Chapter 7 #2
“Would you stop being difficult and let me help you?”
“Would you stop being so overbearing and overprotective for once?” she shoots back, narrowing her eyes at him. Her bright red hair swishes behind her and she shakes her head to free her bangs from the tip of her lashes.
“Of you? Never.”
“You’re so annoying,” she groans as they walk down the hall.
“I wouldn’t need to be if you weren’t so reckless,” I hear Carter say before they’re out of earshot.
Ivy and I shake our heads at the two of them and work to clean up the mess and set the table.
Not one for change, the plates and silverware are where they always are and the typical home-cooked meal is sitting on the stovetop ready to be consumed.
The lingering scent of vanilla and cinnamon hangs in the air as it always has since I was a boy.
It was one of the first things I noticed when I first got here.
How even the air felt like comfort and safety.
“So, how are you really doing?” Ivy tips her eyes up at me as she places an old ceramic plate down on the table.
It came from the thrift store like half her house has because, as she likes to say, everything has a past and a story to tell us if we shut up long enough to hear them.
The plate has a thin crack down the center that I’m sure will break it in two if you press down too hard on it but it still makes me wonder how the crack got there.
“Like I told you before, I’m—”
“I’m gonna stop you right there before you use that damn F word again because I know you’re anything but fine,” she snaps, popping her hip and resting a hand on it for impact. “You look like you have the whole world sitting on your shoulders right now.”
I shake my head at her and pull my shoulders back. “I do not look like that. It’s been a long week at the firehouse and—”
“Can someone please explain to me why Willow is outside screaming on the back of Miles’s truck like Carter’s trying to cut her hand off?”
Coop’s voice travels down the hallway and Ivy and I both turn to see him reach the kitchen. Saved by the newcomer, thank god. The distinct sound of paws padding across the floor come with him and it’s not long before Coop’s police dog, Lola, trots into the kitchen.
“You didn’t ask them yourself before coming in?”
“I find that it’s best to steer clear of her when she’s screaming like that.” He shrugs, pushing his lips into a frown.
“Well, your darling little sister slipped and cut her hand open. Carter hauled her ass outside to patch it up. I’m assuming he’s trying to force her to let him give her stitches,” I explain, stepping towards him and pulling him into a hug.
Being a working dog, Lola parks it on her butt beside my best friend and waits for him to give her the okay to get some love.
Once he releases her, she runs to Ivy and happily accepts her baby talk and frantic pets.
He and Willow started joining our Sunday family breakfasts after their dad passed away a few years ago.
“I mean, he’s trained in first aid and was a paramedic before becoming a fireman. Don’t see what she’s putting up such a fight about,” Coop gruffs. Then, he gives me a loving smack on the shoulder. “How ya holding up?”
I groan instinctively.
“See, I told you it looked like you were carrying something heavy,” I hear Ivy mumble under her breath behind me.
Everyone knows about what happened earlier this summer and the toll it’s had on me.
They understand how seriously I take the health and safety of the people I command and losing one of them on the job…
it changed me. I wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows before, but after the accident it’s as if there’s a perpetual dark cloud hovering above my head.
Like a darkness had burrowed into me and no matter how much I try to act like it isn’t there, my family still sees it.
And much to my dismay, they won’t let it be.
Before I can be pestered with more questions, Carter and Willow come barreling into the kitchen, arguing like two little kids on the playground.
“You made it worse,” she shrieked, looking down at her now bandaged up hand.
“No, you made it worse when you tried to rip your hand away when I was stitching you closed. If you would have sat still you wouldn’t have gotten hurt more.”
“I would’ve done a better job myself, now it’s going to scar. Ugh, Bobby’s going to hate this.”
Carter, Cooper, and I all groan audibly at the sound of her boyfriend’s name.
None of us like him and know she deserves so much more than him.
A wannabe ‘influencer,’ Bobby spends most of his time sitting with his phone in front of his face.
Meanwhile, Willow is actually doing something with her life and is set to become a nurse practitioner within the next few years.
She’s worked hard, worked her way through nursing school, and has hustled hard for what she has.
The girl has more work ethic than most and I respect the hell out of her for it.
“Booby is a putz and needs to be thrown out on the streets,” Carter laments, calling him the nickname we refer to him by in our group chat.
“I really don’t understand what you see in the guy,” I add.
“He needs to get a real job,” Coop finishes sternly.
She rolls her eyes at us while Ivy eyes all of us with a look of warning.
The three of us have a propensity to be a little over protective of Willow which she often takes as us ganging up on her.
On more than one occasion, we’ve taken things a step too far and made her cry without meaning too. Hence, the evil glare from Ivy.
“Okay, first, he’s nice to me and I like him a lot.
There will be no ‘throwing him out onto the streets’ no matter how upset that makes you.
And second, he does have a real job. He works with a lot of big brands around the city and makes a real living from what he does.
Just because you don’t understand that, Coop, doesn’t mean it isn’t a real job.
” She glares at all of us before grabbing her plate from the table to fill it with food.
“If he makes you happy, honey, that’s all that matters,” Ivy chimes in, moving towards the table. I step up behind her to pull out her chair to help her into it.
“Thank you, Ivy. He does make me happy. So you fools need to butt out and mind your own business. I don’t remember hearing of any of you being in a successful relationship.” She eyes the three of us and we all exchange a silent glance. “That’s what I thought.”
She plops herself down in the chair next to Ivy, and Carter takes the one next to her.
Cooper and I fill our plates and complete the table in the final two chairs.
We all eat, silence falling around the room while we do but it doesn’t last long.
Reaching over, Carter takes his fork and steals a potato from Willow’s after he’s finished his own.
She smacks him hard on the back of the hand.
“Next time I’m going to stab you with my fork,” she threatens, narrowing her eyes at him.
“I’d love to see you try,” he smirks in reply.
The two of them have always been close, ever since he first came to live with us.
It’s like they had a bond that’s on a different level than the rest of us.
Sure, Coop is Willow’s biological brother, but Carter is more like her defender.
There were plenty of times in high school he would threaten to beat up the kid who was mean to her on the playground or would wait for her after school to walk home with her while Coop and I would leave without them.
Leaning over, Coop slips Lola a piece of egg where she’s lying on the floor next to his chair. Giving her a pat on the head, I can see how much he loves the German shepherd he raised and trained himself to be his police dog. They’re a full unit, the two of them. Wherever you see Coop, you see Lola.
While it might not be the traditional type of family you see in movies or books, it’s the best kind of family I could have ever asked for.
Having Carter as my brother and Coop and Willow as two of my closest friends is more than I could ever dream of as a kid.
And having a mother like Ivy is the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten.
Looking around the table, I smile softly, grateful to have what I do.
But then the moment of gratitude is gone and my smile slips when I remember that at a dining room table just like this, is a family with a now empty chair that wasn’t empty earlier this summer.
A chair that will sit empty and a family that will remain broken for the foreseeable future.
Forever knowing that something is missing.
And it’s all my fault.