Chapter 5 #2
Huh. At least now he knew what had gotten Benji’s back up. “And what did Benji say to that?”
Brooks gave him a wry laugh. “He told me I could call him Ben, thank you, and that he was their legal guardian. He basically told me to fuck off.”
“Ah.” Well, that was totally on point, so he wasn’t shocked. “The kids are fine here. I’ve got room. They’re settled, and we have everyone in school and activities. You don’t have to stress it. Benji’s made sure they’re safe as houses.”
“Wait, so you want them to stay here?” Brooks looked like his eyebrows might fly right off. “Aren’t you working?”
“I retired.” He let that drop. “I mean, I do contract work for the Chiaras, but I’m settled here.” He crossed his arms. “You got a place to take the kids? ”
“You know I don’t. Not yet, but I will.”
Uh-huh. He didn’t say a word, because what was he supposed to say? Coop knew cowboys, and the ones that needed to be on the road were on the road. Him, he was settled, but he wasn’t going to argue. There wasn’t any reason in it. “Well, why don’t you come in and meet the kids again?”
“I don’t know…”
“The little ones don’t seem to remember you at all, man.
Let the kids all see that you’re not actually their dad, and then I’ll put you up in one of the bedrooms. You can hang out, sleep for a few days, get yourself together.
Nothing’s going to happen right now. And I’ll be honest with you, nothing’s going to happen without Benji’s permission. He is their legal guardian.”
“He’s just a kid!” Brooks had that look—like a fractious horse about to bolt, so Coop tried for gentle and easy, like he was dealing with someone who’d just had their chickens scattered.
“He’s nineteen. He’s an adult. Don’t you worry. I have signing rights on all their stuff at school. I got all the legal stuff dealt with. I haven’t adopted them or nothing, that’s not my place, but we’re all legal and settled, so when Benji goes back to work?—”
“Just a minute, now?—”
“You don’t have to worry about it at the moment; you can just sleep.” And not argue with him, because if this son of a bitch argued with him, Coop would just deck him.
He had kids that he had to deal with, all six of whom were upset.
He needed to hear about robotics, football, Girl Scouts, and 4-H. He needed to hear whatever Ricky was supposed to be playing on the guitar.
Then he was going to have to talk Benji down out of the trees. He assumed that he was up there with Mina .
Thank God for Mason. The boy wasn’t the brightest on earth, but he was good-natured and he liked to play football. That was it. Those were the things he could say about Mason—good-natured, needed copious amounts of food, liked to play football.
If he was mad, Coop sent him out to run something over. If he was happy, Coop sent him out to run something over. It was a bright blessing and, in a line of six children, five of whom were complicated as fuck, it was nice to be able to deal with one boy.
Brooks sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “Sure. Sure, I’ll come meet them all.”
“Good man.” See? No beating required. Coop had no damn doubt in his mind that Brooks was just going to lurk under the waterline like an alligator and wait for his chance to make a big fucking splash, but right now the guy looked exhausted.
So he was no doubt conserving energy.
Brooks got up. “Let me take this to the kitchen.” He held up the beer.
“I’ll come with.”
“S’your house.”
Damn right it was. And Coop thought he was being utterly reasonable about it.
All of the kids were sitting in the front room on the huge sectional except for Mina and Benji, who were in the recliner. All their eyes were wide as Brooks came in, and Coop put on a big smile.
“Hey, y’all, this is your Uncle Brooks. He was your daddy’s brother. You remember him, huh, Lucy? Ricky?”
Ricky nodded. “I remember you. You brought Lucy a stuffed horse for her birthday. Hi.”
Brooks nodded back. “Hey, guys. I’ve been out of the country and I just found out about…your parents. So I ca me to?—”
“Help and say hi,” Benji said, his voice hard and sure. “It’s great to have him come visit.”
“Family is important.” Lucy had that look that was older than her years, showing how much she’d been through. She and Mina were the most alike in appearance, although her hair was much more brown where Mina’s was near black. “Right?”
“Right.” Coop offered her a smile.
“Is he going to stay here with us?” That was Mason.
“Yep! We’re going to put him in the guest bedroom, the one on the third floor.” It was a good size, comfortable, and sharing a bathroom with Ricky was…well?—
“How many bedrooms does this monstrosity have?”
“My house has eight bedrooms.” Sure, it was a monstrosity, but it was his monstrosity and he loved it.
“Eight bedrooms?”
“Eight. Which is handy because there’s seven of us and that leaves one all for you.” He was fixin’ to lose his temper.
The kids stared at him, and Benji’s lips were tight, so he powered on.
“I thought we’d have pizzas. That’s something easy.
