There's a laugh as Mercedes comes around the corner and then squeals, throwing her arms out and getting pummeled with a herd of children. Rob does his gruff, disinterested lumberjack stance in the background, but I see tears pooling in his gaze and roll my eyes.
“I can't believe they're still alive,” he tries to joke, but it comes out all stuffy and garbled as he picks Sadie up from the stroller and hugs her to his chest like he's been gone for years instead of weeks. As I watch my brother pull his wife and kids in for a hug, I get this … weird feeling in my chest, this horrible pounding grind that takes my breath away.
I watch almost jealously as Mercedes and Rob snuggle their baby together.
Fuck, I want that. I want it so goddamn bad in that moment that it feels like I'm gonna puke.
My hands clench into fists, and I find it suddenly hard to breathe when I think of Brooke. No, no, no. She's twenty-two and she's going places and she has way too much shit in her life for me. Maybe this is just a sign that I'm ready to start a family? I should go home and start taking dating more seriously, look for a woman who's closer to my own age, have a baby or something.
“Jesus fuck,” I murmur as I run my hand over my face and try not to freak out.
“Aunt Brooke got me this,” Kinzie states proudly as she shows off a Monster High shirt that Brooke bought for her. She bought a matching one for Bella, too, to try and cut off their weird rivalry bullshit. It worked for about a day, but hey, better than nothing.
“Aunt … Brooke?” Mercedes asks, looking up at me with a raised eyebrow. “Zayden …”
Rob gives me this kind of creepy death glare, like he's convinced I had his kids hanging out with some hooker I picked up on Second Street.
“Brooke and Zayden lick each other's private parts in the shower,” Kinzie tells them confidently, and I feel the blood drain out of my face.
“You son of a bitch,” Rob snarls as Kinzie starts calling out curse jar, curse jar.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say as I back up and put my palms out. “It wasn't us that she saw; it was you and Mercedes. She's just putting stories together. She thinks that's what couples do now, I guess.”
Mercedes and Rob exchange a look before my brother turns back to glare at me, clutching Sadie to his side with a giant, muscular arm the size of a tree trunk.
“You have got a ton of explaining to do,” he whispers as he walks by me and I roll my eyes. That fucker's thought he was my dad since he turned twelve. If he thinks I'm going to stick around and listen to his lectures, he's got another thing coming.
I feel stifled suddenly, desperate to get the hell out of here, like if I don't leave Eureka now, I'll never escape. I waited my whole life to leave this place and I finally did, finally found someplace where I could be happy.
If I stay for Brooke, we'll have a few blissful weeks and then everything will just fall to shit like it always does. I know that, know it and yet I'm finding it almost impossible to leave.
I push the empty stroller behind Mercedes as she lets the kids babble to her about all the things we've done while they were gone. You know, like how I filled the curse jar to the brim, punched a guy out at the mall, and had us permanently living with my new girlfriend.
Oh, and also how there's a banshee that lives at Brooke's house, one who sounds like a screaming woman in the middle of the night.
That's always fun.
Rob makes me drive the van to the house so he can sit in the backseat with his kids.
Mercedes sits in the front though and keeps looking at me with a raised eyebrow as we drive back to the duplex.
“This girl,” she starts and I stick out my tongue at her.
“Nope. Nuh uh. Don't want to go there,” I tell her as some god-awful kids' music plays in the background, keeping our conversation relatively private from my brother.
“Zayden,” she begins, using this big sister voice on me that always makes me laugh since we're pretty much the exact same age. Maybe she picked it up from being a mother? “I know you, and I have never seen you like this before.”
“You hardly ever see me,” I joke as we head down the highway, past the ocean and the waving sea grasses. “Mostly we just talk on the mic during raids. Hey, did you know that expansion pack came out last week?”
“Don't do that,” she tells me, shaking her head and reaching her hands up to brush back her wild curls. “Don't pretend that you're fine, try to cover up a wound with a bandage. It doesn't ever work, baby.”
“When you call me that, it makes me feel like I'm ten. Can we please not? This conversation is pointless.”
“Do you need somewhere to stay for a few days while you work things out? Is your girlfriend mad at you?”