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“Lovable? This again?”
Ugh. Kayla is the one person I told about Maddox Powell and the speech that makes me question my desirability every single day of my life. And every time she brings it up, I wish I’d kept my trap shut.
“You know what I mean. It’s Owen.” I shake my head, thinking.
Her second brow joins her first in a skyrocketing competition. “Exactly.” She dips her head, her brown eyes locking with mine. “You don’t think you’ll get jealous?”
“Jealous?” I jute my body back and blow a wet raspberry from my lips. “No. That’s… that’s just…” I grunt. “Lame.”
“It isn’t lame. You know—”
Feet patter along the tiled ground toward us—six-year-old Steve’s feet—and my sister goes quiet.
“Steve!” she calls, and my bare-chested nephew stops in his tracks like a well-trained labradoodle. Steve has the same red in his hair that his momma and I have. Only he took the scissors to his a week ago, so there’s a lot less of it. “Where are you going, buddy?”
“Bathroom,” comes his one-word answer.
“What’s on your hands.”
Steve’s hands hide behind his back, ninja-fast.
“Steve Allen, show me your hands.”
Steve moves his right hand from behind his back and givesmy sister a balled fist, his round belly poking out overtop his blue jeans.
“And the other?” Kayla sets one hand on her hip—she means business, mom business.
Steve crams his eyes closed. If he can’t see her, then maybe she can’t see him.
“The other,” Kayla says. I’d probably do anything she asked too if she used that tone with me.Yikes. My sister could give Professor McGonagall a run for her money.
Little Steve deflates and he shoots both hands out toward her, opened and exposed. They are both red as if he’d dipped them in paint.
“Jam or marker, Steve?”
His lips purse.
“Steve Allen,” Kayla says, snatching one of the little boy’s hands. She brings them to her face, and for a second, I think she’s going to taste those germ-infested six-year-old’s fingers. But then she sniffs. “Jam. You know you aren’t allowed to finger paint with raspberry jam, young man. Not again!”
Steve’s face falls to the ground—clearly, he did remember and didn’t care.
“Where’s your shirt, Steve?” Kayla says, this interrogation far from finished.
Steve freezes, his mouth a cemented line. No words can escape.
“Is it as red as your fingers?”
He lifts his head, his nose wrinkles, and his teeth clench. A hiss fizzles through his teeth, and he nods. But the brave boy keeps eye contact with his mother.
Kayla crouches and tugs the little boy into her arms by his belt loops. She kisses his cheek, which is as just as red as his fingers. “Go get your shirt so I can scrub it, okay?”
“Okay, Mama,” he says before taking off like a rocket.
Kayla looks at Bucky’s pants—they will never be the same again—and sighs.
“Kids,” I say, though I don’t know much about it. I love my nephews, but I’ve never been baby-hungry or little-child-adoring.
“At least he was honest with me,” she says.
