Really?
Big thoughts.
Big thoughts.
Big thoughts.
Frowning again, I carefully reached for my water and took a sip while he tried not to laugh. “I think I need to see how chicken futures are doing. I saw an article about cattle lately but nothing about chicken.”
Daddy’s shoulders jerked but he nodded and looked serious. “I’m curious to hear what you find out. I’ll see if I can find us any… articles about chicken.”
Bedtime stories.
Daddy was going to find Little me a chicken book.
Big thoughts.
Big thoughts.
Big thoughts.
“The futures market is always interesting.” Yes. That was what we were talking about. Finance. Futures. Boring things. “Sports are interesting too.”
What did I know about real sports?
Daddy nearly laughed out loud but he managed to nod like it was a serious discussion. “The game was good last weekend. What did you think of it?”
Shoot.
What game was on last week?
What sport time was this?
No… they were seasons like fall and spring but for chasing balls around.
“Um, I wasn’t following the game much but I caught a couple of the fights on the highlight reel?” That worked with my brothers but it made Daddy laugh. “What did you think of the end?”
“I think you don’t even know what sports people are watching right now, much less a specific game.” Daddy didn’t seem surprised by that, so I shrugged and didn’t worry about it. “I don’t know them either, though, so you were faking it better than I could.”
Really?
“All you have to do is ask vague open-ended questions and sports people will fill in the rest.” Nodding and making thinking sounds helped too. “My brothers haven’t been complaining about anything lately, so maybe they’re between important stuff? Some sports have more man value than others. You get basic man points for things like basketball and baseball, but you get bonus points for football and hockey is the top because they beat each other up on a regular basis.”
Daddy managed not to laugh but holding it back was so hard he was shaking. After a drink of water and a deep breath, he shook his head. “Your family is insane. You know that, right?”
I was starting to.
“I thought they were normal when I was growing up.” But over the past year I’d started to realize I might’ve been the most normal one in the bunch… and that was actually kind of scary. “Which is part of the reason why I was very grateful for your help yesterday. You made them have to behave.”
His smile slid into something more thoughtful as he took another sip of the water he hadn’t wanted. He’d wanted a soda of some sort but the waiter hadn’t listened and hadn’t come back. Daddy was polite, though, and drank it. “Because I was behavingbetter and more ‘manly’ than they were so they had to keep up with me?”
“You’re really smart.” It was really nice. “Oh, and Axel texted me while you were getting ready. He said you were weirdly protective of my house and I might want to see if you’d bugged it.”
Daddy rolled his eyes. “He’s got a few screws loose, and I’m not going to apologize for pointing that out.”
I was pretty sure we’d all been dropped as babies one too many times, so I couldn’t fuss at him about it.
“He offered to come help me search for them.” I was pretty sure one of his kids had come up with that idea because the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree with them. “I thanked him and managed to turn down his offer.”
