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“You know I can drive you home,” Harper swiftly volunteers. “There’s plenty of room in my SUV for all of you.”
“Why do you have one of those things?” my uncle offhandedly asks. “Is it like an American thing, or do you come from a big family?”
She struggles not to let her smile drop. “No. Only child. Deceased parents. Raised by grandparents who are now also deceased.”
His cringe is damn near immediate. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t,” she promptly reassures on a shrug. “It is what it is. I didn’t come from a big family but the family I had was full of love.”
“And so are we,” Dad states an unspoken promise to give her that with us.
“Probably too much love, honestly,” Colin says in an effort to lighten the mood back up.
“Definitely,” I concur, my thumb gently caressing her arm in a way that has her leaning into me.
Against me.
Luring my mind to the other places she loves for the digit to go.
“Grandad and Gran had six kids,” Colin begins to explain with exaggerated hand motions, most likely to keep the attention of our waiter who has been shamelessly staring his direction all evening. “Uncle Raff-”
“Who has seven kids of his own with the same woman he married,” Dad inserts. “Six boys, one girl, and his first grandson on the way.”
“Uncle Reagan-”
“Who has four kids, all boys,” Uncle Rory informs. “Two from one woman, two from another. Unmarried.”
“Uncle Ronan,” Colin motions to my father.
“That thought I was perfect so need to keep having them.”
My tease causes him to chuckle, lift his glass, and tip it towards me in a cheers like nature.
“Uncle Riley,” my cousin proceeds.
“Five kids – four boys, one girl – by three women – two of which who were once best mates and possibly has another on the way with a young female fresh out of Uni,” Uncle Rory explains on a roll of the eyes.
“Uncle Rían, Dad’s twin, that he is extremely jealous of for marrying a Clara’s Culotte underwear model-”
“I saw her first!”
We laugh at his expense as I grab my new pint. “They have three children. Part Irish, part Brazilian, part Black.”
“Let me guess. All boys?”
“They tend to be.” Proudly nodding is attached to my retort. “Plus, they speak Spanish fluently, too.” My statement has her looking my way. “Different dialect, but we can understand one another well enough when we speak it to piss off the other cousins.”
She helplessly snickers. “They hate that they don’t know what you’re saying, don’t they?”
“Absolutely.” There’s no stopping my grin from reaching my ears. “However, Uncle Reagan’s oldest speaks French and Uncle Riley’s youngest – not the possibly unborn one – speaks Japanese, and we don’t give them shite about using it.”
“Probably because they don’t have anyone else in the family to really talk to in those languages,” my girlfriend slyly points out.
I playfully brush her off with a hand toss.
“Lastly, there’s Dad.” Colin lifts his own glass. “I’ve got two older brothers – who share a mom – that live south and one younger sister who lives in Northern Ireland in Belfast with her mom. She’s in her senior cycle of school or whatever they call it where she is. My mom died birthing me, so my aunts are all collectively my mom in a fucked-up way.”
“I know that feeling,” Harper compassionately states his direction.
