“Morning, baby girl. You good?”
“Uh-huh. Can we have pizza for dinner?”
My laugh is soft, nervous, but she isn’t asking about my guest, so I consider it extortion at its subtlest and accept the deal. “Sure thing. We’ll do something fun today, I promise.”
“You go home tomorrow?” Her light blue eyes – just like her mom and brother – turn sad. “Can you stay a little longer? I feel like it went super fast.”
It did. It flew, but at the same time – while trying hard not to text a certain cop – it went excruciatingly slow.“Not tomorrow, but the next day. I already booked my flights, honey, so I can’t miss it. But we still have two nights. We’ll have fun, I promise.”
“Alright.” She lifts her book in dismissal and goes back to reading, but before I leave, her eyes come back up. “Aunt Andi?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I love you. This week was fun.”
“I love you too, sweet pea. I’m so glad we got to do this.”
“And Aunt Andi?”
I laugh. “Yeah?”
“Benny’s super pissed. He saw the policeman’s truck out front.”
Of course he did.
Lips twitching, heart galloping, I nod and turn back into the hall with the same feeling in my stomach I had when my dad found out I wasn’t a virgin anymore. In fact, I feel like my dad probably took it better than Benny will, but seeing as I’m the alleged adult around here, I stand tall, push my shoulders back, and go in search of my firing squad.
Nobody ever said I was a coward.
I step into Oz’s fancy kitchen and grin at the cleaner-than-they-were-last-night counters. Benny’s been on a cleaning frenzy to work off his frustrations. His sneakers remain unlaced by the kitchen stool. His backpack hunched over on the floor beside them.
I find Mac sitting at the counter with his head down and laughter in his eyes, then Benny, with his head in the oven and the muscles in his broad back moving as he cleans. “There are easier ways to end your life, Benny. That oven ain’t even gas.”
Mac snickers when Ben stops and probably counts back from a million before he says something he’ll regret. I’m not like his mom – when he was lashing out at her, she had to take a lot of it in and help him through his anger. But I don’t have to tolerate that shit. I’m not his mom, and I sure as hell don’t pat his head when he’s being a jerk.
“But you should know,” I continue. “I’d miss you if you baked your head. You’re so cute, and you’re fun to tease.”
He drops a sponge in the yellow bucket by his leg and straightens out his back with a quiet groan. He’s too tall to be hunched the way he was, too broad to try to shoehorn himself into a standard oven. Cracking bones and popping joints, he sits tall in a local police department tank he probably stole, and gym shorts similar to the kind Riley was working out in yesterday afternoon. Finally, his eyes meet mine, then he climbs to his feet and washes his hands at the sink.
“I was gonna go for a run this morning.” He flips the tap off and takes the hand towel from the rack. “I was dressed, my water was full. Mac was here, and we were gonna go for a big run, probably stop in to see Oz’s ma on the way.”
“Uh-huh.” Ignoring Ben’s sour mood, I drop a kiss on Mac’s sweet cheek, pat it harder than I should when he snickers, step around the bucket of blackened oven water, and stop at the coffee machine. Praise the Lord – or more accurately, Livi – for starting the machine already. “You boys can still go for a run. I’m up now, and you don’t have to clean. I’ll make pancakes for when you get back.”
“See, I wasgonnago,” Ben continues in his ‘the whole world is ending and my aunt is a whore’ tone. “I was happy to trust you girls would be alright, so I was gonna take an hour out. Put my sneakers on, headphones in. We started a warm up circuit in the backyard.”
I glance down at his dirty knees. “That would explain the grass stains.”
“But then we come around the front of myhomeand find a strange truck parked in the driveway.” Benny doesn’t find this nearly as humorous as Mac. “This is my home! And that’s my sister in her room.”
Benny’s rants often border on hilarious, especially since they’re almost always aimed at his mom and Oz, but this might be the first time he’s ever done the pointed-finger, red-faced rant at me. Icouldbe the cool aunt who might brush it off, but not today, because Riley was hurting last night, and I’m not sorry for letting him in. “You need to tone it down, Ben.” I grab a mug and pour steaming hot coffee. “Yes, this is your home, but for this week, it’s mine, too.”
“You don’t get to invite strays in, Andi!”
“And you don’t get to disrespect me and drop my Aunt title, you self-righteous little jerk. You’re taller than me, you’re heavier and stronger, but you’re still sixteen, and I still had to wipe your ass and change your diapers once upon a time, so stop trying to stand over me. Let go of the anger, Ben. I thought we were past that. How’d it work out when you threw tantrum after tantrum at Oz? He didn’t leave, did he? Now you kinda love him, and you’re mad because he took your mommy away for the week.”
“Don’t talk about that!”
“You’re mad, because your mom isn’t within reach, and that bothers you, because it’s your job to protect her. But you know what? It’s Oz’s job, too. And he has bigger muscles than you. He loves her just as much as you do. She’s gonna be fine, then she’ll come home and kiss all over your face till you tell her to quit it.”