Abraham
Fourteen years later
You have five grandbabies, Mom. Pretend a couple of those are mine,” I said with a kiss to the side of my mom’s head.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she said in frustration, pinching me lightly on the side as she moved past me into the kitchen.
We’d been having the same conversation for the past five years, and my answer had never changed. I didn’t want kids. It’s not like I didn’t love my nieces and nephews—I did. I just didn’t want the responsibility of having one of my own. I was happy being the uncle who bought cool-as-hell Christmas presents and took the kids fishing when I felt like it—then sending them home with their parents.
“Why do you keep asking?” a voice called out from the back door, making my jaw clench. “You know Bram will never love anyone as much as he loves himself.”
“Anita,” Mom scolded with a sour look.
“Interesting, coming from you,” I murmured, bracing myself as I glanced at the slender woman walking into the room.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anita asked, dropping a bag of groceries hard on the table.
“Don’t see any kids pulling on your skirts,” I snapped back.
Anita’s eyes grew wide with hurt for only a moment. “I’m not wearing a skirt,” she hissed stupidly, spinning on her heel and almost running out of the kitchen.
I watched her leave, then glanced at my mom in confusion. What the fuck?
“Christ, Abraham,” my mom said, shaking her head as she pushed past me. “I don’t understand why the two of you can’t just ignore each other.”
I stood there like an idiot for a minute, then followed them toward the living room, stopping just on the other side of the wall as I heard my mom’s voice.
“You okay?” Mom asked.
A watery chuckle answered her.
“You know he was just—”
“I don’t expect anything less, Mom. I’m fine,” Anita choked out. I leaned hard against the wall and closed my eyes. Shit. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but I knew she’d been crying. Her voice was normally husky—I’d pointed out more than once that she’d make a good phone sex operator—but it was magnified by a thousand as she brushed off my mom.
“If you would—” my mom said, her words cutting off as Ani spoke.
“I’m fine. Promise.”
Before I could move from my spot, Anita was stepping out of the living room, and the front door was opening wide to show my cousin Trevor slipping inside.
“Trev!” Anita yelled, running toward him.
“Hey,” he said on a grunt as Ani jumped at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
My stomach twisted.
“What’s wrong? You been crying?” he asked softly as he wrapped his arms around her.
Ani’s voice was muffled when she answered him, so I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the second his hand started to run soothingly up and down her back I’d had enough. We were in my parents’ entryway for Christ’s sake, and it looked like he was about to fuck her against the wall.
I snorted, bringing Trev’s eyes to me. I ignored the glare he sent me over her shoulder as I turned and left the room.
* * *
“How’s that new site coming along?” Mom asked, trying anything to break the silence at the dinner table.
Friday night dinners had become something of a tradition at my parents’ house when we were just kids. While all our friends had to be home on Sunday night for dinner, dragging their hungover asses to the table, our parents had decided that making us sit down as a family before the weekend got crazy would be a better way to keep us in line. They weren’t wrong. Sitting down at the table with your parents at the beginning of the weekend was a good little reminder to not fuck up during the rest of it.
For a while before we’d all grown up and moved away, there were eleven of us crammed around my parents’ dining room table. Mom and Dad, me, my twin brother Alex, my little sister Katie, and from the house next door my aunt Ellie and uncle Mike and their boys Trevor, Henry, and their foster son Shane. Anita didn’t move in until after I had already moved out, but before my brother Alex had left for the Army.
I wasn’t sure why we always ate at my parents’ house, but it had been that way for as long as I could remember. Aunt Ellie usually came over to help my mom, sometimes taking over her entire kitchen while she cooked, but we rarely ate at Uncle Mike and Aunt Ellie’s house. Maybe it was because, when we were all home, we didn’t even fit at Ellie’s dining room table, though getting us all in the same place at the same time rarely happened anymore.
We were all scattered around the country now. My little sister Katie had moved to San Diego years ago and eventually married Shane, who was stationed down there with the Marines. Henry was down there, too, with his own Marine unit. My brother Alex had joined the Army when we were almost twenty and was stationed in Missouri. Trevor, Ani, and I were the only ones left in Oregon with our parents.
