“It’s a game we’re playing,” he said.
“It’s a pretty strange game. Some of those glasses look heavy.”
“It’s none of your business,” Ben said.
Reese shifted and a full glass of water that had been balancing on him fell to the ground, spilling water everywhere. A stuffed bear followed and so did a storybook and half a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
“Uh-oh,” Casey muttered, running forward to clean it up.
Lucy stepped forward to help. She grabbed what looked like a dirty towel from the coffee table, but Ben snatched it out of her hands.
“You don’t use that,” he said, handing the green towel over to Casey, who quickly shoved it under the couch.
Ooooookay. “How about you go grab another towel from somewhere.”
“I’ll get it,” Casey said, darting off into the kitchen. Lucy cleaned up what had fallen off Reese and eyed what was still stacked on top of him.
Careful not to look at Ben, who radiated tension like a nuclear reactor, she picked up a glass plate and replaced it with a throw pillow and on top of that she stacked the stuffed bear and a bunch of Lego pieces.
“See,” she whispered, “you have to put your big things on the bottom so that there’s better balance. And things made out of glass don’t stack as well.” She grabbed a coffee mug from off Reese’s feet and replaced it with three race cars she stacked one on top of the other.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Ben watching her, his neck all red. His body held so taut she thought he might snap right in front of her eyes, as if all the pressure inside of him were pulling him to pieces.
It seemed natural to hug him; it seemed, in fact, like that was exactly what he needed—she would be a heartless monster not to hug him—but when she reached out he jerked back so hard he bumped into the coffee table.
The juice cups and coffee mugs shimmied and toppled. A glass plate broke on the floor.
“What the hell?” Reese yelled, and sat up, knocking all the toys and pillows off.
Casey ran back around the corner and, seeing the mess and his brother’s furious expression, burst into tears.
“Now, look what you did!” Ben shouted. “You made Casey cry!”
“Oh, my God, please stop yelling,” Reese muttered.
So, of course, that was the moment Jeremiah walked in.
* * *
JEREMIAH HAD COME TO EXPECT a certain amount of disaster when he walked back into the house from picking up Aaron every other Saturday morning. He wasn’t a father but even he understood leaving a nine-year-old in charge of a five-year-old for an hour wasn’t the best idea. Or maybe it was okay for other kids…but for Ben it was like an engraved invitation to trouble.
Not that the kid needed much of an invitation.
But he and a few of the other parents carpooled to hockey practice and he couldn’t take Ben and Casey because there just wasn’t any room in the truck. And he couldn’t beg off because he’d done enough of that. Yeah, things were hard here, but it was time to handle it and stop taking every handout that came his way.
So every other week he walked in the front door wondering what it was going to be this time. Shaving the dog? Casey tied up in the closet? The kitchen the scene of a breakfast cereal war?
The last thing he expected was Lucy on her knees in front of Reese with Casey—holding every kitchen towel they owned—crying in the corner.
Ben, with his arms over his chest, glaring daggers at Jeremiah was, however, totally expected.
“What’s going on?” Jeremiah asked, throwing his keys on the ledge by the door.
Aaron bumped into him from behind with his hockey bag. “Take all of that stuff into the laundry room, Aaron,” he said. “I’m tired of washing clothes that have been sitting in that bag all week. It’s gross.”
Aaron nodded and stepped toward the laundry room in the back but stopped when he saw Lucy. Jeremiah had to admit, she looked just as gorgeous as she did last night, even without the feathers and boots and moonlight.
“Hey.” Lucy lifted her hand in a little wave.
“Hey.” Aaron’s voice broke over the word and he got so red the tips of his ears lit on fire. He vanished down the hall to the laundry room.
“I came by to do a car exchange, but Reese wasn’t up yet.”
The lump on the couch groaned and pulled the quilt up over his head.
“Still isn’t.” Jeremiah sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Casey, buddy, could you stop crying?”
Like a faucet was turned off, the whimpering stopped.
“Are you mad?” Casey whispered.
“Of course not,” Lucy answered for him.
“Yes, he is,” Ben said, always ready for a fight, and Jeremiah sighed again—bone-weary of these fights he never won no matter what he did.
“Come on, Casey and Ben,” Lucy said, “let’s get this stuff cleaned up.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Jeremiah said, stepping forward to take one of the towels in Casey’s hand.
She smiled at him, sympathetic and perhaps a little pitying, which was exactly the opposite of the way he wanted her to look at him and it pissed him off. He wanted her to look at him the way she had last night. He wanted that little bubble of time to be unbroken, unsullied by reality, so he could think about it alone in his cold bed. But having her here, in the unflinching light of day, robbed him of the fantasy.
“I’ll just take you home.” He was way gruffer than he intended and he saw Casey look over at him full of anxiety.
God, I just cannot get this shit right.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lucy said, picking up toys and stacking them on the coffee table.
“You don’t have to clean this up.” He stepped forward, taking the toys from her, trying to get her to stand. Trying actually to get her out of here, but she was stubbornly reluctant.
“It’s almost done, isn’t it, Casey?” She winked at Casey, who’d thrown all the kitchen towels over the lake of water next to the couch. Great, just great. Now, I’ll have to dry all of them. But Casey beamed at her and it was the last damn straw.
“I said stop!”
Everyone halted and turned to stare at him. Casey’s lower lip started to tremble. The front door slammed shut and he figured that was Ben running out to the barn, which is what he did every time Jeremiah yelled.
“Okay.” Lucy stood and dropped the car keys on the coffee table. “Don’t worry about the ride, I’ll just call Mia and wait for her outside.” She gave Casey a big grin and the little boy stared after her with his broken heart in his eyes.
“See you,” Lucy said without making any eye contact, and Jeremiah knew, he totally understood, that he was the biggest asshole in the world. Yelling at kids and a woman who were just trying to help.
The front door shut and in the silence Casey’s big five-year-old eyes damned him.
“Hey.” Aaron came back in the room reeking of that deodorant all the preteen boys wear, convinced the smell made them irresistible to girls. “Where’s Lucy?”
“Jeremiah scared her away,” Casey said.
“Uncle J.” Aaron sighed and then walked into the kitchen for something to eat.
“I was a jerk, wasn’t I?”