Page 31 of All the Ugly Things
“Same difference. You still act like a little kid.”
“Can someone grab me the steaks from inside?” Dad totally ignored our antics and name calling as always.
I didn’t grow up with a lot of rules. Mostly because there were always too many kids coming and going from so many variety of situations it was hard to tailor them. Instead, my parents taught us respect. To take care of what was ours so we had pride in what we had and to always… always try to be kind. Swearing, curfews, things like that were always overlooked.
Brandon and I had been giving each other shit since I was thirteen and he was twelve. For sixteen years he’d been my best friend.
“I’ll get it,” I told Dad.
“Grab me some more drinks!” Brandon shouted, high on his rare golfing win against me and probably life.
I threw up my middle finger as I walked away. “Say please!”
All I heard was his laughter.
We hung on the deck while Dad grilled. Occasionally, he looked like he had something to say but didn’t. Brandon drank his weight in beer and whiskey while I stopped after a few.
Later, after we cleaned up and Brandon called Jenna to come get his sorry drunk ass, Dad set down his glass and rolled his lips together.
I knew Dad’s looks. Hell, I’d stolen some of his own myself, so I knew when he studied his glass of whiskey like it held all of the answers to life’s problems, I was in for it.
“You saw her again.”
“She has a way of getting under your skin,” I admitted. “How’d you know?”
“Went to Judith’s last night. She said if I brought up working for us she’d kick me out.”
I laughed. She was feisty. I admired her strength. Everything she’d survived would crush most people. I also knew because I grew up seeing it so often in others, her hardness was a shield.
It didn’t explain why I was so damn intent on trying to strip it off her though, figure out who she was beneath the armor.
“I went to her campus yesterday. Told her we knew where she’d been.”
His eyes flashed with worry. “Hud—”
“Not that. I didn’t tell her more, just that you had connections. But I thought it might help if she knew what kind of guy you were. I told her about all your other kids. I figured the rest is your story.”
He laughed at myall your other kidscomment. Some we still kept in contact with. Some were emergency placements for a night or two before relatives could be contacted. Some aged out and left, turned their back on the fact Mom and Dad would always be there to help. Some, like Brandon, never left, although he was the only one my parent’s officially adopted.
“What’d she say?”
“She didn’t rip the card up or throw it at me and said she’d consider it.”
“So I should back off?”
“When have you ever done that?” I teased, but he didn’t so much as chuckle.
His attention was gone, turned to the picture I knew he was staring at without checking. It sat on the kitchen island for him to see every day. “What do you think Melissa would want me to do?”
Goddamn him. I took a large swig of my drink, burning my throat to wash away the emotion. “I don’t know about what she’d want you to do, but I think she’d want to give Lilly a hug.”
“She was a hugger.”
“Annoyingly so.” I missed them so much.
It was just too damn bad she was gone and she left us with the task of her mission.
Fucking sisters were a pain in the ass.
