Alice #2
My brother turned and glared, sliding a thumb across his neck.
“We’re going to bed before the kids tear the house down,” Granny announced, getting to her feet. “Breakfast is at nine. Rena, are you bringing the pancakes?”
“I’ve got pancakes, and Reese is making the sausage and bacon,” Mom confirmed.
Granny used to be in charge of all the food at family gatherings, but she’d eventually given up and delegated when we got older and the boys started eating like bottomless pits.
The noise level lowered after my grandparents had gone to bed, but not by much.
The uncles hassled the nephews about their appearance, what they drove, where they worked, how often they came home to visit, and anything else they could pull out of the air.
The aunties did the opposite, asking where everyone had been, what they’d been up to, if they were being careful, if they were eating enough, if they’d gotten this or that package they’d sent.
From the outside looking in, it probably resembled chaos, but inside, it was just…family. My family.
“Hey, nightcap?” Viggo asked, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “My room, fifteen minutes.”
I nodded and glanced around the room, wondering if I could manage to get away before the others. A couple of minutes after Viggo escaped, my cousin Charles stretched and rose.
“Chip, you asshole,” I muttered under my breath.
My dad chuckled. He knew exactly what we were doing.
It had become a game when we were just kids, to see how many of us could leave before Auntie Reese noticed that the crowd had thinned out.
She’d made so many jokes about how many of us there were, literally counting us whenever we were in a group, so she wouldn’t accidentally leave anyone behind.
I shot to my feet next, covering my mouth with my hand as I faked a yawn.
My mom rolled her eyes.
I successfully made it out of the room and called out quietly, “Haha, suckers,” as I ran up the stairs. None of the aunts or my mother could’ve heard me, but I knew my brothers and cousins had.
When I reached the rooms upstairs, Viggo’s door was wide open.
We sat around talking late into the night, each of us unwilling to interfere with the magic that came from everyone being in the same place. The same thing would happen nearly every night that we were home.
“We wondered if you’d make it next,” Chip said, sitting on the kitchen counter. “I’m not an asshole just because you’re so slow.”
“Ladies first,” I reminded him, wrinkling my nose.
“Cousins don’t count. It’s every Vampire for himself.”
“I’m just glad I got here before Pete,” I said, going to the fridge. “Because he always takes the one I want. Every fucking time. I don’t even think he likes it.”
My brothers and cousins showed up one by one until there were only three left. That’s when I heard my Auntie Reese downstairs.
“They did it again!”
“And you’re surprised by this?” my mom asked her, laughing. “You never fucking catch on.”
“That’s because I don’t have to count them to make sure they’re all there anymore! If one of them is missing, he can fend for himself at this point.”
“Notice she said he,” I pointed out, throwing my feet on the coffee table as I leaned back on the couch. “Not she.”
“I walked away one fucking time,” my brother Joey bitched. “And I found you guys in less than five minutes.”
“We searched for an hour,” Zeke corrected. “And you didn’t find us. Afi found you up in a fucking tree.”
“I was trying to see from a higher vantage point,” Joey argued stubbornly. “I’ve told you that.”
I chuckled at the memory. He definitely had not been trying to see from a higher vantage point. He’d been trying to reach a bird’s nest when Afi plucked him out of the tree.
We waited until everyone had arrived, and the last person had closed the door behind him, then Viggo spoke.
“To Uncle Zeke,” he said. It always started with Uncle Zeke.
“To family month,” Chip added. Family month was always second.
“To Afi and Granny,” I toasted. My mouth watered as I waited.
“To Grandpa Gary,” Sven said. Aunt Rosemary’s dad had died over thirty years ago, but he’d made a big impression on all of us while he’d lived.
“To the new commander of the Northwest Command,” my brother Ira said, toasting my cousin Isaac.
“No shit?” I asked, giving him a thumbs up. We didn’t have to enlist, but some of my cousins had anyway.
“To the only dumb girl,” Peter said, grinning as he tipped his glass at me.
I smiled back. Pete may have driven me absolutely insane for most of our lives, but he was also nearly as close to me as my brothers. I’d do anything for him, as long as I could kick his ass first.
