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After completely rearranging everybody’s shit, I opened the door for Harleigh, ignored my sister, and then went to the front seat.
“That was rude,” Izzy said as she got in right along with me. “I gave you my seat!”
“And I wouldn’t be coming if you hadn’t married this man,” I countered.
Izzy snorted, as did the other cute person in the seat between Harleigh and Izzy.
“What are you laughing at, kid?” I teased, reaching back and tickling the little girl that had a bag of donut holes in one hand and a cup full of what I assumed was chocolate milk.
When I’d lived with them for the first couple of months that I was out, I found out all kinds of things about Astrid.
Such as she only drank chocolate milk, and god forbid it was anything but Borden.
Trumoo just wouldn’t do.
And the funny thing was that she could literally taste the difference.
I’d tested the theory before.
Astrid squealed when my fingers dug into her fat little belly.
“Nooooooo!” she squeaked. “Noooo, bad Swate!”
Harleigh started to chuckle right along with Astrid.
“How far are they apart?” Harleigh asked curiously, looking from the baby to Astrid.
She and Izzy started to talk about the kids’ age difference while Rome pulled away from the curb and accelerated out of the neighborhood.
“You should buy that house over by me,” Rome said conversationally. “Actually, you don’t have to buy it at all. I’ll buy it. You just live in it so I don’t have to deal with shitty neighbors.”
I shook my head. “I kind of like where I’m living right now,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at Harleigh who was deep in conversation with Izzy.
“Yeah,” Rome grunted. “But what about watching your family grow up? You know that they don’t have anybody else.”
I turned my head to study my brother-in-law.
“That was a low blow,” I said. “What the hell?”
Rome grinned. “Hate to say it, but you really are it.”
I knew that.
Rome’s parents and Rome had never really gotten along. Rome’s grandmother had suffered a heart attack that kept her from doing much when it came to the children. Though they still had quite a bit of interaction, she wasn’t able to do much with the kids other than visit for short periods of time.
Then there were my parents and my brother.
My parents had always been shitty.
They’d gotten shittier when not only I had defied them, but Izzy had, too.
My grandmother loved the kids, but unfortunately, when she’d chosen us over my parents, she’d also lost all the help that she had right along with them.
Leaving her to deal with it all on her own…not that she wasn’t fully capable of doing that.
But since she was so particular about how things were done, she had a hard time delegating duties.
That, and she was an old stubborn woman who was set in her ways.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally said. “But, just sayin’, if I did decide to move there, I’d be paying for it myself.”
Rome snorted. “Why does that not surprise me?”
I offered him a grin, then closed my eyes as my Dramamine started to take over, causing me to become drowsy.
It was only after I nodded to sleep, waking up about an hour later when we pulled into Buc-ee’s, that I realized that they were talking about me.
“Does he do this on planes, too?” the woman who’d been occupying my thoughts quite a bit lately asked.
“Yes,” Izzy said. “I heard a story about him in boot camp. He apparently puked on the plane and had to clean it up when they got to where they were going. I’m not sure he’s willingly gone on a plane ever since.”
“That’s awful,” Harleigh snickered.
“I can hear you,” I grumbled as I opened my eyes. God, I was tired as fuck. Dramamine really kicked my ass. “Why are we stopping?”
“Harleigh’s never been to Buc-ee’s,” Izzy said. “So I’m taking her.”
I snorted. “Yay.”
“They have like seventy-five bathrooms,” Izzy continued. “Slate, are you going in?”
I contemplated it for all of two point five seconds before I nodded my head. “They have these really good kolaches.”
Harleigh snickered.
“But aren’t you nervous that you’ll throw that kolache up on the plane?” she teased.
I looked at her out of slitted eyes. “Well, I wasn’t…but I am now.”
“Just get it,” Rome put the SUV in park and got out. “You’ll be pissed that you didn’t.”
He was right.
I didn’t get to get them very often. And I was on vacation… “Fine.”
***
We arrived at the airport with about an hour to spare.
“There’s a really long fucking line,” I said as I took in the valet baggage check area. “Are you sure you don’t want to just walk in and check it?”
“No,” Rome admitted. “But I have to unload a double stroller, a Pack-N-Play, four large bags, and y’all’s shit. Then I have to get it parked and get back to y’all…just sayin’, but I’m dropping everyone off here.”
