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Angry red blotches appeared on her cheeks half a second before her bottom lip started to quaver and the waterworks began.
“Naptime for you, Freya,” the man said.
“No nap,” the kid wailed as her whole body went limp in protest. “I’m a big girl. I go to school.”
The giant grumbled something about going to pre-school three days a week didn’t mean she was too old for naps in response as he walked through the doorway and into the house.
Cal tried to figure out what the fuck was going on, but some things were asking too much. All he’d wanted to do was avoid the press sitting outside his apartment building, and now he was in the suburbs hiding out in a garage? He shook his head as if that would make it make sense.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Fallon’s brother Finn’s house,” Blackburn said with a grin. “Welcome to the circus.”
“That guy’s name is Finn?” He didn’t look like a Finn. He looked like a Redwood or a Mountain or some other name for something absolutely humongous.
Blackburn shook his head. “That’s Frankie. He’s Lucy’s husband. Finn is his twin.”
“Jesus,” he mumbled as he followed Blackburn into the house. “There’s another one?”
“Fallon has three brothers and three sisters,” he said, jerking his chin toward the large family photograph on the hallway wall with almost two dozen people in it. “And yes, all of their names start with F.”
Still trying to work through that—he wasn’t even sure he could come up with two F names, let alone almost a dozen—Cal walked into the living room. The space was dominated by a massive couch, a TV so big that the astronauts could probably watch from the space station, and a poker table with a chip rack sitting in the middle of the green felt.
And I thought my apartment gave off dude-living-alone vibes.
A dark-haired guy a few inches shorter than Frankie wearing a Waterbury PD T-shirt walked out of the kitchen holding a pink frosted donut with sprinkles on it. The guy coming out behind him shoving half a bear claw into his mouth had to be Finn. The fact that he looked just like his brother except with dark hair was pretty much a dead giveaway.
One side of Mr. Donut’s mouth went up in a smirk. “You’re the sacrifice.”
“What the fuck, Ford?” Finn said as he flicked the back of the other man’s head. “Can you try for five minutes not to be an asshole?”
Ford rubbed the back of his head and turned to glare at his brother. “What did I do?”
“You don’t tell the sacrifice they’re the sacrifice,” Finn said, the “you dumbass” still coming in clear despite it being unsaid. “If you do, it ruins the authenticity of things for Freya.”
It was like walking into the middle of an episode of a reality TV show with him being the one guy on set who didn’t know it was all bullshit. He looked over at Blackburn, who was watching it all like it was a made-for-Zach-Blackburn production.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Cal asked, too confused to be concerned—yet.
“It’s a win-win,” Blackburn said, crossing his arms and grinning like a jackass. “You need a place to hide out, and the boys here need a sacrifice.”
Now the hairs on the back of Cal’s neck went up. “I’m gonna need more details.”
In perfect synchronization, all three men looked over at the kid-size table half hidden behind the poker table. It was laid out with a mismatched plastic tea set surrounded by four chairs, two of which were occupied by a stuffed lion and a stuffed unicorn that looked like they’d been loved a little too hard.
The creak of the stairs had them all looking down the hall half a second before a little girl’s voice could be heard.
“You are a good daddy,” Freya said, sounding completely sincere.
Frankie emerged from the hall with the confused look of a man who wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. Meanwhile, Freya came out skipping behind him, her triumphant grin proving that she knew exactly what had happened.
“Come on, Daddy,” she half said, half sang. “Tea time!” She sprinted toward the kiddie table, slowing down long enough to give Cal a suspicious once-over before getting to the table and turning her megawatt smile on her dad. “Your turn again.”
“But Mr. Cal hasn’t had a turn yet, Freya,” Frankie said, his tone gentle as he squatted down to be eye level with his daughter. “I wouldn’t want to cut in front of him after I’ve had five tea parties today already. Uncle Finn has had three. Uncle Ford has had three. And Uncle Zach has had four. But poor Mr. Cal hasn’t had any. That doesn’t seem fair.”
The other men all made noises of agreement, and that’s when Cal noticed the flower stickers on each one of Blackburn’s fingernails, the purple unicorn stamp tattoos going up Finn’s right arm, the strands of pink glittery hair clipped into Ford’s dark hair, and the fact that Frankie’s shirt was a tuxedo T-shirt. Suddenly being called the sacrifice made a lot more sense.
Freya gave Cal an assessing look that was a twelve on a six-point scale. What was going on? Were his palms clammy? About whether a four-year-old would find him worthy of a tea party?
