“Happy Birthday, asshole!”
Yeah, that was how my jackass brother greeted me when I answered the phone. If past experience was anything to go by, being a dick was hereditary. At least neither of us were afflicted with it the way our folks were. Silver fucking lining right there.
“Thanks, bro.”
“Wish I could be there for it.” I hated the regret in his voice, like he should feel bad that he had a good damn life that wasn’t just about taking care of my ass.
Joel was three years older than me, but my whole life he’d taken on watching out for me. Being born to a pair of barely functional alcoholics meant we didn’t grow up in a home teeming with affection. We were lucky. For the amount of liquor the two fuckers kicked back each day, our parents weren’t ever out of work. There was always a roof over our heads and food in the kitchen—or cash left out for groceries as soon as Joel could drive. By all accounts, it could have been a fuck of a lot worse.
What it came down to was the fact that neither of the adults supposed to be watching out for us gave a shit. Sure, there was food, but that didn’t mean someone cooked it. Hell, that didn’t even mean they took the care to make sure we were eating it. It was hard to remember being so young that even Joel couldn’t have cooked for us. Obviously, at some point back then, the two of them had to have been feeding us. Who that was and when it stopped, I couldn’t say. All I knew was by the time he was nine and I was six, Joel was the one who fed me. Joel was the one who made me change when I tried to wear clothes that didn’t match, or shorts when I was liable to freeze my ass off. Joel was the one who checked my nasty teeth when I tried to splash some water around and claim I’d brushed.
Now, he wasn’t around for one fucking birthday and felt like shit about it when he was at home with his wife who loved him and made no bones about showing him how much. They were with my nephew who would never for a second have to worry about caring for the new baby Joel and Kate were trying for. My brother had it all, and I wouldn’t begrudge him that happiness for a fucking second.
“The brothers are gonna take good care of me. Probably throwing a party at the clubhouse like normal. Cold beer, hot women, everything I fuckin’ need. Not sure your Mr. Rodgers self could handle it.”
“What the fuck ever, asshole. One of these days, the right pussy is going to come along and sink you, and I’m going to laugh my fuckin’ ass off for the next ten years.”
“Fat fuckin’ chance,” I muttered.
“We’ll see. Now, you gonna clean the language up so I can let my kid in the room? Katie told him it’s your birthday now that he’s old enough to get that shit and he’s been chomping at the bit,” he explained.
“Then why the fuck am I still talking to you?”
He muttered another, “Asshole,” under his breath as muted shuffling came through the line.
“‘Appy Birfday!” shrieked in my ear a moment later.
I was pretty sure I’d just ruptured an eardrum, and the cigarette I’d been nursing had taken a premature tumble to the ground, but I was smiling like a fool all the same.
“Shi—” Joel started in the background, but bit back the curse before it came all the way out. “Hang on a second,” he called out, “let me switch this to speaker.”
Unbothered by his dad cutting in, and not understanding for a second what was going on, Owen kept right on talking.
“Mommy said you get pwesents for you birfday. I tol’ her you want a water pack like paw ‘trol, but you keep it here fo’ us to play wif when you here.”
“You did what?” Joel demanded, his voice louder now through the speaker.
“Is what he wants,” Owen assured him.
“Oh yeah, little man. That’s exactly what I want,” I responded. I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, and I’d undoubtedly catch shit from at least Kate for saying that, but if they didn’t get him the damn thing, I would send it there. One of the crew with kids would be able to make heads or tails of that shit.
I had to make sure I kept up that cool uncle status even though I lived half a fucking continent away. Not that the competition was steep. Kate was an only child who had as little contact with her folks as we did ours. I was the only family Owen had outside his parents.
That argument didn’t mean I was going to stop spoiling him, though.
“How’s my favorite kid?”
“I good,” Owen assured me. “Mommy tryna make me eat peas. I no like peas. You no eat peas, right Untle John?”
Shit. Fuck no I didn’t eat peas. The extent of my green food eating came in the form of lettuce on a burger or a fuckin’ BLT, and I could live without the lettuce on those. Oh, and I was known to allow another green leaf into some shit I ate, but even that made things taste weird. I’d rather just smoke it.
However, I said any of that to my nephew, his mom would be here for my balls. I had enough threats of dismemberment coming at me from people who were local, I didn’t need them coming in from out of town too.
“Gotta eat them peas, little man. You don’t, you’ll end up being small like your dad instead of big like your uncle.”
“Daddy not small,” Owen refuted.
“Damn straight,” Joel confirmed.
He wasn’t. Joel was practically my twin, including our identical heights. The only size I had on him was in muscle, and I only had that because there ain’t a lot else to do when you’re locked up.
“We both know I’m bigger,” I went for the pot shot.
“Not having this conversation with my kid in the room, but you know that’s a bunch of bull.”
“Jenny Mormont said different when I bagged her freshman year after you’d already been there.”
“Now, Johnny,” Kate’s voice came into the fray, even pulling out the real name shit. I let it fly with Owen because the kid couldn’t handle making a Z sound yet, but she knew better. “We both know my adoring husband never had any kind of contact with girls like that before wising up and realizing he should pick a good woman.”
Her “girls” managed to sound very clearly like something far less flattering. Then again, I’d heard Kate call Jenny a “dick-chugging, cum-soaked super slut” once right to her face—which was funny as fuck. I was all about women who weren’t uptight about sex. I fucking loved them, in fact. But Jenny was beyond a slut. The way she’d made her play for Joel after he and Kate were together—a play that involved her asking around for Rohypnol at a party we were all at—made her exactly the other shit Kate called her: a “dead-set cunt.”
