Текст книги "Thick Love"
Автор книги: Eden Butler
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The slight rasp in her voice hinted that she wasn’t everything she wanted the world to believe her to be. She actually was more, much, much more, and the part of me who was a curious asshole with zero conscience wanted to find out what that might entail.
But before I could say anything to her, even just for a second, Leann cleared her throat, then clicked the music off. Aly backed away from me as though she’d forgotten who I was or where she was, and that maybe she shouldn’t be enjoying our dance so much. Leann’s voice had definitely broken the moment—my dick deflated and my skin cooled—but it didn’t keep my eyes from following Aly as she walked away from me across that hardwood floor.
“Aly, that was excellent. You think Tommy can help us out? He’s doing that internship in New York still, but won’t he be back from New York next month?” Aly’s glance at me did not go unnoticed. “No,” Leann said, answering Aly’s silent question, “Ransom’s very good, but this should be a professional performance. Besides, he’s got football and classes.”
“Okay, but I want to work on the saida and add some dips. Who can I practice with until Tommy gets back?”
Leann wasn’t remotely subtle with the look she gave me. I suddenly had an idea.
“Look at me like that all you want, Leann. I still have my own shit. Unless, of course, Aly here,” I saw the woman shake her head when I nodded at her, “is willing to help out my mom. Then I can squeeze her into my schedule.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t take the job, orto. I’ve just been…”
“Will you do it?” Leann asked Aly, interrupting her.
The twin expressions between me and my cousin—hers on the edge of begging, mine, I’m sure, smug and condescending—had Aly waffling. She fidgeted, likely battling the reality that Leann wanted Aly to learn the dance and I wanted my mom to rest and my little brother taken care of. Her frown dwindled, like someone who knew she had was facing defeat, and had to try to make the best bargain she could without holding any chips. My smile grew broad when she finally waved her hand in my general direction in an attempt at a ‘whatever’ attitude.
“Fine, but it can only be every other day. I still have classes to teach and I work Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus every Saturday.” She stood with her back straight, barely glancing at me or my growing smirk.
“Excellent,” I said unable to keep from looking happy and far too pleased with myself.
Aly didn’t bother waving goodbye or saying anything more than an “I’ll call tomorrow” as she left the studio.
“You really are a brat sometimes, you know that, right?” Leann said as picked up her bag and turned the lights off in the studio.
“Why?” I pulled my cousin toward me with an arm over her shoulder. “Because I got a sitter for Koa?”
“No,” she stopped, elbowing me so I kept the door opened for her. “Because you used that thing to get it.”
“What thing? Charm? Cunning?”
“I believe Keira always referred to it as Hale Demon Magic.”
“Well, shit Leann, I can’t deny that one.”
Robert Burns compared his love to a red, red rose. The meaning behind the giving of those flowers was universal. Florists made a killing off the sentiment of their meaning, and poets have talked about their symbolism for centuries.
For me, roses reminded me of loss. They are the calling card of misery, the steady reminder of how badly I had fucked up. I know that’s what they are. I know I can expect them on Emily’s birthday and again on the day that I destroyed everything.
Today was one of those days.
It hadn’t registered that my door was ajar when I returned from practice. My head was still too consumed by the opposing thoughts of sin and satisfaction, of who I wanted, why I wanted her, and what it meant that my body was firing on its own engines, making me forget that I could never get hard. Well, except for that dancer. And for that one dance Leann had forced upon me.
With Aly.
The drills practice that day had been brutal. My father made me make up for the distraction that was still so stupidly and obviously filling up my head. He made me run longer, pushed me further than any of my teammates because he knew I expected it. Because he knew I needed it.
When I shuffled up the stairs and kicked open my door, I didn’t noticed the petals at first. Not until I crashed onto my bed with my kit and my backpack and my worn body all falling like a mass of drained weight. It was only until I exhaled, drew in another exhausted breath and inhaled their scent, then felt the petals on my bed, the sharp stems of the roses prickling against my bare arms, that I realized what this sick gift meant.
Our anniversary, she mocked. There was more bitterness, that angry contempt for me, for what I’d done, around the edges of her tone.
I didn’t bother answering her. It wasn’t our anniversary I insisted to myself. Not the one I chose to remember. The one that marked the night that I’d somehow convinced that beautiful girl to keep from letting Eddie Parker take her to his father’s camp out on False River.
I’d followed her for two weeks straight outside the downtown library like a creeper. It had been months since her father had forbidden her from speaking to me. Since the stupid naked text messages we thought would be a good idea to send one another.
But I’d grown tired of waiting. I’d missed her. Only a few months had passed since she’d followed her cousin to the lake house to meet me and already I’d been consumed by her.
We’d gotten hot and heavy real quick like, hormones taking over, curiosity egging us toward the stupid and then, those damn naked texts. Her father had stomped his foot down and ended anything I’d wanted with her.
