Chapter 7 #2
KC shrugged. “I can always get bigger.”
“Not unless you’re gonna be the Jolly Green Giant.” Errol snorted as if he’d told the best joke ever.
I frowned at KC because he’d just been in the hospital recently due to his ridiculous belief that he wouldn’t be a good linebacker if he didn’t get bigger. Ren was doing the same thing. Why did KC act like he wasn’t already perfect?
Quain walked up beside the two and clasped his hands behind himself. “Can we talk?” he asked, staring up at KC with a small frown, which was his version of a scowl.
“It doesn’t take two eyes to see you want to tear into the boy about something.
” Errol shook Quain’s shoulder, and he lightly stepped out of Errol’s grip.
“I got a pork shoulder coming out of the smoker, so whatever you need to say can wait until after we eat. Come help me, muscles.” Errol smacked KC on the side again, then retreated toward the house.
Barber elbowed Ren. “Go help them. It’ll be a nice excuse to meet Uncle Errol.”
“Uh, he seems tipsy. Maybe this isn’t a good time?” Ren rubbed the back of his neck and glanced around at us.
Barber laughed. “Uncle Errol’s a little bit sauced almost all the time.”
Sophie tugged on my hand. “Come sit by the fire until everything’s ready.”
“Sure.” Anxiety prickled across my skin because this was all too normal after what had happened earlier today.
Sophie sat down close to me on a bench by the fire and knocked her shoulder against mine. “Are you doing okay?”
Barber sat down on a camp chair nearby and tilted his head. “Yeah, you could always come back to the barber shop.”
Of course he would think the issue was the move to Revenge Tattoo. Part of me took a grim satisfaction in what I was about to do. “My father is out of prison. He’s at my house, probably sleeping in my bed. Oh yeah, and Mom’s probably beside him.” I shuddered. “Or under him.”
Sophie made a face, and I loved her for it.
Barber jumped to his feet. “Fuck! Cain is out?”
I nodded.
“Does the club know?” He tugged his leather jacket, like thinking about the Kings of Men had reminded him it existed.
I shrugged, feeling pissy. “I’m not allowed to be involved in club business. How should I know?”
Barber rolled his eyes. “What happened that has you all twisted up in knots?”
“A bunch of stuff.” I kicked at the ground with the tip of my shoe. “It doesn’t matter. Ren was there. I’m fine.” I really wasn’t okay in my head, but physically I wasn’t any worse off than yesterday.
Barber walked over and squatted in front of me, taking me by surprise. He took the opportunity to be a fucking dick and ruffle my curls, and I shoved him, but he kept his balance and hopped to his feet. “You don’t sound fine.”
“Yeah. I would’ve thought you’d be over the moon.” Sophie tapped my dad’s ring with a significant widening of her eyes. “Right? All you ever talked about was him getting out of prison and all the things you would do together when that happened.”
“Meeting him . . . .” I stared at the way the flames burned brilliant blue right above the coals beneath the logs. “It wasn’t what I imagined.”
Barber picked up a stick and broke it in half, then tossed a piece in the bonfire.
“Oh, Oli, no. Don’t be this way. Cain was just in prison.
You gotta let a man settle in before you get his good side.
” He tossed the rest of the stick in the fire and sparks flew into the sky, which had darkened to an inky black speckled with stars while I wasn’t paying attention.
Quain wandered over to stand just outside the circle of chairs. “While it pains me to admit it, Luke is correct. I have been led to believe there is an adjustment period after returning to everyday life from prison. And he was in there for a long while.”
I wanted to ask how he knew that info, but I figured I might not like the answer.
It wasn’t as if gossip didn’t make the rounds.
Frustration nipped me. How did I tell the people closest to me that my father wasn’t even happy to see me?
He didn’t give a single shit about me? And I spent so much time wondering what he would think about my life choices.
I should’ve been more concerned with what I thought about the life I was living than him.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped, then took a deep breath. “Soph, what do you want to do that isn’t being a doc? I mean, that’s a big shift.”
She rested her elbows on her knees and cupped her cheeks, mumbling something.
“Come on.” Barber rubbed her back. “Tell us. What made you change your mind? I know you didn’t get bad grades, so that couldn’t be it. You’re smarter than three people.”
She sighed and sat up, scraping her blond hair behind her head like she was going to put it in a ponytail. She watched the flames dancing toward the sky, then sighed and let her hair cascade back down to her shoulders. “You can’t make fun of me.”
Everyone chuckled because that meant this was definitely going to be something good.
