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I took her coat. “Ignore him. We all do.”
“And you wonder why I don’t show up more often.” He bent, patting Finn’s head. “What’s up, buddy?”
Finn held a camel out to him, roaring, and my brother chuckled, splaying out next to him, so Kennedy, Mom, and I had to step around him to head farther into the house. I hung our coats up on new hooks on the wall, and Mom gestured for Kennedy to have a seat at the long table, which separated the living space from the kitchen.
“Where’s Brian?”
“At the packie.”
“Packie?” Kennedy repeated, and I translated.
“Liquor store.”
“Kennedy, help yourself,” Mom said, setting down two platters, one of fresh cold cuts and cheese, and another of cut-up lettuce, tomato, and onion. “You must be starving.” She pointed to the basket of buns. “Come on, Liam, sit.”
“I want to take our bags upstairs first.”
“You guys are staying on the top floor.”
I grabbed the handles of our bags to carry them up to the finished attic on the third floor, which had, at one point, been everyone’s bedroom, except for Mom and Dad. Now, it had two beds, one twin, which wouldn’t be too comfortable for Kennedy and me, and one little single on the other side, under the slanted ceiling.
By the time I got everything situated and returned downstairs, not only was Brian home, but so was Seamus with his wife and kids. Everybody was talking over everybody, and I feared Kennedy would be lost in the middle of it, but she was there, sitting between my mother and Finn, munching on food, and laughing at something Collin was saying while she absently fixed Finn’s glasses.
She fit right in.
“Hey, brother.” Brian clapped my shoulder.
I accepted the pint of beer he offered me and raised it in his direction. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad.”
I gestured around the house. “The inside looks good. The outside needs work.”
“Hey, man, I got my own shit to do. I can’t do it all myself.”
“The front steps are falling apart.”
“What you want me to do? They’re only so many hours in the day. You gonna come fix ’em?”
“I’m just saying?—”
“You’re just fucking running your mouth about shit like you’re the boss. Always on your high fuckin’ horse.”
“Hey! Boys!” Mom snapped her fingers at us, though I didn’t even know how she heard us over all the noise. “No fighting on Christmas.”
“It’s not Christmas,” Seamus pointed out as he made his way over to us.
“Close enough,” Mom said, “so don’t ruin this for me. I finally have all my boys home.”
“Home five minutes and already makin’ trouble,” Seamus muttered, throwing a meaty arm around my shoulders.
I would be the last one in this family to make trouble, but Brian had been extra sensitive since his divorce. I supposed I would be too if I were thirty-eight and living at home with my mother.
“Keily, turn it down,” Seamus told one of his stepdaughters, who held an iPad. Once she lowered the volume on her video, he looked down at me—he had two inches on me—and jerked his chin in Kennedy’s direction. “It’s serious, then?”
I shrugged, downplaying how much I loved Kennedy being here with my family.
“You’ve never brought a girl home before,” he noted, watching how his wife, Nikki, chatted animatedly with Kennedy.
