Both of the boys smile widely, their blue eyes looking so much like their grandmother’s. We set them down, and they toddle over the bench and climb up to sit and wait.
“Thank you. Now wait there until Mommy greets our guest.” Emily steps aside to let me enter her home, a soft smile on her face. “She’ll be right over.”
The boys’ cherubic faces look so innocent, but I know better. Between Mallory and her mother, they’ve got to have a little fire in them somewhere.
“Hi, Mason. Hi, Kasen. I’m Cam.”
One of the twins giggles like I’ve just said the funniest thing while the other watches me with suspicion. There’s my Dark & Prickly genes.
I bet he’s Mason.
They both stare at the cactus in my hands that I’m not sure what to do with. Even though it’s a ‘spineless’ variety, it still has tiny barbs that could hurt their small hands. Definitely didn’t think this one through.
Off to my right, Mallory appears just out of the boys’ sight. She fights a smile as I stand there with the two most important men in her life.
The giggly one finally sits up and claps his hands for no reason. I take this opportunity to distract him. “Are you Kasen?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must be Mason.” He just blinks dark lashes at me, watching intently. “I’m your mommy’s friend. I came to give her this plant and tell her I’m sorry.”
“No.”
That was Mason. Maybe. He holds his ground, little brows still furrowed, the spitting image of his mother declining to dance at a country music festival. I have met this energy before. It did not go well for me then, either.
I look at Mallory because I genuinely don’t know what to do with that, and she’s absolutely not going to help me. The smile she’s been fighting has won.
Kasen (maybe?) chooses this moment to slide off the bench and walk directly into my shin with his whole body, grabbing my jeans for balance. I look down at him for some kind of solidarity, but he’s found a piece of lint on the floor and is now entirely unavailable.
Then, without warning, Mason climbs down from the bench, toddles over, and sits directly on my foot. No explanation. No retraction of his earlier position. Just sits there like he owns it and looks up at his brother. Kasen promptly sits on my other foot. I now cannot move, and I have a cactus in my hands, and Mallory Jenkins is somewhere behind me trying not to laugh. This is going great.
I crouch down, shoving the cactus behind me, and sit on the floor with the boys, genuinely interested in what their little minds are making of a grown man who showed up with a plant and no plan. I don’t have to think long. Kasen (I’m pretty sure) climbs into the center of my lap and faces me. His nose touches mine as he shouts, “Boo!”
My body jolts, which Mason thinks is the funniest thing. He doubles over laughing the same way his brother did on the bench. Is this what I was like when I met my stepdad for the first time?
“Boys. This is my friend, Cam. Can you say hi?”
They both look at me shyly, giving a quiet “Hi.”
“Did EmEm tell you to stay on the bench and wait for me?”
Both boys immediately scramble to low wooden plank, their eyes wide.
“Thank you.” She walks over to both, kissing each on the top of the head. “Auntie Kate has bananas for you in the kitchen. You may get down.”
She motions for me to follow them through the living room and toward the kitchen, where Kate has set up booster seats at the table.
“Hi, Cam.”
“Hi, Kate. It’s great to see you.” And I mean it. She’s the light to my girl’s dark.
“Take your time, Seester.”
Mallory blows Kate a kiss, then motions to a screened-in sun porch just off the kitchen.
“You handled that well.” She sits on one of the wicker chairs, her black hair down around her shoulders. She doesn’t have a stick of makeup on. She looks so damn beautiful, my stomach twists with longing.
“I’m an amateur.” I sit in the chair opposite Mallory, my elbows on my knees. “But I promise that I will get better at interacting with them. The boys can eat bananas?”
