Chapter 2 #2
I frown at the Bluey birthday banner suspended over the table and my pathetic attempt at dessert in the corner of the kitchen. Of all the ways in which Caroline drives me crazy, witnessing how much better she knows Quinn than me is at the top of that list.
“Ev, we’re here!”
I don’t register the addition of another voice in the room until she’s gripping me by the shoulders from behind. I startle and turn around.
What is it with people not knocking anymore?
Emma may have lived here as long as I did—our bedrooms across the hall from one another’s—but she certainly doesn’t live here now.
A detail I’m normally thrilled about. There’s no one who celebrated the day my sister passed the bar more than me.
If I share a similarity with her, it’d be our devout work ethic.
But her freedom, because of it, grates at my jealous nerves now.
“How are you, big brother?”
“I hope you brought tequila,” I whisper in her ear. At least she hasn’t commented on the reporters out front.
She pulls back enough for me to read her lips as she mutters through clenched teeth, “Is that allowed at kids’ parties?”
I don’t get the chance to answer with her attention bouncing to the person next to me. “Hi, Caroline!”
“Emily.” Caroline begrudgingly accepts her hug.
“It’s—”
“Let’s go watch for your guests, Quinny.”
“—Emma,” she whispers to the empty spot Caroline left behind for the front door.
“Big party day, huh?” My sister’s boyfriend capitalizes on my attention as he slides a stack of gifts onto the kitchen table.
I count them—one, two, three, four, five—before turning to Emma.
I know it wasn’t her decision, but I say it anyway. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course we did. We’re family,” Nathan butts in, slapping me on the shoulder.
Not yet. Not ever, I hope.
I try not to recoil. Him in his plaid button-ups and aggressive gestures. I tolerate him. But I’ve always pictured my baby sister with someone… softer. Someone like—
“What is Will doing here?” The question gusts from Emma’s lungs in a breathy whisper. Her eyes are glued to the back door.
I glance out the window as my childhood friend’s backward hat and six-foot frame cross the backyard.
“Right now? Probably going to Delilah’s for lunch. Before that? Building a music studio above the garage. He was going to come to the party but a guy on his crew called in sick. He’s covering for him to get the project finished by tomorrow.”
Will is a better person than I’ll ever be, always taking care of his crew and checking up on his grandmother.
She raised him in the house next door after his parents died in a car accident in high school.
I never asked him many questions about it back then.
I was always afraid it would be a give and take conversation.
A confused look transforms Emma’s face. “You didn’t tell me you were doing that?”
“It’s… a new development.”
Kind of like living here.
Four toddlers barge into the kitchen, chasing each other in a fit of squeals around the island.
Caroline must have made a great first impression with their parents because they didn’t stay to offer concern about the reporters or introduce themselves to me.
After a week at a new school, followed by spring break, I don’t have the faintest clue of their names yet.
“I’m gonna go see the progress,” Emma says, drifting toward the back door. I catch a muscle in Nathan’s jaw jump before he ignores her and turns to me.
“So, Rhett, you’re really doing it… the whole domestic life thing?”
His use of my stage name irritates the hell out of me. Appearances have always been his priority over everything else. Hence the pile of gifts, the family connection to a famous music artist, and the way he uses my sister for her money.
Quinn launches herself at my legs. She grips my pants tight, hiding from a redheaded boy who was chasing her. She shrieks as he barrels into my side and reaches around to tickle her. I grip the counter to keep from losing my balance as two other kids come at me from the other side.
“Yep,” I grunt.
Nathan wouldn’t know a domestic life if it hit him in the face. Makes me question how committed he is to my sister. Over a decade on and off together and he still hasn’t popped the question.
Nathan chuckles. “This is good birth control.”
I’m not one to judge their situation. I didn’t entertain a committed relationship until four years and nine months ago. There’s nothing that makes you evaluate your life choices more than “Surprise! We’re having a baby.”
El and I had only been on two dates. The first hardly counted; I was playing a set at the country club where she worked as a waitress, and she offered me a glass of whiskey while I waited for the owner to cut a check for my performance.
It was after hours, moodily lit, and only the two of us.
She was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever laid eyes on, and it felt as close to a date as what I was used to having at the time.
I invited her out the next night. We went dancing at a club downtown. A few drinks and some grinding later, we woke up naked the next morning with very little recollection of how we ended up on the couch in my apartment.
She came from a well-to-do family and I, well, I was so focused on my music career I didn’t have time for anything else.
We parted ways until she showed up on my doorstep with that test in her hand and a terrified look in her eye.
I hardly knew her and wasn’t even sure if I could fall in love with someone.
But we were having a child together, and I wasn’t about to flake out on her.
The day they laid Quinn in her arms was the day I knew my answer to that question. Not only could I fall in love with her, I did. I snuck away while the two of them were sleeping to ask Wade for her hand in marriage and proposed that afternoon in the hospital room.
“He’s doing a fine job.” Wade squeezes my shoulder as he makes his way over to the cupboard where the glasses are kept. It shuts Nathan up.
I’ve always appreciated my father-in-law’s support. Unlike his wife, I’ve had it as long as I’ve known him. He’s a man of few words, but the ones he does say are always encouraging.
“Thanks,” I tell him as Emma slips back inside at the same moment the next circuit of tag rushes through the kitchen, kicking up the volume another ten notches.
Five kids and five adults all stuffed into one small space; I already feel my sanity slipping.
At the first vibration of my phone, I pull it from my pocket. Todd’s picture pops up on the screen.