Or so he’d thought.
And Parker had moved in fast, banking on my exit from New Orleans when the world caught wind of Kona and Keira tying the knot. I’d left for Hawaii for my parents’ wedding, but came back to New Orleans determined to win the trust of Emily’s old man.
The bastard wouldn’t let me past the front door, waved a nine millimeter handgun at me when I approached his porch, and Emily, being the obedient Catholic girl that she was, wouldn’t risk her father’s wrath to see me. And while I had been gone, Eddie Parker had made himself comfortable on the golf course with her old man while he courted her with flowers–I’d seen it myself when I got back–twice in one week.
Slick fucker.
Still, none of that was going to stop me. I stalked Emily in the library, slinking into the stack’s shadows, watching her work her way through her reading list, but that day she’d had enough of my attention.
“I know you’re there, Ransom,” she’d whispered, leaning back in her chair with her arms across that small chest.
Just the way she’d said my name—that slight roll of her tongue, the “M” sound on the end that was accented heavy with an Uptown hilt—did things to me that I’d never felt before. That twang had me willing to do just about anything for her. She knew it. I knew it.
“You gonna hide in the stacks or are you gonna come sit with me?”
I didn’t wait for another invitation and when Emily tilted her head, that beautiful ginger eyebrow arching up like she’d give me a minute when I knew I wanted five (or a lifetime), for a second I forgot I wasn’t supposed to just sit there gawking at her. “Well?”
“Eddie Parker is an asshole,” I blurted out.
Zero pride, zero tact. I had way too much of my father in me. My mom always said as much, but that day sort of proved it.
“Eddie is nice, Ransom.” She’d sounded like she was talking about a priest, not some guy who wanted into her panties.
“Eddie is a kiss-ass and you’d be bored an hour into your first date.” I didn’t buy it when she’d rolled her eyes as though she thought I was being as stupid as I sounded.
“What do you know about it?”
“I know you haven’t kissed him.”
“Oh? So sure of yourself.”
“Yeah. I am.” I’d taken her hand then, pulling her closer to me and she didn’t fight it. “I know the first time I kissed you, you kept your eyes closed way longer than I did.”
“And?” Her tone had been soft, but the timber was off, seemed too quick and I knew she was battling herself for not telling me to piss off.
“And,” I’d said, moving from the chair across from her to kneel in front of her. “And…when you kiss someone, Em, you do it with everything inside you. You feel it all over and you wear that same smile for days after.”
“That’s not…Ransom, don’t.” But she really hadn’t been trying to push me off her. She hadn’t made great efforts to stop me when I stood up and pulled her down a row of books, Philosophy to Phonetics. No one was there.
“That’s not what? You think I’m full of shit?”
“I think you’re trouble.”
“Yeah, Em. That’s me.” And then I’d showed Emily what messing around with trouble meant. I’d showed her with my tongue against her bottom lip, my hands gripping her until there wasn’t any space between us. Until she’d given up the ghost and kissed me right back.
“You tell Eddie Parker you can’t go anywhere with him. Not the movies, not to dinner and not to his daddy’s damn bonfire on the river.” When she shook her head, looked like there might be another excuse, some bullshit reason to tell me no, I kissed her again. Hale Demon Magic always worked like a charm. “What will you tell him?” I’d asked when I needed to breathe again.
“I’ll tell him no, Ransom.”
That smile had reappeared on her face, the one she claimed she never wore. “And you’ll tell him no because…”
“Because…because I’m your girl.”
And she’d been my girl every day since then. Even when it became impossible. Even when I’d taken that beautiful, sweet girl, the same girl who’d given me her heart that day in the library and then her body months later, and ripped apart everything she’d been, anything she’d wanted to be.
“That was our anniversary,” I said to myself, resting my palm against my tattoo. “That day in the library, when you became mine.”
Later, when I walked her home—not all the way, because her father still couldn’t stand me—I bought my Emily one single, perfect red rose from a little hole in the wall market along the way. The flower couldn’t come close to her beauty, but I wanted to give her something that reminded her of what she did to me, how full and free she made me feel. A rose was a pathetic second, but it had made her smile. I didn’t care that one of the thorns slit my finger, drawing blood. She gently wrapped my finger in a tissue she had been carrying in her purse, and I thought I was the luckiest man on the planet, to have such a girl care for me.
Now, roses only meant blood to me.
They covered my bed in bunches, petals ripped from the buds, buds torn from the stems. The stems were like knives, dozens of them all over my mattress, on the floor, littered on my desk, my bedside table. Red and green everywhere. And there, right among the dark red petals and broken stems, next to my alarm clock and cell charger, was the note. It was the same as the first one I’d gotten in the mail weeks after I left the hospital.
You are heartache, it read.
The card was a heavy stock, black, lined with a deep burgundy around the edges and those three words were written in silver.
