After everyone finished eating, the rest of the family wandered into the living room, while I, desperate for a couple of quiet minutes to regroup, volunteered for dish duty. I had just placed the stack of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and was reaching for the sprayer to rinse them when Nicky walked in, his face serious. Concerned.
“Hey,” he said, laying a big hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. “Are you okay after that shit Dad said?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I avoided my brother’s gaze and focused on the plates in the sink. “He was just being Dad. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
Nicky plucked a plate out of my hands as I finished rinsing it and tucked it into the open dishwasher. “No, he doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a crappy thing to say to you. Especially after the way that breakup went down.”
I shook my head. “It’s really okay. It kind of sucks, but I’m fine.”
“He’s just excited,” my big brother said. He grabbed a handful of silverware and arranged it in the little basket. “He wants all of us to be happy and pop out a billion grandkids.”
Nicky straightened and settled his sharp gaze on me. My big brother was gregarious and outgoing, but he was observant, too. Never missed a thing. “I think you want that, too.”
I nodded and passed my brother another dish. “Someday, yeah. Definitely. Just feeling a little hopeless about it right now, and seeing all of you so happy—I don’t want to be a drag, but I’m kind of envious.”
“You’ll get there,” Nicky assured me. “Really.”
I paused and curled my fingers over the lip of the sink as the water ran over the remaining dishes in the sink and swirled down the drain. “You really think I will?”
“A guy like you?” Nicky sounded almost surprised that I asked. “Yeah. You really will. I promise. I’m guessing it’ll probably happen when you least expect it to.”