“I’ve got to take this.” I shake kids from my pant legs and dodge out of this hell hole. When I break into the hall, I answer. “Todd?”
Another child-like scream belts from the other room. I press my hand against the opposite ear to block the noise and march farther down the hallway. I stop once to look at the device and make sure the call is even connected. I can’t hear anything, so I punch the volume button a few times. “Hello?”
“Rhett—I—Monday.” His voice sounds like it’s coming through a wood chopper.
Dammit. Not this again. It’s been six weeks since it’s happened and years before that.
“I can’t hear you, man… Todd?”
The call disconnects and a text pops through seconds later.
TODD: I’ll call you Monday to discuss the details.
Well, that was helpful.
Even though I’m the one who told my label I needed a break, I didn’t mean a month and a half and a move across state lines.
They didn’t either. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to the concern creeping in.
I’m hoping I’ll call you Monday to discuss the details means they’ve decided to reinstate my tour.
“Ev, where do you keep the crayons? They’re not in the junk drawer like they used to be.” Emma interrupts my thoughts.
“What?” I pull my eyes from the dark screen and look up at her.
She enunciates. “The crayons.”
“Oh, uh… I don’t know, Em. In the study, maybe?”
“Really? Coloring? That’s the activity that was planned?” Caroline complains as I step back into the baboon exhibit known as the kitchen.
“Quinn likes coloring,” I announce to the whole room, so she doesn’t think it’s directed at her.
Take that, Caroline. At least I got one of her interests right.
I shuffle through the Albertson’s sack for the stack of Bluey coloring books.
Wade slides his palm across the counter, his forehead tipped low like I’ll bark at him if he doesn’t speak softly. “Quinn keeps saying something about bug pictures?”
That’s the thing about toddlers. They change their minds every two seconds, and apparently, this is now a bug-themed party thanks to Caroline’s damn cupcakes. I’m supposed to screw these coloring books. Got it.
“I’ll go get them.” I act like they’re ready to go on the printer and make a break for the hallway.
Emma brushes by me. “Found the crayons in the hall closet.”
“How could I forget,” I grumble.
I type bug coloring page into the search engine and print the first collage it finds. The LaserJet printer spits out ten copies as a mob of children tackle me for a page. I give Quinn the one on top.
“To-To, woot! A waeybut! See?”
“That’s a fly, honey.” Caroline frowns. Quinn almost trips over a sneaker as she runs with her paper fluttering above her head. Caroline stalks after me as I collect the trail of hazardous shoes in a path to the front door.
“Everett, I think Quinn’s behind,” she says.
I look over my shoulder, expecting to find Quinn hiding in an unsafe crack of a door. She’s perfectly content at the kitchen table.
“Behind what?”
“I took her to the library the other day and this little boy her age had a full-on conversation with her. I’m talking five-word sentences.”
This has nothing to do with hiding.
“I think Quinn could use speech therapy,” Caroline adds. “You need to get her tested.”
The hair on my arms stands at attention. I quickly cover it with the gray sweatshirt I left draped over the dining room chair.
“Quinn’s fine. She’s barely four.”
Every kid is different.
“She’s a four-year-old who calls me To-To.” She tries to make her point by emphasizing the Ts.
Ah. So, it’s the Wizard of Oz nickname that’s getting to her. She picked it. And it’s not like Coco is an easy thing for a kid to say.
She presses in closer, lurking over my shoulder. “She calls you ‘Da-eee.’”
“I like that she calls me that,” I respond calmly, but I feel the tension rising. Blood pumps through my veins. She’s acting like it was just yesterday she was a mother of a four-year-old. Frankly, it’s been a long time. And also, it’s not like Quinn isn’t talking at all. She says plenty.
“Really?” she asks, as if it’s a ridiculous notion.
I’m trying to remain a beacon of tranquility, but it feels impossible with her breathing down my neck all the damn time.
She’s been here every single day since my parents left.
She shows up whenever she wants to. She demands to take Quinn for outings.
Drops off groceries after her fit over the box of Fruit Loops she found in the cupboard.
Folds laundry with my briefs in it. The woman has no boundaries, and I need to find a way to get some space from her or I’m going to end up saying something I regret.
She doesn’t take the hint and closes in. “There are kids her age with a significantly larger vocabulary. You aren’t paying attention.”
I toss the handful of shoes in the basket next to the door and turn on her. “For fuck’s sake, that’s all I’ve been doing is paying attention! She doesn’t need speech therapy!” I scream in her face at the exact same time a fist pounds at the front door.
“Watch your language.” Caroline scowls at me as I grip the handle and jerk it open. It swings wide and bounces off the wall, leaving a dent behind where a door stopper should have caught it.
“What the hell is it?” I say to the person on the other side.
A woman is crouched in front of a kid wearing a cowboy hat, patiently coaching him as his small fist hovers in midair.
“And that is why it’s polite to knock softerrr—” She hangs on to the last letter when our eyes meet for the first time.
Her hair is tied back in a ponytail instead of a clip, and she’s wearing a tank top and cut-off denim shorts instead of the T-shirt with my face on it the day we met.
She straightens. “Hi! I mean… hello?” Then she swivels her head from side to side until her eyes catch on the metal house numbers.
“I’m… sorry, I—” She pulls her phone from her shorts pocket and stares at it.
Then she chuckles awkwardly. “Funny story… we were looking for a birthday party, but I think we might have gotten the wrong address. I never expected—”
“You.” I finish the sentence for her.
Impulsive. Smiley. Energetic. The ideal combination to get Caroline off my back. If there was ever a perfect moment for my path to cross with this woman again, it’s now.
“Come in.”