“Okay, people,” Marcella called through the waiting room. “We’ve gawked. Let’s clear out and let the regular folk have the room. Ladies, everybody know what you’re doing? If not, see me before you go.”
The way the old ladies mobilized when there was somebody in the family who needed help would never cease to tickle Zach. They’d make sure there was food for weeks. They’d clean the house. Do the errands. Buy the diapers. Whatever else Kelsey and Dex needed to make their first weeks with the baby smooth. They did the same thing when somebody was sick, or if a Bull went inside, or any other kind of big problem. When there was need in the family, the family—led by the women—stepped up. It was impressive as fuck.
“Mom’s still got work, so let’s you and me get outta here before the womenfolk lasso us for grunt work,” Pop said and drew Zach toward the elevators.
Zach laughed. Escaping now was only a delay. If Marcella wanted them, her old man would see to it she got them.
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~oOo~
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Apparently, the Jessupmen were not needed. They put their attention instead to taking care of their own woman. When Mom got home from work that evening, Zach, Jay, and Pop had the house clean, the table set, and the pizza picked up.
Neither Zach nor Jay had yet found any reason to move out of the house they’d grown up in. They all got along and even mostly enjoyed being around each other. The house itself was a big, rambling farmhouse on beautiful property, with woods just the right density for nice, long walks. There was a good-size manmade lake for swimming and fishing. Pop had built a great garage and workshop where he was now running a small, off-the-books bike restoration and customization business. They had the dogs, and some chickens, and over the years they’d remodeled and built the house out several times so there was plenty of privacy for anybody who wanted it—including the privacy to bring a girl home, but they were pretty far in the boonies for that to be something that happened a lot. He and Jay both did their fucking at the clubhouse.
Until Zach had a family of his own, getting an apartment in Tulsa just seemed lonely. The only time he ever thought about maybe getting a place of his own was when the internet crapped out at a particularly enraging moment. Country internet was not what anyone would call robust.
As Mom walked into the kitchen, Pop opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine.
“Wow! What’s the occasion?Ididn’t have a baby today!” Mom said as she went to Jay and kissed his cheek. “Hi, baby.”
“Hiya, Mama.” Jay gave her a squeeze.
“And hello to you too,” she said and kissed Zach’s cheek.
Zach gave her a hug. “Love you.”
“I love you. Everybody gets so lovey when a new baby happens!”
Pop brought her a glass of chilled wine. “It’s a good day when the family gets bigger. Been gettin’ smaller too often lately,” he said and pulled Mom close for a kiss. Not a peck, either. They were both well into AARP territory, but to each other, at least, they were still hot.
Leaving them to their inappropriate PDA, Zach went to the table. “Can you do that later, and someplace private?”
“Don’t be a prude, Zachary,” Mom said and came to the table. She patted his back and sat down with her wine. As Zach started making up her plate she added, “I love it when I get waited on hand and foot.”
“Hand and foot is later, baby,” Pop said, tucking his face against Mom’s neck. Then he took his own seat at the other end of the table.
“It’s like a fuckin’ Viagra commercial in here,” Jay complained. Mom threw a pepperoni at him.
Zach’s phone buzzed as he sat down. He flipped it over—a text from Lyra. Justhahaha, responding to the dumb joke he’d texted in their convo about the new baby. That had been a couple of hours ago now; she’d been working a job all day.
He turned his phone face down again. He’d reply later, when he was on his own. Lyra added a new complication to his plan to be part of the new charter setup. More accurately, Mom knowing about Lyra—because Jay had a big fucking mouth—had added a new complication to the way she felt about his plan to be a part of the new charter setup.
She hadn’t liked it in the first place, but now his mom was really afraid Zach would go and not come back. He’d insisted to her that he would, but she knew he was running right up to the edge of outright lying. Truth was, the thought he might make Laughlin his home had been there before he’d met Ben Haddon’s beautiful, smart, sweet, sassy daughter. Now, if things heated up with her in the way he hoped they would, he could imagine that possibility in much more detail.
But that was jumping the gun, for sure. They hadn’t even sexted or done anything more than careful flirting. Mostly they talked like friends. Maybe that was what they’d always be.
When he reached for a slice of meat lover’s, he saw Mom watching him. Her bright smile had flattened a little. “Don’t make me a grandmother from a thousand miles away, Zachary.”
That was basically what she’d done to her own parents, and their relationship had never been good after that. Zach didn’t understand all the dimensions of what had happened between Mom and the rest of the Randalls, but he’d figured out the tension had at least started with Mom and Pop not being officially married. Pop had been married before, badly, and Mom had some ideas about the convention of marriage itself, so they’d never signed papers.
But Oklahoma was a common-law state, so by now they were, in fact, legally married, even without a certificate. A lot of people they knew called them husband and wife, and Mom usually referred to Pop as her husband. Pop always called her his old lady.
Still, Mom hadn’t said vows in church or changed her name, and her parents were pretty conservative about things like that. Then when Zach had shown up—quite early in their relationship—he guessed things had cooled off even more. They’d still gone at least once a year to visit, though, until Grandpa passed and then everything went nuclear between Mom and Grandma—and all the other Randalls.
It had been years since they’d seen their Texas family, though Grandma still sent the boys birthday and Christmas cards, always with a twenty-dollar bill inside. Zach always sent a thank-you note back. Jay, not so much.