“To coming home again,” Gary said.
“Oh, that’s a cop-out,” Ira complained.
“I’ll allow it,” Viggo said magnanimously.
“To good coffee,” Siggy said.
“To our parents,” Isaac added softly.
We went down the line, each of the cousins making a toast in the order they’d made it to the room.
As you got further down the line, it got more difficult to think of something to toast because everyone else had already picked the good ones.
It was why we always tried to beat the others up to whichever of Uncle Danny’s boys’ rooms had been delegated as the meeting place that year.
“To not shitting on the plane even though Erik’s bathroom is busted,” Joey toasted last.
“Yikes,” I said as everyone laughed.
We all grew silent, then spoke at once. “To finding our mates.”
Then each of us downed the blood we’d pulled from Viggo’s fridge.
Later that night, I walked with my brothers back to my parents’ house, listening to the crickets chirp like they were welcoming us home.
“Hey, Doodle, I’ve got a friend stopping by in the morning,” Ira said. “Just so you don’t lose your shit when you see a stranger at the door.”
“It’s family week,” I scolded him with a shove. “You’re not supposed to bring friends. Don’t you have enough boys to play with?”
“He’s picking up some files I brought with me,” Ira explained dryly. “Then he’ll leave.”
“I don’t even want to see him,” I announced, raising my hands to the sky.
It smelled like rain. Absolutely nothing smelled like an Oregon forest just before a rainstorm hit. I felt drunk on it.
I needed to come home more often.
“Don’t worry,” Erik joked. “Ira’s little friend won’t ruin your family month.”
“It’s everyone’s family month.”
“Yes, but no one loves it quite like you do,” Joey said.
“Granny does.” I glared at him. “Don’t act like it’s some big hassle to come home for a single month in the summer. You know you enjoy it.”
“Of course I do, Doodle,” Joey said, bumping my shoulder with his. “I’m just teasing you.”
“You’re so sensitive,” Erik joked.
“Really? Because I don’t think I’m the one who cries every time a certain someone dies in a certain movie.”
“It’s his dad, Alice,” Erik shot back. “If you don’t cry, you’re a monster.”
“It’s a cartoon,” I reminded him.
“It’s a cinematic masterpiece,” both Ira and Joey exclaimed, along with Erik.
Needless to say, it wasn’t the first argument we’d had about it.
“Do you think Mom and Dad are still awake?” I asked quietly as we neared the house.
“If they are, I don’t want to know about it,” Ira replied.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Joey hissed, shoving Ira to the side.
“Oh, gross,” I whispered.
“All of you, shut up,” Erik ordered as he slowly opened the front door.
“I’ll see you guys in the morning,” I called with barely a sound as I headed toward my bedroom.
“Did you order our blood or did Mom?” Ira whisper-yelled back.
“I did. I’m not an idiot.”
“Thank you,” he said, wiggling his fingers at me.
I loved my work, and I loved seeing the world, but there was something about being home with the people who loved you most. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t lonely, but there was no other way to describe it.
I ached for my family when we were apart, and the worst part about it was that even when I came home to see my parents and Afi and Granny, that ache was never fully gone because everyone else was scattered to the four winds.
But it was June now, and June meant everything was right in the world.
I fell asleep that night, the happiest I’d been in a very long time.
I woke up the next morning wishing everyone would shut the hell up so I could get fifteen minutes of peace.
Erik was yelling across the house, asking where my mom had stored his fishing gear, my mom was yelling at Ira to run down and see if Granny had her container of vegetable oil, and my dad was singing some old song so off-key that I wanted to jam nails in my ears so I didn’t have to hear it.
“I hate it here,” Joey grumbled as he passed me in the hall.
“It’s family month,” I growled, stomping toward the kitchen.
“There’s my Doodle,” Dad sang, pulling me into a dance as I groaned. “How’d you sleep?”
“I would’ve slept better if all of you weren’t out here screaming and yelling,” I complained, pulling away.
“Breakfast is in half an hour,” my mom chastised. “You needed to wake up anyway.”
“That doesn’t explain the yelling.”
“We weren’t being that loud, were we?” my mom asked my dad.