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She was quiet for a second. “What are we going to do?”
I started the pot once the grounds were in and strode back to sit at my desk. Unsatisfied with the texture of the chair, I got up and paced.
“There’s not much to do except wait for him to slap us with whatever bullshit he comes up with and fix it. We should probably call Evan.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she said, reaching for her phone.
I stopped next to the window, watching Mason poke around a stack of lumber, with no idea how long this would stall us.
I turned to the sound of Daisy’s voice as she caught Evan up, and felt a flash of silver lining.
The wait would be brutal.
But I’d get Daisy for just a little longer.
And that tradeoff was one I could make.
14
MAKERS AND DOERS
KEATON
“Son of a bitch,” I said when some dickhead Fortnight kid shot me in the back.
Sophie just laughed, mashing buttons on her handheld as she ran up structures she’d made to get to high ground. On finding someone up there, she popped them from behind, thus claiming the perch for herself.
“You don’t need any help from me,” I noted.
“You’re really bad at this.” She picked off somebody running around like an ant below her.
“How about we play Tekken and see how you do?”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Keaton. You’d beat me with real guns.”
One of my brows rose. “Are you patronizing me?”
She shot me a little sideways smirk. “I’m sure there’s a video game you’re good at.”
I barked a laugh. “Jesus, kid. You’re lucky I’m not a weaker man. You mighta hurt my feelings.”
“What did you play when you were a kid?”
“A lot of Street Fighter.” When she looked confused, I explained, “A sort of karate, streetfighter kinda game.”
“PVP?”
“One on one, yeah. Me and your dad and other uncles used to sit in this living room and play just like this.”
“Was Mama here too?”
I nodded. “And Mandy too.”
The click of buttons was the only sound as she considered. “Do you miss her?”
“I do,” I answered softly.
“I think Daddy misses Mom too, but he’d never say so.”
“No, I don’t suppose he would.”
“I wish I remembered Aunt Mandy,” she said.
“What do you wanna know?”
“Was she funny?”
“She’d have to be, hanging out with the likes of us.”
“That’s true.” She giggled. “She was so pretty. You know that picture of you and her from the school dance? The one with the crowns?”
“Homecoming. Yeah.” The photo stood on the bookshelf next to the TV.
“When I was little”—I stifled a snicker—“I used to think you were a real king and queen. In your wedding pictures too. Her dress was …” She sighed.
“It was,” I answered fondly, thinking about both of those nights and the magic they held in my heart. “You know, I only cried a couple times ever in my life, but when the church doors opened and I saw her at the end, there was no helping it.”
“Did Daddy make fun of you?”
“No, he understood. He felt the same way about your mom.”
She fell silent for a minute, focusing on her aim. “Does everybody leave, Uncle Keaton?”
My brows drew together, and I watched her for some clue. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she started with the practicality only a child who’s been through a little hell can muster, “Grandma died when you were a kid. Then Grandpa died when I was little, and then Aunt Mandy. Mama left when I was just a baby. So is that how it works?”
I didn’t know what to say, struck by the realization that she didn’t know what it was like to have a nuclear family. Hell, I didn’t much either.
“No,” I said after a moment. “That’s not how it works for everybody. We’ve just had some bad luck, is all.”
“Hmm,” was her answer, her lips turning down. “I heard Daddy talking about Daisy’s family. A bunch of them died too, didn’t they? He said they were cursed.” I must have looked upset about it because she added, “He didn’t know I was listening.”
“How much stuff around here do you eavesdrop on?”
She shrugged a small shoulder noncommittally.
I sighed. “Curses aren’t real.”
“How do you know?” It was a sassy, rhetorical question.
“Because they’re not. Magic isn’t real either.”
“What if it is? What if we’re cursed too?” Her joviality wavered a little at the admittance of her fear.
“Soph, we aren’t cursed.”
“You don’t know that.” She finally got merc’d and set down her handheld with a sigh.
I shifted so I could get a solid look at her. “Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. Much as we’d like to believe there’s an order to things, life is chaos. Sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don’t. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.”
She slumped into the couch, frowning. “That sucks.”
I mirrored her, my eyes finding a wedding photo near the homecoming one. “It sucks so bad.”
