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One of her blonde brows twitches. Can a seven-year-old twitch like that? Like a possessed, full-grown woman?
“A cowgirl,” Coco says, a little puff to her breath after trekking up the stairs with chubby little Lula in her arms.
“Girls can be cows too, Uncle Owen. Don’t be sexist.”
“Sexist?” Again, I eye my sister.
“It’s new. First grade is a whole new ball of fun.”
“I learned that word yesterday,” Alice says. “You can thankEvelyn Marshall for that information. She sits next to me at lunch, and her mother’s boyfriend is a sexist pig.”
“Young lady—”
Alice folds her lips in on one another, eyes wide on Coco. “I didn’t say Mel was a sexist pig—Evelyn did.”
Coco sighs, giving up the fight. “This is her Halloween costume, Uncle Owen. Doesn’t she look great?” Coco shifts Lula to her opposite hip.
“Fantastic,” I say, holding out a hand to high-five Alice. Then, I reach a hand out for my baby niece’s fingers. “Hi, Lula.” She latches on to me, but she’s sleepy. Her eyes droop, and she lays her head against Coco’s shoulder, her dark hair, so much like my sister’s, curling around her ears.
I was pretty sure there couldn’t be a sweeter infant than Alice, and then Lula was born. I was wrong. She is equally as sweet as her sister—though already different, even at six months old.
Alice pulls a gun from the holster at her hip—a pink-handled pistol.
“Ah-ah-ah—” Coco says, pointing a finger at her stepdaughter. “Remember, we don’t point guns at people.”
“Then how am I supposed to kill the bad guys?” Alice rolls her eyes like she isn’t seven, but seventeen. Still, she doesn’t point her silver-and-pink pistol at either of us.
“You aren’t,” Coco says—and her tone tells me she’s tired, not amused.
“A cowb—” I swallow, hard. “Cowgirl? I thought for sure you’d be a princess or a ballerina.”
Alice latches onto my fingers and twirls once beneath our clasped hands. “Silly, Owen. Halloween is a special day to be something you’re not. Iama princess. Iama ballerina. So, that would make no sense at all. Are you going to dress up like a teacher or an uncle?”
“I guess not. How can I argue with that logic?”
“You can’t. At least that’s what Jude told me as he sent back the other two costumes he’d bought her.” Coco cracks a grin.
“He is a smart man,” Alice says.
“He is.” Coco crouches so that she’s eye level with Alice. “Sweet pea, can you play with your sister for a few minutes while I help Uncle Owen? He has a date tonight.” She waggles her eyebrows at the girl and Alice bursts into a fit of giggles.
“I am the best at playing with Lula. We both know it.”
Coco nods, laying Lula on a blanket on the floor next to where Alice has decided to perch herself. “It’s true.” She gives both of her girls a peck on the head before standing to peer at me. “You aren’t dressed at all. Annie said I just needed to come approve your outfit.”
“Annie sent you?”
“She did.” Coco’s standing three feet away, but eyes seem to narrow in on my bare chest. She takes one step closer. “Owen, is that… Is that atattoo?” She says, now two inches away. She’s inspecting the two inch circle inked into my skin—the one I forgot all about.
I jolt back with her words and search the ground for a T-shirt. Because–yes, it is a tattoo, one I am still not used to having.
The other night, between my one beer and Levi’s house, I sort of stopped to get some very permanent, spur of the moment work done on myself.
I’m hunched over searching the ground–the place where I normally keep my dirty laundry. Ironically, I cleaned it all up yesterday.
“Owen,” Coco groans. “Stop that.”
I huff and stand straight. “Yes. It’s a tattoo.”
