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“Good girl, Luna. Wanna go to work?”
“She’s already in the car. Why would you ask her that?”
“Just telling her where we’re headed.”
“You think she’ll decide against a ride if she knew the destination wasn’t her first choice? For a smart girl, sometimes you’re not so bright.”
“Shut up, Layton.” I climb into the passenger seat.
For the first time today—hell, for the first time in several days—he smiles. It may not be his megawatt, super white, model smile, but it’s real. He leans over and puts me in a head lock, rubbing his knuckles on my head.
“Not the hair.”
He laughs, and it’s almost worth the misery of a brother’s burning noogie and the knots. “Just drive.”
“Not so bright but definitely bossy,” he mumbles under his breath.
When we get to the ranch, Layton drops me off and takes my car to Pop’s to change out of his suit. I let myself into Brax’s to see my family, along with Ex’s high school friend, Jon Barrett, and Elias.
“Where’ve you been?” Pop asks.
“You’re already one drink behind.” Braxton lifts his cup in a toast.
“It’s not a contest,” Exton states quietly from deep in Braxton’s leather sofa, taking a long pull from his glass.
“I took a drive,” I say to Pop, but turn to my oldest brother. “Catch me up then, Brax.”
“What do you want?” Braxton extends an arm like Vanna White at the counter behind him brimming with liquor bottles, sandwich trays, and various sides.
I try not to think that friends delivered “funeral food” here and what the fridge at the big house must look like, and just go with a liquid diet. “Margarita, since we have the fixings.”
“That we do.” Brax lifts his tumbler again as if I can see through the red plastic. “Sweet, salty, or spicy?”
“Let’s start with regular, but extra Cointreau. I’ll save spicy for later.”
While my brother plays bartender, I give Jon a hug, not missing the low growl behind me when I do. “How are you, Jon? I heard you’re getting Exton to do some work for you. You that hard up?”
“He has a certain set of skills.” He mimics Liam Neeson’s line in “Taken”—badly, I might add—and catches me up on his career. Who’d have thought that the boy from our small town would be the district attorney in Travis County by his early thirties?
He wanders toward the living room and into one of the chairs just as Layton returns with Luna on his heels. She runs directly to Pop and sits, back to him, positioning herself for head scratches.
It’s not lost on me that I’m the only woman in the room. That cuts deep. The last female Ranger… I fight to move my mind to another topic and land on the man I’ve had a crush on since Brax’s sophomore year in college. He was twenty. I was twelve.
“Elias, what’s new with you?” I hope it sounds calm and casual. God knows more than once in my life it’s sounded wistful and flirty. I don’t mean it that way now. I just need to get my mind off the empty chair in this room that my mom should occupy.
“There’s a lot going on.” His eyes survey the room, not stopping to make eye contact, but landing on each person. “I’ve had a couple of new cases dropped in my lap.” He stops abruptly.
The conversation around us is stilted, and we fight to not talk about the elephant in the room. Finally, Luna slumps to the tile floor before releasing a long, loud fart.
That does it.
It breaks the sadness in the room, and we all laugh at the sound only to groan when the stench reaches us.
“What did she eat?” Layton accuses. “Looney, that was foul.”
All eyes turn to Pop who looks away like a guilty kid who just got busted playing ding-dong-ditch. The culpability on his face is hysterical, and laughter rolls through the room again.
As the liquor flows and the refills keep coming, we chit chat and tell stories. Stories about Mom—funny ones, embarrassing ones, loving ones, old ones we’ve retold for years.
