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"Because you're you and you take everything too seriously. Seeley? I mean, you're older than him, but good for you. He's got great bone structure."
"Gus..." Huck said, shaking his head even though she wasn't looking at him.
"Wait... wait," she said, smiling big. "Oh, is it Teddy? Did he finally hang up his whore badge?"
"Gus," Huck tried again, voice firmer as he moved over toward me, putting an arm at my lower back. "This is Harmon. Harmon, this is my sister, Gus."
It took a long moment for Gus to accept what was right there in front of her, her gaze going between the two of us several times before a tentative smile pulled at her lips.
"No fucking way."
"Yes, fucking way," Huck said, pulling me closer.
"Well, I don't approve," she said, making my stomach plummet. "I mean, look at her hair. And her makeup. She's far too cool for you. Harmon, I will take you into town and introduce you to some very yummy men I used to know."
"Oh, yeah, who?" Huck asked, not the least bit offended. "That oil magnate that hired private investigators to try to hunt you down after you hopped out a bathroom window when on a date with him? Or, wait, how about the coke dealer?"
"Hey, in my defense, the coke dealer told me he was an entrepreneur. And that was one date. And, mostly, I just really, really liked his car. "Anyway," she said, smiling at her brother, then turning to me, "you and me, we have to talk. In fact, I think we need to call Ayanna, and have a girls night on the town, so you can tell me all about what horrible path in life left you slumming it with my brother here," she said.
"Oh, shit," McCoy said, sighing. "It's going to be like old times. Should we gather the bail money now, or wait until they get themselves into trouble?"
"Always before, man," her man, West, said, shaking his head as he smiled affectionately toward his woman. "I mean, have you met Auggie? She's ending up in jail tonight."
He wasn't wrong about that either.
And I was right there by her side, drunk off my ass, further soiling my family name, and making amazing memories with a girl I hoped to call family someday.
Huck - One Month
"What?" I asked, catching Teddy looking at me for the third time in as many minutes.
"You're an idiot," he told me, not mincing his words.
"Alright. Am I an idiot for any particular reason, or just in general..."
"Well, you're an idiot in general too, but this is about something specific," he told me, picking up his drink from the kitchen table. "What do you see here?" he asked, waving toward the magazines and pieces of paper Harmon had scattered around.
"That's Harmon's shit. She's been helping us pick out paint colors and curtains and shit."
"And shit," he repeated, brow raising, making it clear I was missing something.
"What?"
"It's amazing that the human species hasn't died out," he said, shaking his head at me. "When the women are this obvious, and the men are this clueless."
"What am I missing?" I said moving toward the table, seeing the same shit that had been there for days.
"Christ. Okay. See all this," he said, speaking slowly like he was talking to a particularly dense child. "This is what womenfolk call 'subtle hints,'" he explained, shifting about a dozen pieces of paper together. "And he's still not getting it. Your fucking woman wants to build a garden. How do you not see this?" he asked. "Here are pictures of flowers. Here is a gardening magazine. And here, you utter dipshit, are hand-drawn plans on how to build raised beds. And in case you missed it, this is a sketch of your clubhouse. She designed the raised beds to fit around the clubhouse."
"Alright, now that you say it, yeah, that wasn't that subtle at all," I decided, feeling a bit like a dick for not putting the pieces together myself. "In my defense, no one else put it together either."
"No?" he asked. "Hey, Arty, man," he called, making the man practically run out from the living room at the sound of his voice. The man-crush was going strong. "What does this mean to you?" he asked, waving at the table.
"That Harmon wants to garden?" he said, eyes hopeful, not wanting to be wrong in Teddy's eyes.
"Precisely."
"Come on. You put it all together for him," I objected.
"She put it all together for you," Teddy insisted. "Hey, Remy," he called as Remy was walking through the kitchen with a goddamn blue and gold macaw on his shoulder. We weren't even going to talk about the goddamn parrot.
Five dogs.
Four cats.
A tortoise.
And now a parrot.
We could practically open a petting zoo.
"Yeah?" Remy asked, moving closer, making Arty jump away as the bird lunged at him.