“Guys!” she hissed. “No!”
“Sorry. No promises.” I held up my hands in her direction.
She smacked my thigh and it stung, but talking about her problems was helping me ignore mine, so I didn’t care. “I decided to volunteer at a hospital. They need all sorts of people, you know?”
“That’s good.” Quain walked closer and smiled at her. “Gives you a taste of the atmosphere and the work. Very smart.”
She pointed at him with both hands. “That’s what I thought!”
“Was someone mean to you?” Barber’s nose piercing glinted in the firelight as he pounded his palm with his fist. “Uncle Errol and me will set ’em right. You don’t even have to ask.”
From nearby, Errol and KC both set down trays loaded with steaming meat. I couldn’t even see everything there, but the smells wafting toward us were fatty and wonderful. My mouth watered.
“She tell you yet?” Errol bellowed with amusement. He crossed his arms.
“I was getting there, Dad,” she murmured and sent him a dark glare.
“Well?” Quain asked, and he didn’t make a show of it like Barber had, but I got the idea he would help beat someone up for her, too. His jaw fluttered. “Was someone a problem?”
She tilted her head back to stare at the stars. “I was helping with the kids. It was going fine. I was handing out stickers and distracting them from shots. Then . . . .”
Everyone leaned toward her, even me. I couldn’t help it.
Errol snickered, and she carefully raised her hand and flashed him the middle finger.
I snorted.
“Then,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “One of them threw up.”
“Ew!” Ren said from beside me, a mask of horror etched onto his face.
I giggled, and he kicked my foot lightly with his. I hadn’t noticed him sneaking up beside me.
“Well, new cousin Ren, you’re just in time for my humiliation.
” She slapped her hand down on the bench.
“I threw up. Just bang. Didn’t even make it to a garbage can.
I had no control over it. How can I be a doctor if every time someone upchucks, I do, too?
” She shook her head miserably. “It’s not going to happen. ”
I stifled my laugh by biting the tip of my tongue, but everyone else howled like jackasses. I was sitting beside her, so I was within striking distance.
She glared around the fire.
“Maybe it will get better with time?” I leaned over and hugged her, but she was stiff in my arms.
“I tried,” she wailed. “It happens every time. I can’t see being a doctor now. So, what the hell am I going to do?”
KC came over and stood near Ren. “Do they have therapy for that or something?”
She pouted at him. “Maybe? But can you imagine what they would do to me? How many times I would have to see it happen to become desensitized?” She was green around the gills just talking about her misery.
“Maybe this isn’t the best dinnertime conversation,” Quain said with a kind smile.
“I have a game for you all. Come on,” Errol called, waving with both hands. He wasn’t shy about completely grabbing everyone’s attention.
“So help me, if this is anything like the game where you try to show me video clips of people throwing up the way you did earlier, you’re dead to me, Dad! I already told you, videos don’t bother me. It’s someone doing it in real life.” She shook her head and that middle finger came out again.
“How did you survive elementary school without seeing someone barf? I swear, in first grade, Bobby Thompson threw up every single Friday for a year straight.” Barber grinned at her. “Turned out he was mildly allergic to seafood and Friday was—”
“Stop talking about it.” She stood and looked like she was going to claw his eyes out.
Errol bellowed out a laugh. “Naw, that isn’t it.
Come on!” He started walking out toward a small slope that led down into a large expanse of his yard.
There was a pole light nearby that cast a glow all around.
I got up and followed him. Anything to get me away from people who were in the mood to ask questions.
“Lookie there!” He pointed at three dilapidated old cars spaced about fifteen feet apart. “All three are rigged to blow, but one has fireworks wired into the explosion.” He puffed out his chest in pride. “Whoever guesses which one has the fireworks gets to push the detonator button for all three.”
A cheer went up. The only thing this crew liked more than eating good food was blowing shit up. Even I threw my arms in the air and did a little dance, some of my bad mood slipping away.
“Ren, you’re not surprised?” I asked him.
He wrapped an arm around me, and I snuggled against him because I hadn’t thought to bring a hoodie and it was chilly away from the fire. “Anyone who would take in Luke has to be nuts. It’s nothing less than I expected.” He pressed a kiss to my temple, and I shivered.
“Plus, I told him Errol blows shit up on the way here. Weren’t you paying any attention to us talking?” KC asked, then came over to brush a kiss onto my cheek.
My face scalded as I shrugged. How could I feel bad when I had men like this surrounding me? Loving me? What the hell was wrong with me?