Pulling up to my parent’s house, I got out and dropped to my feet.
I drove a jacked up Ford F-150, much to my parent’s consternation.
We were a car family, pure and simple.
Or at least they were, not me.
I loved my truck.
I could get it dirty and not worry about the interior because that was what trucks were for.
Shoving the keys into my pocket and turning to grab the pie I’d had in my truck since this morning, the coffee cup that I’d downed the moment I got into my cruiser fell to the floor.
My eyes lit on it, and I smiled, thinking about how Nikki had given it to me.
She knew me well.
Or as well as I let her know me.
She knew me better than my entire family, and she’d only ascertained the information in about ten total meetings.
She’d gotten more from me in one night than Joslin had gotten from me in a year and a half.
“About time you showed up,” my brother, Dean, said lazily from the glider in the middle of my parent’s yard.
Bending down, I picked up my coffee cup and placed it gently into the cup holder of my truck before gripping the pie and slamming the door.
“Yeah,” I muttered, walking up the front walk.
“Heard about your day. Sorry man,” my brother said sincerely, blowing out a breath of smoke he’d just inhaled from his cigar.
My brother and I weren’t what you would call ‘close.’
We were family, of course, but that’s where that ended.
He was the prodigal son. The one who did everything right, while I did everything wrong.
And sometimes it was hard not to resent that.
Really hard.
“Thanks,” I muttered, opening the door once I came to it.
The first thing I noticed was that no one was in the living room where they usually were, and that I could smell dinner wafting from the kitchen.
The smell turned my stomach.
Eating was the last thing I wanted to do right then.
Not with the memory of Baby Nathan’s blood pouring out of his body as I held him on the way to the hospital.
“He’s not coming, I think we should just eat,” Joslin said huffily.
I rolled my eyes as I made my way down the darkened hallways that would lead to the kitchen and formal dining room where I assumed they were all gathered.
“He’s coming. He texted me when he was leaving the hospital,” my sister, Hannah, defended.
Hannah and I were the closest in age.
Irish twins.
She was born ten months before me, in the same year.
Me, being the baby, was the surprise that everyone still liked to point out was the accident.
“Thanks, Hannah,” I said, walking into the kitchen and placing my pie on the countertop. “I’m here, so the party may begin.”
The last was said once I was in the dining room, which meant everyone turned to watch me walk in the room.
My father and Hannah didn’t bat an eyelash at my attire.
My mother and Joslin, though, did.
Not that I cared.
Nor was I surprised.
Taking the seat to the right of my dad, and directly next to Hanna, I placed both hands in my lap and waited, like the good boy I was, for dinner to be served.
Which only happened once Dean made his way back inside from his smoke break.
All the while, I spoke with my sister about her daughter, Reggie.
Reggie was a boisterous two and a half year old that was with her ex-husband for the night.
“Reggie told me I was to ‘watch my step’ today because I was telling her what to do. Can you believe that? I bet Joshua taught her that one, too,” Hannah said snottily.
I snorted.
Needless to say, Hanna and her ex didn’t get along.
Not even a little bit.
“Actually,” I amended. “That was me. I’m sorry. I said that to her two days ago when I was watching her.”