something, it would be different. They’d have to put him in one wherever the rest of the family lived, if that was what he needed. But it didn’t seem as though he did. Grandpa was still managing to be as spry and cranky and determined as he had been when Hank was a kid, and Hank was starting to suspect that Grandpa was going to somehow outlive even him.

But, well, it was a reasonable kind of caution, wanting to be aware of what Grandpa wanted, and how much time he might or might not have left. Hank sighed.

“I understand,” he said.

Aunt Laura raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, no, I don’t understand,” Hank amended. “But I don’t have to understand in order to want to help, right? You guys are my family, and this might come as a shock to all of you, but I actually want you all to be happy.

“I’ll see what I can do about this new development rep, and I’ll talk to Adam about what we can do on the legal side of things to chase the company off for good.”

“Maybe you could dig up some blackmail on them or something,” Theresa said gleefully.

“This isn’t a TV show,” Hank reminded her.

Not to mention he did actually have some blackmail on Eric, if not on the company itself. He was pretty sure Eric’s bosses would not be happy to find out he’d had sex with one of the family members of the people Eric was supposed to be buying the trailer park from.

But it wasn’t like Hank was actually going to use that. First of all, he wasn’t sure it would actually get him anywhere — hell, he and Eric hadn’t even known who the other one was when they’d had sex — and second of all, Hank liked to think that he was a semi-decent human being who didn’t blackmail people, thanks.

“Like I said,” he repeated, “I’ll see what I can do. I appreciate you guys trusting me with this.” It wasn’t like they’d done a bang-up job of trusting him with anything else the past few years.

“We’d just really like this entire thing to be over,” Mom admitted.

Hank reached across and took her hand. “I know, Mom.”

“We scare them off, and we tell them we’re not selling — I know it’s childish, but how many times do we have to tell them no before they understand that this isn’t for sale? That this isn’t something that we’re giving up?”

“It’s going to be okay,” Hank promised. “I’ll make sure that they get the message this time, okay? And we’ll find a way to legally get them to back off. Luke got them to back off.”

“That was because Luke’s got the most popular place in town,” Theresa pointed out. “He got investors, and turned it into a place that the developers couldn’t afford to go after, because he was raising the property value of everyone around him.

“Nobody benefits from us hanging around. If the trailer park stays, it only benefits us. This doesn’t raise property values or do anything for the community.”

“You’re not exactly helping your cause here,” Hank pointed out.

“I’m just trying to explain the difficulty we’ve been under,” Theresa said.

“I’ll figure out a way to get this guy to back off,” Hank said. He was pretty sure he could figure out how to press Eric’s buttons.

“Not just this guy,” Aunt Laura said. “Though he’s a right stuffed shirt if I ever saw one. The company will just send another one. We want the company itself to back off, and to have the message be loud and clear to any other development companies who try and muscle in.”

Hank nodded. “Like I said, I’ll take care of it.” He paused, unsure if he wanted to ask this next question.

The thing was, he was flattered that his family was asking for his help on this. Honored, even, although that word made him feel like a dog scrambling for scraps, both literal and figurative. They’d never once asked for his help or expertise in anything. Instead, they’d just told him all the ways that he was living his life wrong.

But he didn’t want his hopes to be dashed if he asked and found out that this wasn’t a universal family decision, and that his mom, sister, and aunt were going against the wishes of the rest of the family. He didn’t want to discover that it was only three people taking a chance on him, instead of the entire family having faith in him.

His curiosity got the better of him, though.

“Does the whole family know about this?” he asked. “Grandpa? Lenny? The rest?”

Mom nodded. “Yes. I suggested that we ask you to reach out to your lawyer friend, and Grandpa agreed that it was a good idea.”

Hank noted that she didn’t say the rest of the family thought it was a good idea — just Grandpa. Grandpa had an almost ironclad grip on the rest of the family. Where he went, the others followed.

Hank and his grandfather hadn’t always been … well, Hank had always known that Theresa was the favorite grandchild. When Hank had first declared his intention to go to culinary school, Grandpa had put his foot down about it. Hank’s refusal to bow to his grandfather’s will, and his determination to break off anyway, had pretty much sealed his fate as the black sheep of the family.

But it seemed that Grandpa was willing to overlook any past discretions now. Whether the rest of the family were going along with it because they agreed, or just because they always went along with what Grandpa said … well, that was another question entirely.