We were also the only ones who showed any interest in our family’s logging business.
“The new site’s going fine,” Dad mumbled as he shoveled more food into his mouth. “Everything’s on schedule.”
“Well that’s good,” Mom said brightly. “Maybe you guys can take a break when Katie gets here.”
My head snapped up, and I saw Ani’s do the same. “When’s Kate coming up?”
“She said she was going to find tickets for next month. I guess one of the airlines is having a sale or something,” Mom answered with a smile.
“She’s going to need it with all those munchkins,” Trevor said with a chuckle.
“Why do you think we never went anywhere when you were kids?” Dad asked Trevor, leaning forward to grab a serving tray. “Your dad and I realized early that, if we wanted to take you kids on vacation, we’d have to rent a passenger van and drive you. Too expensive to fly.”
“Remember that time we went to see Mount Rushmore?” I asked Trev, grinning.
“Fun trip,” Trevor replied, nodding. “Would have been better if Henry didn’t puke all over me every two hundred miles.”
Anita snorted, and I couldn’t help but laugh. We’d had to drive the entire way with all the windows down, it had stunk so badly.
“Poor Henry,” Mom said, smirking. “That boy always got carsick.”
“And I always had to sit next to him!” Trevor bitched.
“Well, I wasn’t sitting next to the puker. He’s your brother,” I said seriously, glancing up from my plate to meet Ani’s eyes.
She was smiling, but it was small. The kind of smile a person wears when they aren’t part of the joke but are trying really hard not to look out of place.
My mouth snapped shut.
“Well at least none of Katie and Shane’s kids get motion sickness,” Mom said, leaning back in her chair.
“There’s no way Katie’s making that drive again,” Ani finally piped in, smiling at my mom. “She said, the last time they drove home, it took them twice as long as it should’ve because they had to stop a thousand times.”
“Little bladders,” my dad said, making us all chuckle.
I glanced at my watch and pushed my plate back. “Thanks for dinner, Mom.”
“You’re leaving already?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.
“I’ve got plans tonight. Couldn’t change them,” I replied, standing from my seat and grabbing my plate and glass. “I’ll clear the table before I go.”
My mom grumbled a bit, but sat back and let Trevor and I clear the table around my dad, who was still eating. I always tried to help my mom clean up after dinner, at least when there were so few of us kids there. When Katie or Alex was home, I pretended like I had no idea how to clean up so they’d get stuck with the dishes. They deserved it for getting out of so many family dinners.
“Man, you need to ease up on Ani,” Trevor murmured while we worked around each other at the sink. “She’s been off lately.”
“You kidding?” I looked at him in surprise. “She starts that shit.”
“Just take a step back.”
“Barking up the wrong tree, Trev,” I replied, drying my hands off on a towel. “She can dish it but she can’t take it? Give me a break.”
“I’m just saying—ease up a bit. It’s getting to the point that you’re pissing me off lately.”
“You her protector now? Got something going on with Ani?” I asked, turning to look at him. The question was stupid, and I regretted it the moment it popped out of my mouth.
“Would that be a problem?”
“No,” I ground out from between my teeth. “Do whatever you want.”
“You’re such an ass sometimes, Abraham.” Trev sighed and shook his head. “I don’t have anything going on with Ani, numbnuts. But I’ll still kick your ass if you don’t fucking lay off.”
I walked out of the kitchen before he could say another word. I was pissed. I never started that shit with Ani—it was always her running her mouth. Christ, the woman couldn’t go five minutes without sniping at me, and it had been that way since we were kids. Did I care about her? Of course. Hard not to care when someone’s been in your life for the better part of fifteen years, but that didn’t mean I was going to lie down and let her walk all over me.
I didn’t want to think about why the thought of her with Trevor made my gut churn.
“I’m out of here,” I said quietly to my mom, giving her a quick hug.
“Well that was a fast cleanup,” she replied, patting me on the back.
“Told you I had plans. I’ll see you in the next couple of days.”
I nodded at Ani and my aunt and uncle, then patted my dad on the shoulder as I made my way through the house. I was going to have to haul ass if I wanted to be on time.