Red isn’t for love. Red is blood.
I bled for you, she told me. My virginity, my heart, all ran red for you, Ransom.
Then, just then with her taunting me in a voice harsher than she’d ever used before, pushing in that pain, that overwhelming needle of dread, I jumped from my bed, not caring that my body was so damn tired. I threw open the door and stumbled out of my room.
All around me, in the hallways, on the stairs, out in the backyard around the deck, there were people my age, my peers, laughing and drinking and loving this time in their lives. They were free and happy and teetering near lives that seemed endless, limitless.
I didn’t understand any of them. I couldn’t smile with them as though I was as carefree and young as they were. I never would be again. But I was full of need, and while I couldn’t care less about the laughter and the drinking, I was glad of the opportunity to prowl.
I moved around the party like a voyeur, looking for someone to help. Someone who looked like they needed it more than I did. Like they’d gone to this party to forget. Just like I tried to do every day.
I found her sitting in the corner of the living room, nursing a red Solo cub, pretending to drink whatever it was that Ronnie Blanchard had offered her. I’d never seen her before, not that I generally paid attention to anyone around me.
She didn’t look like Emily, and she didn’t remind me remotely of the dancer or of Aly. She was tiny, probably no more than five foot and she wore her hair in a blunt pixie cut with platinum blonde highlighting her heart-shaped face.
“Ransom,” Ronnie called, slapping my shoulder when I stood in front of the pixie. But I didn’t answer him, didn’t bother to acknowledge him at all, my eyes focused on the girl. That hand on my shoulder fell away and in my peripheral, I noticed him cursing under his breath. “Another one bites the dust.”
I didn’t know if he meant me or Pixie Cut, because I could only stare down at her, watching those small, bright eyes of her, so light blue they looked gray, widen. I figured that she knew me, or at least knew of me. I got that she’d probably heard everything about me. CPU was a small campus, private, unlike our secrets. Very little was ever allowed to stay hidden.
“I…” she stared and I thought maybe she’d protest, but then I knelt in front of her, moving my head to watch her, see if she’d tell me to leave her alone.
She didn’t say a word.
“You alone?” I wasn’t asking about a boyfriend. Didn’t care if she was there on a date. She knew what I meant. She had to.
“Yeah,” she finally said, holding my hand when I offered it. “All alone.”
One nod and I gave her a second more to consider what she was doing, giving her the yellow light I always wanted them to take. Then, when she gave no indication of stopping me, I slammed into drive. “I can make you feel good.”
She wanted me to. Followed behind me through the crowd, not saying a word, up the stairs to my room. I didn’t explain the roses, knocked the note off my bedside table before she could ask about it. And then, with that tiny, tiny body stretched naked across my bed, I set out to serve my punishment.
This was not like being with the dancer. There was no seduction. I paid Pixie Cut no compliments because my head was too clouded by guilt, that sick, constant enemy that had taken root inside me and refused to leave.
It was routine, usual, habit. I knew what to do, how to touch her so that she became no single woman. There was nothing personal in it at all. Nothing real. She was them and as I took her with my mouth, not caring that she yanked on my hair, that her moans and chants of “yes” became louder than the music rattling the windows, I served like I was meant to, doing whatever the hell I could to give something other than heartache, no matter how empty it was.
I didn’t ask her name, just like I hadn’t with any of the others. How could I? How could I let them become real to me, become more than a simple penance? What would I be if I forgot my sins? If I did that then she would be truly gone and even the memory of her, my sweet Emily, would be lost forever.
Happy anniversary,Ransom.
“You too, baby.”
7
There was music. Always. Childhood memories, dreams that reoccurred over the years, every happy and miserable moment of our lives in Nashville always included music. Like that time Bobby, my mom’s elderly boss, the closest thing to a grandmother I’d ever had, decided to throw me a tenth birthday party. The kids at my school had been scared of my size and my quick temper, so only a few of the guys from my junior high football team showed up. Mom spent a solid hour apologizing to me, trying to pretend there weren’t tears in her eyes over the apparent slight. Bobby and Mark, my mother’s gay best friend, had to drag her out of the kitchen to tell her to suck it up, that she was far more upset than I was. We spent the rest of the party camped around the piano singing songs about farting and diarrhea and other gross boy shit that Mark remembered from his times at Lacrosse camp. It had been the best birthday I remembered having, ever.
Or, when I went an entire summer in pain every single night because my limbs were growing too quickly, that damn Hale DNA hurrying to make me like my father before I was ready, and Mom lying next to me while Mark or his partner Johnny rubbed peppermint oil on my throbbing legs. She sang to me then, or hummed throaty and low. That was the summer she taught me Ava Maria in Italian. Anytime I can’t sleep, that’s the tune that calms me, makes me remember that I had a mother and two adopted fathers who cared enough about me to lose sleep, who wore themselves out to make sure I was in as little pain as possible .
