He stared at me for a minute before something inside of him said I get it. “I think that says it all right there,” he finally chimed in. “If you’re telling me he loved his kids enough to give you the ax if he could have, he wouldn’t have left them to you if he didn’t think you could handle it.”
No, it was Mandy who should have had them, not me. But it did end up being me, and like he’d said, there was nothing I could do to change what was already done. “Well yeah. No one’s going to love them like I do. I’m the best of the worst.” I could say that. It was the truth. I’d pulled myself out of the hole I’d been in for them when other people hadn’t been able to, and it had only been because of that love for those two boys who had stolen my heart before they’d even been born, that I’d managed.
His jaw moved and he asked, “They have more family, don’t they? I thought I’d seen their grandparents too.”
“They have another aunt, who’s great, but…” I thought of their aunt and shook my head. “I probably would have taken her to court if she’d gotten them. Knowing the boys, they would have run away to come live with me. I’m their favorite.” Saying the words out loud, this truth that I knew to the root of who I was, it made me feel better. Because it wasn’t a lie. It was something I believed and had always believed, even if I forgot about it sometimes. Who the hell else would do a better job than me? Their other aunt? In her fucking dreams. The Larsens were the best, but couldn’t handle them all the time. They were in their early seventies; they’d had their girls late in life. And my parents… they were everything good parents should be, even with their strict shit, but they’d never been the same after Rodrigo’s death. That was something I’d never admitted to anyone, not even my best friend, and chances were I never would.
My neighbor made a small sound that could have meant a dozen different things. What I noticed was that this hard, rough man seemed to lose the tightness that lived at his shoulders. He met my gaze and I didn’t move it.
I smiled at him, probably the ugliest smile in the history of smiles, and he returned it faintly.
“Thank you for saying those things and making me feel better,” I sniffled.
He shrugged like what he’d done was no big deal.
“I appreciate it.”
“All I did was sit here.” Dallas raised those shoulders again. Easy. “We all go through shit for our family that we wouldn’t do for anybody else.”
“That’s for damn sure,” I mumbled, catching on to the hook he’d thrown out and holding on because I’m nosey like that and knew little to nothing about this man who was a male figure in Josh’s life. “You let your brother live with you. I’m sure you know.” His brother seemed like an asshole.
Dallas shook his head and turned his attention on something across the street, the muscles in his shoulders and along his neck bunching. “My brother’s been a stupid piece of shit for so long he doesn’t remember how not to be one. The only reason I haven’t kicked him out is because I’m the only one he’s got left. Our mom’s had it with him. Nana’s had it with him. If I give up on him too….” He cleared his throat and glanced at me over his shoulder. His eyes were so full of some kind of imaginary weight, only I, who had the same burden, could see it. I felt like I understood. “I won’t. It doesn’t matter.”
Goose bumps rose along my arms. Family was family, and maybe this man had been an idiot before, but we understood that heavy burden. “I haven’t seen him in a while, here or at practice.”
“Me neither.”
I glanced at him. “You think he’s okay?”
“Yeah. He’s pissed off at me, nothing unusual.”
And I thought my brother had been an asshole. I hesitated and wiped at my face again with the back of my hand. “Can I ask you something?”
“I don’t know,” was his immediate response, making me sit up a little straighter.
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know what the hell he got into a fight over that day you helped him. He wouldn’t tell me. A couple of the guys in the club—”
Was he talking about the motorcycle club Trip was in?
“—said they heard he was fooling around with a married woman, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was about, just that it was over and that that shit wouldn’t happen again,” he explained, back to that cool voice I’d heard come out of him before tonight.
“Oh.” Well. That wasn’t where I thought that explanation was going. Over this conversation about his brother and my brother, I laid my cheek on my knee and told him, “I’m sorry about your dad, by the way. I see how much Josh and Louie hurt from it, and it’s nothing any kid should ever have to go through. I can barely get through it.”
“He’d been sick for a while,” he said almost clinically, calmly, like he’d had years to deal with it and could somehow say those words without losing his shit. “My dad’s best friend and some uncles were there for me a lot after his death. It made a huge difference in my life. I got through it because of them and my mom. As long as you’re there for them, they’ll be fine. Believe me.”
We both just sat there in silence for a while, caught up in the night, in the absence of bugs and the close semblance of quiet that was possible in a neighborhood in a major city. Slowly my grief for my brother went back to that low-level hum that never completely left but became manageable.
“Thanks for putting Josh on the team,” I finally got out for the first time.
Dallas sat forward, that lean, muscular upper body curling over his knees as his gaze cut to my direction. “I didn’t put him on the team. He earned it,” he explained.
I eyed my neighbor as I wiped the last traces of tears from my face and sniffed. “He was the best one who tried out.”
Dallas look at me for a moment, his hand going up to the back of his neck as he did it, and with a twist of his mouth, he smiled for the second time, closed-mouth and everything. He didn’t agree or disagree. Wuss.
“It’s the truth.”
His smile curved and grew, and I would swear on my life, his cheeks went a little pink. It made me grin even as my eyes felt bloated from crying so much. I hated pity parties; I didn’t know how to deal with them.
“You know it. I know it. It’s fine. You’re trying not to play favorites. I get it.” This deep chuckle, so perfect for his voice, finally sprung out of him, and it made me sniffle one last time. Before I could stop myself, I said what I’d wanted to say to him for a while now. “You know it’s bullshit you suspended me from going to a practice.”
The chuckle grew into a laugh. “You’re still hung up on that?”
Somewhere in my conscience, I noted again that he had a really good laugh. Deep from his chest. Honest. He was still a prick for what he’d done before our truce, despite how nice he’d been to me today, but I could see myself forgiving him for it a lot faster than I would have without.
“You instigated it, and I can’t play favorites. You said it.” He chuckled for a moment before lowering his voice. “I haven’t seen that car from the other day again, by the way.”