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“Holy crap, look at that,” she said.
I wiped my expression and fixed her with a glare.
“You were smiling.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. Next to her, Felicia giggled.
“I was not.”
“Felicia?”
My niece grinned, and the sight of her gap-toothed smile had my heart feeling a little strange. “Definitely smiling. He looks happy.”
I set my phone down. “You’re the one who told me to be nicer to her.”
Tansy gave her daughter a knowing look. “Isn’t it awesome when the people in this family listen to me?”
Ignoring my sister, I turned my attention to Ford, who had just entered the kitchen. He was in full costume, ready for a dress rehearsal of the play I’d come home to watch. He gave me a nervous look.
“Well?” he asked.
Ford’s class was doing a spring play, and his big theater debut was as Clark the Rooster in an updated version ofHenny Penny.
Tansy clasped her hands in front of her mouth. “Oh my gosh, you look adorable,” she crooned.
That didn’t make him feel any better. His eyes went round and his cheeks pink with embarrassment.
“He doesn’t look adorable,” I said.
Ford blinked.
“He looks”—I paused—“manly.”
My nephew’s skinny little chest puffed out. “Do I?”
“Oh yeah.” I stood and appraised his full costume. The red comb coming out of his head was obnoxiously large, and the wings covering his arms were ... so, so orange. “Clark the Rooster looks like a guy who knows what’s going on. Very commanding.”
Ford grinned.
Tansy gave me a sidelong look, so full of adoration that it made me uncomfortable.
These kids had been through a lot, and maybe it was a bit of a bruise for me—their stern father, who’d constantly tried to push them into one thing. The thing he liked and approved of. For Tansy’s ex-husband, that had been baseball. Neither of his kids had any talent or interest in it.
When I was their age, I had a talent for football and just enough interest that I was easily swayed by my own father. That was when his clear favoritism for me was born. While I was younger, it wasn’t noticeable. Not until I was a junior in high school and caught Tansy crying in her bedroom when he missed one of her orchestra concerts. Again.
When I’d asked him why he never went to her stuff, he’d shrugged. “Why would I need to? That’s the kind of crap people leave behind when they grow up. You’re cementing a legacy; I’d rather watch that.”
That was when I started attending all my sister’s functions—whenever my schedule allowed it, at least.
College had been hard because I was a few states away by then. Playing in the NFL was even harder because it kept me away from her and she’d married the first guy who showed her any positive attention—and he and I hated each other.
I knew exactly what my role was now that I had free time. I might feel a bit unmoored everywhere else in my life, but not with her kids.
They’d never feel slighted over the things they enjoyed, and I’d be in the front row for as much of it as possible.
In the five days I’d been back, I’d gone to a piano recital for Felicia and helped her pick a tea set for her dolls—something she’d wanted for her birthday. I’d listened to Ford practice his recorder—music wasn’t quite his strong suit, as it was for his sister—and managed to keep my wincing to a minimum when he missed a few notes. I helped him practice lines forHenny Penny, and when we took breaks, I showed him how to throw a spiral in the backyard.
He was horrible at it, and I acted like every single wobbly, too-short throw was the best thing I’d ever seen.
Tansy punched me in the arm. “You didn’t say anything about the house link I sent you.”
