“Mmm?”
“You’re so…Christ, Ian, have you seen yourself? What’ve you done with my brother? Or, should I say, what hasshedone?”
“Are you actually pissed off at me, or at yourself for sneaking around outside that house again?”
“What? What the fuck do you think of me? I don’t know what you’re talking about…” I stumble over my words.
“You have to stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Making it worse for yourself. It’s not helping anything. You have to just leave it now, Ryan, for you and…for everyone.”
I shake my head and turn away, heading towards the living room where the table has been set for four people.
I turn back towards him. “Fuck, no!”
“What’s going on?” Riley comes down the stairs, tying up her hair. She’s wearing a tracksuit, with one of my brother’s sweatshirts. Despite it being way too big for her, it’s impossible not to see her pregnancy bump; I instinctively close my eyes, trying to escape the painful image.
“Everything okay, Ryan?” she asks, kindly.
I nod and sit down on the arm of the sofa, just as someone knocks at the door.
“Did you really have to?” I turn to Ian.
“He invited himself.”
Riley opens the door: already his voice grates on me.
“Here’s my favourite girl” he exclaims loudly, Ian snorting derisively next to me.
“He’s your problem,” I tell him.
“How’s uncle’s little girl?”
Riley laughs and lets Nick hug her, while Ian starts to bristle next to me – I can see all the veins in his arm begin to pulse.
“Oh, she’s great. She sleeps all day and dances all night.”
“She’ll be a party queen.”
“Please, don’t say that out loud. Ian’s already a nervous wreck and she’s not even been born yet – I don’t even want to imagine how he’ll be after.”
My brother and Riley are having a baby girl. I can already predict about eighteen years-worth of total havoc.
“Aww, look, little Ryan’s here too” Nick pisses me off right away. “How’s it going?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Wow, I’m suffocated by your affection.”
“I could suffocate you with my hands instead and finish what I started.”
“Boys, not in my house, okay?” Ian steps between us, playing the father. “Go and wash your hands, we’ll be eating soon.”
Christ, now he sounds like our mother too.
* * *
