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He scowled. “I thought you meant you and the kids.”
“Then who’d do the barbeque?” Eli said.
Ben sighed and threw up his hands. “Yeah, all right. Fine. Everybody’s here.”
“Introduce us to your girl.” Eli gave up trying to keep the kids off him and picked one up under each arm like potato sacks and twirled in a circle, making them squeal and laugh.
“I’m just a friend,” I blurted, making Eli snicker and Ben frown.
The older brother held out his hand. “I’m Will. That savage is our younger brother Eli.” He clapped Eli on the shoulder to make him stop spinning and pointed to each child. “This is Harrison and this is Ava.
“I’m six,” the boy shouted. “Ava’s only four.”
“Indoor voices,” Will said.
“But we’re outside.”
“Fair point,” his father conceded tiredly.
“I’m going to be a lawyer like my mom,” Harrison shouted, this time eyeing his dad to see how he took his defiance. Will winced and smiled sadly, patting the boy’s head.
Ben put his arm around me and introduced me, telling me under his breath that they’d calm down in a few minutes. I didn’t know if he meant the kids or his brothers. They all studied me curiously as we moved toward the back of the house where hot dogs and steaks were grilling on the deck. There was a princess tent set up in a grassy area, with a selection of plastic swords and stuffed animals strewn around it.
“You moved right in,” Ben said, shaking his head as his lip twitched in a smile.
It seemed he was accepting the inevitable. It was clear they were a close knit group and I felt beyond awkward.
“Why don’t you take me back down so you can spend time with them,” I said in a low voice, chickening out of the family stuff completely.
Will heard me and piped up. “You can’t leave before dinner. We cleared out the meat section of the little store down in Keen Arrow.”
“Stay and help us finish all this, Laurel,” Eli said, flipping a row of hot dogs onto a platter.
“Stay, stay, stay,” the kids chanted, taking up their swords and swinging them wildly.
I gave Ben a helpless look and he shrugged. “Have something to eat,” he said encouragingly. “They won’t bite,” he said in a lower voice, then calling to Ava. “You don’t bite anymore, do you?”
I thought he was only joking around, but the little girl scowled at him, her cute, round face looking downright menacing. “If I have to, I will.”
I cracked up, quickly swallowing my laughter when Will closed his eyes as if praying for patience. “There will be no instances where you have to bite anyone today, Missy.”
She turned to try and hide the tongue she stuck out, but her brother promptly told on her. Her eyes flew wide and she grabbed his arm, leaned over and chomped on it. He screamed, even though it was obvious she was only putting on a show. Will took both of them by the arms and led them into the house, his face grim.
“Where’s the nanny?” Ben asked, squirting ketchup onto a hot dog as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “What was her name?”
Eli shrugged, cracking open a beer from an ice chest and handing it to me. I took it gratefully. “I don’t remember since she only lasted a month.”
Ben settled into a big lounge chair on the deck and motioned for me to sit beside him. I stiffly tucked myself in next to him. “They've been having a hard time since their mom died,” he told me. “But they’re good kids.”
“Will can’t say no to them, that’s the problem,” Eli said, sitting across from us.
“I can’t even imagine,” I said. It was hard enough losing a parent as a teenager. Ben was suffering in his thirties. Those poor kids.
“So, what do you do, Laurel?” Eli asked. “How did you two meet?”
Ben snickered, leaving it to me to decide what to say. “I work in town. We, uh, met at the grocery store.” That was partly true.
Eli raised his eyebrow, turning to Ben. “What’s she leaving out?”