“And I know,” Kate persisted, “you did not bring up that person or the conversation I think I’m getting from your mention of her with my son listening.”
“Didn’t happen, sweet cheeks,” I bold faced lied.
“Don’t call my wife sweet cheeks,” Joel clipped.
Kate sighed. “You are such a caveman.”
“You’re mine,” my brother replied.
Sounds of movement and a feminine gasp followed. Undoubtedly, Joel had just grabbed her and was demonstrating his statement. I’d seen more than my fair share of him backing up his claims of owning her over the years to know when it was happening.
“Mommy and Daddy are gross,” I said to my poor nephew who had no choice but to sit there while his parents sucked face.
“Gross!”
“Just wait, little man,” Joel told his son, having pulled himself away from Kate’s mouth faster than I’d thought him capable of. “You’ll be singing a different tune in about ten years.”
“Trust me, he won’t,” I disagreed. “You two are gross.”
“Dick.”
Kate cut in before I could respond to Joel’s dig in a way we all knew was probably going to be inappropriate for young ears. “Did Joel tell you your present yet?”
“Oooh, I get presents. I didn’t think you’d ever let me get a taste, big brother.” I was digging my own grave, but it was too fucking easy. “I like bright colors, Kate. Lace, satin, whatever makes you comfortable.”
“Owen, cover your ears,” Joel instructed.
“Stop,” Kate clipped. “I swear, the two of you are like a couple five year olds.”
Following his wife’s instructions, Joel announced, “We’re coming to visit you, dicklick.”
“In two weeks,” Kate tacked on. “It was the soonest we could both get time off, or we’d have been there today.”
Like I gave a shit whether it was on my actual birthday or not.
“For fucking serious?” I demanded
“Completely, little brother. We should get there on the first.”
I stayed on the line for a while longer, making plans for them to stay at the farmhouse while they were in town, catching up, giving Owen a chance to babble somewhat incoherently at me. I didn’t care that the words made no sense, all that mattered was his excitement to share them with me. And, in just two weeks, I’d be able to see all that fuckin’ joy in person.
I couldn’t fucking wait.
It was after pocketing my phone and turning to head back inside the clubhouse that I noticed I wasn’t alone. Sitting with her butt on the ground was little Emmy, Sketch and Ash’s five-year-old daughter. Beside her was her German Sheppard, Duncan. The dog didn’t have a leash—not that a little girl the animal had already outgrown would have been able to do much with it if he had. Sketch had gotten his daughter a dog to make her happy, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had his own motivations. He’d made sure that dog was trained by the best. It could have probably been hired on by the TSA or fuckin’ feds. It wasn’t about to run off, particularly not when that meant abandoning Emmy.
“What’re you doin’ out here, little miss?” I asked. “Your parents know where you’re at?”
“I told Mommy I was coming out by you,” she responded.
Of course. I’d been responsible for her the whole damn time she’d been out here, even though I had no clue she was. Damn kid was going to get me in a world of trouble one of these days. Not that I cared about that. I was more worried that she could’ve gotten hurt, not about whose ass Sketch would have come after if she had.
I bent down and picked her up, something she welcomed right off. Someday too soon for comfort, she’d be too big for that. Until then, I figured she wouldn’t try to tell me I couldn’t. Emmy was all princess, through and through. If one of us peasants wanted to carry her, she was game to let that happen.
The minute I lifted her from the ground, that dog of hers was on his feet, eyeing me with a clear warning that I better not drop her.
“Who were you talking to?” Emmy inquired as soon as I got us upright.
“My brother,” I told her.
“You have a brother?”
Kids. I swear, it was all questions, all the time. “I do. He lives far away. I’ve gone to visit him before, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. When you left.” She made no bones about how displeased she was that I’d gone out of town in the past. She hadn’t kept it a secret at the time either.
“Yeah, when I left. But I ain’t doin’ that again any time soon.”
“Good,” she stated, haughtier than someone her age should have been. None of us had a clue where that attitude came from. Ash was quiet and sweet. How she’d ended up with a daughter who could out-sass any woman I’d ever met was a fuckin’ mystery.
“My brother is coming here, though,” I told her as I carried her inside with her pup at my heels.
“I can meet him?”
“Yeah, princess. Him, his wife, and my nephew.”
She looked at me curiously. “What’s a neh-fu?”
“You know how I’m your uncle, which means you’re my niece?”
Okay, technically not. Emmy wasn’t mine by blood or marriage, but I didn’t give a fuck about the semantics.
Since she was nodding, I kept right on with it. “Only girls are nieces. A nephew is the same thing, but for boys.”
Her face scrunched up, and I thought I’d lost her. Then, she clarified, “So, you’re his Uncle Daz too?”
“Yup.”
That pinched face didn’t go away.
“But you’re my Uncle Daz.”
Oh shit.
“I’m also Levi, Jules, and Hunter’s uncle,” I tried, naming off the other kids of my club brothers.
She gave me a serious look for a long minute, then smiled. “No. You’re my Uncle Daz.”
For about half a second, I thought about setting that shit right. Then I remembered why I liked being the uncle: it wasn’t my job. I’d let her parents clear that up whenever it became an issue.
“You’re right.”
“Yup,” she replied, popping the P.
“Now, what do you want to do, little miss?”
Her face lit up, and that sight never fucking got old. “Give you your birthday card!”
She squirmed her way into making me set her down so she could run across the lounge to a piece of pink—it was always pink with her—construction paper. But hell, she wanted to be that excited over some pink shit she made me, I’d damn well let her. Just like I’d let Owen spend every fucking minute he was in town talking my ear off with words he didn’t understand that well yet.
And I’d be happy as fuck doing it all.