Chapter Five #2
“You’re very touchy-feely today,” I observe, regaining my balance. He allows me a generous half an inch of separation between his broad torso and my back. “Considering you don’t actually want to be around me and all.”
He sighs. “I told you that’s not what I meant.”
Uh-huh. He sure did tell me that. Real believably and everything.
Amia wiggles as Wolfe hands her a purple gift bag, and I wiggle with her. “Shut up for a second,” I order both Fox and my butterflies. “She’s opening my present.”
My stomach doesn’t listen, but for the first time probably ever, Fox obeys, and I watch happily while the best little girl I know squeals in delight as she unearths a rock tumbler from the depths of the bag.
I beam.
She holds the tumbler tightly to her body as she jumps up, tramples through the crowd of barely-contained children, and runs to me. Fox braces right before she makes contact, slamming into us with more force than one might expect from a newly minted eight-year-old.
I lose my breath as the tumbler hits my stomach, and she hastily moves it to the side. “Oops!” She grins up at me, bright blue eyes sparkling with joy. “This is the best present ever!” she declares. “You’re the best aunt ever!”
“Hey!” Almond protests from the bar. A balloon sticks to her pale pink hair via static electricity, and I snort.
Amia smiles in her direction, lifting the rock tumbler in the air for her to see. “Get me some rocks for this, and you can be the best aunt ever!”
Almond’s eyes crinkle. “Don’t I get a leg up for being biologically your aunt?” she asks.
“Not really.” Amia shrugs. “An aunt’s an aunt. If you want the top spot, you have to work for it.”
Almond’s eyebrows rise as her gaze meets mine. I smile smugly, then stick my tongue out at her. “Yeah, Al, you have to work for it,” I taunt.
She rolls her eyes. “We’ll see how you feel after opening my present,” she tells Amia. “I still have hope.”
With haste, Amia returns to her booth, rooting around in the gifts for Almond’s.
Fox clears his throat.
“What?” I ask, poking at his hands. I think that’s quite enough cuddle time for the grumpy jerk today. My stomach cannot handle much more.
His grip tightens before loosening, only fully dropping when I step out of his hold.
He sighs.
“What?” I repeat, turning to give him the stink eye.
His hands flex at his sides, fisting and unfisting. “I got her a rock tumbler,” he mumbles, glaring over top of my head.
I freeze.
Surely he did not just say what I think he just said. Surely not.
“You got her a rock tumbler?” I ask. “Are you kidding me?”
“It was on her list,” he defends, but he doesn’t make eye contact. He knows.
My nostrils flare. “I told you I was getting her one,” I tear his paper-thin defense right down.
“Are you joking? I told you four different times. I wrote it down. I posted it on the bulletin board in the bar hall. I could not have been more clear.” I told everyone I was getting her a tumbler.
The girl is obsessed with rocks. She would’ve gotten twelve tumblers if we weren’t careful.
Which is why I got her one three months ago during a sale, then immediately texted the Blackwood family group chat that I had it covered.
Then, I texted everyone individually that I had it covered.
Then, I spent the next three months periodically reminding everyone that I had it covered and making them promise not to get her one themselves.
He so genuinely must be kidding me.
He so genuinely better be kidding me.
He rubs a hand over his face, giving anything but SIKE energy.
“Have you lost your mind?” I hiss.
“I found a big one,” he says. “So that she can tumble a bunch of rocks at once. Yours looked like it would fit maybe four and be at capacity.”
“The one I got her fits more than four rocks.” My teeth grind as I fight to keep my cool.
“Why would you do this? I know you hate me, but I didn’t think you’d let it affect my relationship with Amia.
” Screw butterflies. My stomach is straight sour now.
“That’s low. Way lower than I ever thought you would go, and my opinion of you isn’t exactly sky high at the best of times. ”
He has just enough audacity left in him to recoil, as if he’s the victim here, and my anger turns to lividity.
“Tell. Me. You’re. Joking.”
He does not.
Seething, I walk away. Because I made a promise to Wolfe, and I’m not a lying liar promise breaker.
“Poem,” he says, fingers brushing my arm before I manage to move out of reach.
I slash a hand behind me, throwing a glare over my shoulder. “We can talk about it later,” I grit. “When it’s not Amia’s birthday party and I don’t want to kill you.”
His hand drops, and he shoves it into the pocket of his jeans. He nods, a sharp jerk of his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For what it’s worth.”
Yeah. And the grass is blue.
“Whatever,” I mumble, giving him my back. I move to the other side of the room and set up camp next to my sisters at the bar. They eye me warily, but don’t comment.
Muse glowers at Fox, wrapping an arm around my tense shoulders. Sonnet worries her bottom lip.
I keep my focus on Amia, smiling whenever her face tilts my way and doing my very best not to dread the moment she gets to Fox’s gift and mine is set aside for something bigger and better.
Amia loves me, I remind myself.
Amia thinks of me as her aunt, I remind myself.
Amia will not up and abandon me just because Fox gives her a better gift than me, I remind myself.
Not only because she’s a child and can’t make the decision to abandon anyone all on her own, but because she’s a sweet angel child who would never abandon someone she loves over something so small as an apparently useless birthday gift.
Maybe she can keep the lesser rock tumbler at her grandparents’ house to use there. Or at Almond’s. Or at my house. We could get her more and more, and she could have a rock tumbler at every place she visits.
Or maybe Fox can take a casual walk off a cliff into shark-infested waters.
When Amia finally opens his gift, joy spreads across her face as she launches herself once again across the room, this time to hug Fox in thanks for Fox’s gift.
I focus very, very hard on that joy. A child’s joy over something good for her, which I should not be selfishly upset or insecure about.
A child’s joy, which can balm many frustrations and feelings of inadequacies.
A child’s joy, which pangs against my stubborn pride when she turns to me, lifting Fox’s tumbler and declares, the happiest girl alive, “Now I have two!”
I grin at her, even as my heart beats heavy with frustrations my brain works overtime to logic away. “Two!” I answer her joy, feigning my own.
She squeals, running to set the tumblers side by side.
Pointedly, I do not look at Fox.
Pointedly, I do not look at Fox for the rest of the evening.
Pointedly, I’d like to not look at Fox for the rest of my life.