Hank forced himself not to think about it right then. He was going to get that damn company off of his family’s back, and prove that just because he wanted to handle his life differently from the rest of them didn’t mean that he was trying to break off from the family or anything. They’d put that judgment on him; he hadn’t ever declared it for himself.

Now was a chance to prove that to them.

He squeezed his mom’s hand. “I promise, I’ll take care of all of this, okay? It’s all going to be settled.”

Mom nodded, smiling softly at him and squeezing his hand in return. “I know. I trust you.”

Hank stood. “Can I talk to Grandpa about this? Make sure I’m getting his side of things?”

“You don’t trust my word?” Aunt Laura asked.

“No offense, but no,” Hank told her. “You guys kind of kept me out in the cold for God knows how long, and now you’re asking for my help? C’mon.”

“He’s got a right,” Theresa pointed out. “It’s not like we’re a cult or something; there’s no ‘only the worthy can talk to the grandmaster’ going on here.”

Hank bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to hold in his laughter. Aunt Laura looked at Theresa like she source of all of Aunt Laura’s woes.

“He’s in his trailer,” she said.

Hank gave them all a little salute, and then walked over to Grandpa’s trailer.

“Knock knock,” he called, matching his actions to his words and banging on the frame of the screen door.

Grandpa opened it almost immediately. “So you did know I was here,” Hank said.

Grandpa snorted. “Boy, you’re almost noisier than your car. ‘Course I knew.”

“I mean you knew ’cause you asked Mom and Aunt Laura to bring me here and talk to me for you.” Hank folded his arms. “What, you don’t want to see me anymore?”

“I figured it would be easier to discuss it with them.”

“Because you’re under the mistaken impression that I can’t handle your … what was it you called it? Tough love?”

“I told you the truth,” Grandpa said, voice sharp. “I helped raise you so you could be a part of the family, not flitter off and do your own thing like we don’t matter.”

“You told me I was going to fail and that I shouldn’t even bother trying.” Hank glared, anger rising in him despite himself. “That’s not tough love, that’s being an asshole. What the hell would Grandma say?”

“She’d want you here.”

“She’d want me to be doing what I love. She taught me how to cook; she’d be glad I was doing it as a job.”

Grandpa rolled his eyes incredulously, looking a lot like Aunt Laura in that moment.

Hank took in a deep breath, held it, then slowly released it. “Look, I didn’t come here to fight. I just came to double check that you really want me to help you guys out.”

Grandpa nodded. “You’re our best bet. We’re a bit … cut off, here. And our tactics aren’t working. We were hoping to just scare them off, annoy them until they went away, but instead the company just sends a fresh guy every couple of months. But you know people.”

“I can’t guarantee anything,” Hank told him, same as he’d told Mom and Aunt Laura.

“I thought you would be excited,” Grandpa said. “A way to prove yourself.”

“I shouldn’t have to prove myself,” Hank shot back, his temper rising again. “I’m family; that’s not something you prove. This isn’t initiation week at Kappa Gamma whatever.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Just…” Hank forced himself to calm down. “Just, would it kill you? To accept me? Just because my lifestyle’s different doesn’t mean I’m not the same as the rest of you where it counts. ’Kay?”

He turned and walked away before he could get any angrier. He really didn’t need a fight, especially not out in the open where the rest of the family could come out of their trailers and watch.

The part that hurt was that Grandpa didn’t even try to stop him or talk it out further. He just … let him go.

If they were all so eager to have him live with them, be like them, then why didn’t they work harder to show him they cared? Why did they always just let him leave?

Theresa was waiting for him. Hank didn’t know how much she’d heard, and he didn’t care. She walked him back out to his car.

“We can’t afford a lawyer,” she explained. “That was the next step. But even pooling our resources … it wasn’t going to be enough to justify the cost, really. And then I remembered that your boss’s fiancé was a lawyer, and I thought…”

“Maybe you also just need a fresh pair of eyes on the thing,” Hank said. “You know, like when you’re looking for something and you can’t find it, so then you ask someone else to come in and help you look, and they somehow find it immediately?”

Theresa nodded. “Yeah.” She folded her arms and huffed. “Look, I’m not one of them, but not everybody’s happy about getting you involved.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“So prove ’em wrong,” she finished, giving him a small but sly smile.

“You know I will,” Hank replied.

He got into the car and huffed out a breath as he sat down.

No pressure or anything.