We all can have whatever we want on ours.
And I do want to hear what everybody did because I didn’t get to listen to any of the things that happened.
” He was not going to let this derail their evening.
All they had to do was put up with Brooks so he could go up and get some sleep, and surely, when he came down, he would be more reasonable.
Or Coop would dunk him in the hot tub until he began to be.
Either way, what bliss.
“I like pizzas.” Johnny looked nervous as hell. “Mina said Nell was staying for dinner.”
He shook his head. “She had to go home with her dad, but we decided that the sleepover would be maybe fun on Saturday. Pizza and sleeping bags. Movies in the family room. Sound okay?”
Mina nodded. She kept sneaking looks at Brooks like he was going to bite her or something. Poor baby.
Brooks finally smiled, and it did good things to his face. “Sorry, guys. I’m just real tired. Y’all know how far it is to Australia?”
“Is that where you were?” Mason’s eyes went wide.
“Do they really have spiders that can carry birds?”
Brooks glanced at Coop, who rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Uh, how about I talk to anyone who wants to hear about that tomorrow? That might not be great for a supper discussion.”
Oh, good man. Coop was actually pretty impressed. Mina looked so relieved she might cry, and Lucy let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Let me go check on the dough. Brooks, how are you at making pizza rounds?”
“Good. I’ll come with you.”
“We’ll call you in when it’s time to top, y’all,” Coop murmured, then led Brooks back out of the room. “I would have let you sit with them, but I wanted to fill you in on what topics you might avoid.”
“Sure. I appreciate it. Mina looked scared when spiders came up.” Brooks took the little pizza pans Coop handed him and spread them out on the counter, sprinkling cornmeal on them from the canister Coop gave him. Okay, good. Looked like he got pizza.
Coop turned the oven on. “Mina is terrified of spiders and clowns. Johnny wants to know all about anything you know about history, tech, or weird languages, but rodeo bores him to tears. Mason likes gross shit. Lucy does not. No gore. Ricky likes cars and girls and he’s a reader—even though he’ll deny it.
And Benji is just…you know, almost an adult. He’s a little self-important. ”
That made Brooks snort. “I remember those days.” He started shaping balls of dough into rounds. “How thick?”
“Just cover the pan with a ball.”
“Got it.” Brooks worked silently for a bit. “Hey, I didn’t mean to insult your house. It’s just this great, huge place. That’s all I meant. Sometimes I’m too damn blunt.”
“I guess that’s what happens on some Australian cattle stations. I hear it took you a helicopter to get to the nearest town in any time that was reasonable.”
Brooks scoffed. “Yeah. It was a haul. I spent a lot of time with my TV.”
And his hand, Coop would bet. Not that it was any of his business if it was true. What Brooks did about his dick was his business.
“Training horses?”
“Yeah. Yeah, the guy I worked for wanted to run a cutting and reining horse dynasty, so I built his bloodline for four years, turned out his first homegrown million-dollar champ.” Brooks filled all the pans. “What now?”
“Chop L’il Smokies. Mina and Lucy want them instead of pepperoni.”
“No shit.”
“Not even a little.”
“Huh.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Coop said, trying not to snap. Lord, he hated his routine getting fucked.
“Hey, I don’t. In Oz, they put vegemite, onions, ham, cheese and egg on a pizza.”
Coop gagged. “Like, crack an egg on it?” He’d seen that on the Food Network.
“As in, beat a couple of eggs and pour it over the top of the whole schmear to cook it.”
“Nope.” Coop had to admit, he wouldn’t be able to cope. And he liked breakfast pizza. But he scrambled the eggs first and then they cooked again on the pizza. And that was on a Bisquick crust. So it tasted like a sausage cheese biscuit.
“Well, the girls like their L’il Smokies pizzas.” He pulled out bags—the cooked sausage he could have them sprinkle, the pepperoni, cubed ham, onions, mushrooms, sliced-up peppers, green chile, olives, both kinds.
He was an everything-on-the-pizza type. The best part about this meal was that the kids could just do their thing, and he didn’t have to think.
The options were vast—from everything someone could put on a pizza to only cheese, please, no sauce, and every God damn thing in between.
It was easy and happy-making and if he could just get Mina and Johnny to sleep and the older ones into the bedrooms, then maybe he could have a minute.
Oh hell, he didn’t know about that. He was going to have to talk to Benji.
Coop wasn’t letting anybody take these kids.
Benji had done a good job. He wanted to continue the process and let Benji go be a young man.
He imagined deep down in his gut that Brooks would be pleased, really.
He respected the hell out of the man for getting on his pony and riding and trying to fix things.
It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t have appreciated a phone call to warn him.