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Rex was one of Joy’s sons. They were all enormous men with muscles for days, but Rex was one of the two who kept himself bald. He had blue eyes, and twin dimples that Rayma liked to say held enough power they could keep the lights on for the entire city of Victoria for a month.
“Hey, man,” Rex said, giving Jordan a handshake and friendly back pat. “Heard you moved back. The city already feels safer.”
Jordan chuckled and hedged a glance Rayma’s way, but she was sulking off in the corner talking to Pasha while shooting daggers at him.
“Yeah,” he said, turning back to Rex and exhaling deeply. “Moved back a few months ago. Esquimalt is quite the change of pace from Ucluelet and Tofino.”
“I bet,” Rex said with a chuckle. “Besides temper rowdy campers, surfers and protestors what did you do out there? For three years?”
He shrugged. “Kept the peace and got really good at Sudoku.”
Rex tossed his big head back and laughed, releasing the dimples. “Well, we’re glad to have you back.” He wandered into the kitchen where he pecked a kiss on his wife, Lydia’s cheek and murmured something to her about the kids outside playing and needing clean clothes.
“In the bag in the spare room beside your mother’s room,” Lydia said, busy peeling carrots.
Rex took off toward the bedrooms just as his doppelganger, Chase entered through the sliding glass door from the back patio. Chase had green eyes and was maybe half an inch shorter than Rex, but they were both bald and looked a hell of a lot alike.
He and Jordan exchanged similar pleasantries before Chase made his exit claiming to need the bathroom.
Jordan peered out the kitchen window where Brock, the oldest brother and in his opinion, the grumpiest, along with his two kids, wife, and their chocolate lab, Cocoa, were playing soccer. Chase’s dog, Fudge, Cocoa’s brother, was trying to get in on the game, while Rex’s Pitbull Diesel was chewing on a stick near the garden.
Chase’s kids, Rex’s kids, and Heath’s kids were all playing with bubbles or chalk on the back patio, while various adults they belonged to or were related to looked on and made sure nobody drank the bubble soap.
Jordan blew out a breath and turned back to Joy with a grin. “Another full house Thanksgiving dinner, eh?”
Joy beamed at him. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. And now it really feels right with you back, Lassie.”
Rayma grumbled where she was still murmuring with Pasha, her glare at him intensifying.
Jordan cleared his throat. “Uh… I’m going to head outside and go say hello to everyone else.” He wasn’t asking for permission or anything, he was just letting Rayma know that he was giving her some space. The woman had the determination and drive that if she really wanted to, she’d figure out a way to shoot laser beams from her eyes, and right now he was pretty sure she’d use him for target practice.
He closed the sliding glass door behind him and stepped back out into the cool October day. Eyes around the yard recognized him and lit up while several of the kids abandoned what they were doing and ran over to him.
“Uncle Lassie is back,” Zoe, Brock, and Krista’s eleven-year-old daughter cheered, running up to him, her red curls trailing behind her like streamers on the handlebars of a bicycle. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Are you and Aunt Rayma back together?” she asked, her cheek against his stomach.
“Zo-zo, leave Lassie alone,” Krista said with a chuckle, approaching Jordan and taking the spot her daughter just left by wrapping Jordan up in a big hug. “We’ve missed you, Rookie.”
“Missed you guys, too,” he said into her hair, the same shade and wild curls as her daughter.
“Uncle Lassie!” Zane, Krista’s seven-year-old son hollered, launching himself from like five feet away at Jordan’s waist. “I got a skateboard for my birthday, want to come watch me?” He pointed over to the concrete patio where Raze, Heath and Pasha’s oldest who was probably five was decked out in a helmet, shin, wrist, and knee pads as he attempted tricks on a kid-sized skateboard.
Jordan ruffled the kid’s red hair and chuckled. “In a bit, buddy. I’m just saying hi to everyone first.”
He made his rounds, greeting Heath—Pasha’s husband, and Stacey, Chase’s wife, along with all their kids who seemed to have sprouted up like weeds and changed so much since the last time Jordan saw them. It had been three years, so it made sense, but it was still so strange to see Rex and Lydia’s little guy, Von who had been a newborn shortly before Jordan moved away, now a wild little three-year-old who seemed to have absolutely no fear. Which was clear since Heath had to break away from chatting with Jordan to go and stop his nephew from trying to climb onto the garbage cans against the garage.
It was wonderfully surreal being back with all these people who in just a year came to feel more like family than his own family ever did. It also made the guilt of not reaching out to any of them when he first moved back sit on his shoulders like a fat hawk and dig its talons into his flesh.
He wasn’t close with his parents or his brother, and after what he’d been forced to do as a teenager his relatives wanted nothing to do with him, as well. It was why he decided to put in for a posting on the west coast.
A fresh start, a new promise, and thousands of kilometers between him, his parents and his past. He had no desire to ever go back, and if he did it wouldn’t be because he wanted to.
“You little turkey,” Heath said with a chuckle, holding Von in his arms and blowing a raspberry on the little boy’s exposed belly. “You’ll break your neck doing that.”
“But I want to get onto the gawage woof, Uncle Heaf. I want to seeevwefing,” Von said through giggles.
“Here, I’ll let you see everything this way.” Then he took the little boy by the ankles and pushed him straight up into the air like he was standing on Heath’s hands. “What can you see?”
“Evwefing!” Von cheered. “But I want to see more.”
