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“I never took you for a coward.”
“I’m a coward because I don’t want to put that in my mouth? Look at it! Why would anybody in their right mind put that in their mouth?”
The silence that follows makes me nervous. I glance up from my cell phone––I routinely like to torture myself by checking Facebook to see how fabulous everybody else’s life is in comparison to mine––and find him coming around to my side of the kitchen island armed with a dish of the kale he’s been cooking.
“Get away from me with that!”
“A small taste isn’t going to kill you.” I jump off my stool and run to the other side of the island, keeping a safe distance between the stuff he’s holding and my mouth. “It might actually add a couple of minutes to your life.”
“Or, I might gag on it and choke to death.”
“You wouldn’t die. I’d perform the Heimlich and if necessary mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” he informs me with a smug smile.
For obvious reason, I glower back. “You’re creeping me out.”
“Then you’ll owe me for saving your life.”
“Another reason not to touch that sludge.”
The doorbell starts ringing. And rings. And rings. My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “If this is one of your pussies I will lose it.”
“One of my what?”
I don’t wait to see what his face makes of that, I take off for the front door. “Hold your goddamn horses!”
The incessant ringing is making me mental. I rip open the front door because I need to make my irritation clear, and find the perpetrator of this crime against my ears looking up at me with a sullen pout.
“Audrey?” I mumble in bewilderment.
“Amber.”
Still a cheeky little shit. “What are you doing here?”
She struts right past me wearing a backpack large enough to trek across Antarctica with, and bangs it against my hip in the process.
“Ouuuch. Jeez, what do you have in there, a dead body?”
“No,” she answers, as if it were an actual possibility.
“What are you doing here?”
“You said we could hang.”
“Uh, yeah, but generally you call first and make plans.” Ignoring me, she drops her backpack and kicks off her Uggs, shrugs off her down jacket.
“Is that your boyfriend?”
I turn and find Fancy standing in the hallway, sleeves rolled up, jeans hanging on his hips, feet bare. I’m so used to his masculine bling, I hardly notice it anymore and yet I can image what any other straight female would be thinking. Even a thirteen year old one.
Drying his hands on a dishtowel, a wide grin breaks across his face as his gaze jumps from me to Audrey. Meanwhile, Audrey stares up at him with stars twinkling in her wide green eyes.
Another one bites the dust.
“She’s a fun size version of you,” he says with way too much joy on his gorgeous face.
“Hel…uh…I mean heck no. He’s not my boyfriend.” Ethan scowls at me. Looks like I’ve wounded his delicate male ego. I have a feeling it won’t be the last time. “Can you please take your animal magnetism elsewhere? I need to have a chat with my sister and you’re scrabbling her brain.”
“Sister?” He looks mildly shocked at first. A second later his amusement returns with a vengeance.
“Half sister,” I amend.
“There is absolutely no chance of me missing a minute of this,” he replies with way too much cheer in his voice.
Awestruck, Audrey continues to walk around like she was invited to do so.
“How did you know where to find me? Does Eileen know you’re here? And how did you get here anyway?”
“Google. You mentioned his name. No. A bus.”
“That’s…disturbing. Phone please,” I order, holding out my hand.
“Please don’t call them yet. Please!” In seconds, she’s on the verge of tears, her face contorting into hysterics. Teenagers, smh. “Please, Amber. You know how she is. She’s the worst mother! She leaves me home alone all the time and she never picks me up from school on time. I’m always the loser sitting on the front steps at school waiting for the crappy parent.”
Dramatic streak a mile wide in this family. Family…huh. Yeah, I guess we are some kind of family.
“First of all, watch your language.” Trust me, the irony is not lost on me. I get a super sulky look for that. “Second, Dan is a good man. He’s a good father. Some people don’t even have one parent, let alone two.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize that there’s another person in the room who can attest to that. His eyes hold mine for a minute longer than I deem necessary while something big passes between us. I can’t explain what it is but I can feel its significance.
“How about some hot chocolate?” We both turn to stare at the man who just spoke. Ethan drapes the dishtowel over his shoulder and raises his winged eyebrows in question.