There was always music. Even in the most desperate, unbearable moments. When I got tossed from my school in eighth grade for losing my temper and sending that bastard Mikee Sibley through the glass window for trying to attack a girl who was barely thirteen, my mom sat me down in front of the piano, telling me that the keys would be my therapy, that the notes would blast away the hopelessness.
Music had worked for that angry, fourteen-year-old I’d been. It had worked for me since then, but I had let the accident, my guilt, distract me from my therapy and had not played for over a year.
I’d tried it, with Mom’s insistence, when I could not silence that voice I thought was Emily, when I sank too heavy in the grief that tightened around my heart every single day since I last saw my girlfriend, Mom forced me in front of the piano, or plunked her vintage Gibson guitar in my arms, begging me to play. It had become common for me to pacify her by just doing what she said, and so I’d tried, pushing a smile onto my face, gripping the neck of that guitar tight and playing every song I knew until my mother’s expression didn’t look so tight. Until I thought her worry had eased.
But it wasn’t real. Music stopped working for me. I missed it almost as much as I missed Em.
It was not a surprise to hear music playing as I approached the lake house that Sunday. But it was not only my mother’s raspy alto singing “I Dreamed a Dream” that I heard as I walked inside. There was another voice, this one higher, wobbling, sounding scared as my mother picked up the bridge. It wasn’t bad, but nothing about those voices sounded in harmony. One was trying too hard, the other was overpowering.
And for some reason, I cared.
They didn’t stop playing when I walked through the door and leaned against the wall to watch Mom and Aly at the piano. Mom’s fingers moved effortlessly over the keys, her gaze directed at Aly’s shy face, how she stood so stiff and straight that I was surprised she didn’t complain about an aching back later.
I’d expected our usual Sunday lunch, after two weeks with Dad and the team on away games out of state. I’d missed the Little Monster and my mom’s comfort food, and I was anxious to find out if Aly had actually shown up for the job. So, seeing Aly there with her back to me, standing next to Mom at that baby grand, and realizing that she had been the one singing, had me stopped cold in my tracks. Just as shockingly, the living room was clutter free and Koa’s large assortment of toys and books that were generally scattered around the floor and stuffed among the leather sofa cushions were neatly organized in small bins against the play room wall. And what was this? The floors had been cleaned—no shoe marks or creative kid hieroglyphics from markers, or stray smears of Play-Doh anywhere to be seen. Best of all, my mother’s skin was no longer pale, and the dark circles under her eyes, while still there, were much fainter.
Amazed, I stepped further in, right as Aly struggled through a high note that was clipped off suddenly when she noticed me standing in the entryway.
“Ransom,” my mother said, pushing back from the piano to meet me in the living room. She’d been clingy lately, behavior I’d chalked up to her pregnancy and hormones working their evil juju on her, but my practice schedule and upcoming mid-term prep had kept me in the city for longer than normal. It hadn’t just been missed Sunday dinners—it had been almost two weeks since I’d seen her at all. Still, my mother acted like she hadn’t seen me in months and I leaned down so she could wrap her arms around my neck and give me a peck on the cheek. Then she took my head between her hands and gave my face the once-over. “You look tired.” I didn’t like her frown or how she kept her open palms on my cheeks like she needed to examine me for any expression that would tell her I wasn’t okay.
“Mom, I’ve been practicing like a demon and studying hard.”
“Please,” she said, finally lowering her arms. “I know what goes on in that team house.” She cocked her eyebrow and frowned. “There was a reason I never stayed the night with your father when he lived there.”
“No,” Dad said, coming into the room carrying an armful of picture books and a half empty sippy cup of juice. “She always made me sneak into her dorm instead.” His smile was weak, but the ever-present wink told me he still perved over my mother. “I have fond memories of that dorm room.”
“You, hush.” She swatted at my father when he walked past her to slump into the sofa. He tossed the books and cup on the coffee table and Mom glared at him, then jerked her head at Aly who’d frozen at the piano, eyes avoiding my face.
“Oh, right. Sorry, sugar.” Dad nodded at an expressionless Aly and shuffled the books together before he disappeared with them into the play room.
“Wow. Never thought I’d see the day that Kona Hale would pick up his own mess.”
“He can’t be that bad,” Aly finally said, making my mom and I both move our gazes to her.
“Oh, sweetie, he is.” Mom wobbled back to the piano, leaning on the shiny, black top. “I should have warned you about him. He’s total slob and, well,” she paused to stand up and arch her back, “I just haven’t had the energy to pick up after him or Koa. That’s why the house was such a disaster when you got here last week.”
“Last week?” I asked, standing next to my mother. That surprised me, given that Aly had seemed so hell bent on dismissing me the first time I asked her take the job. But then, Leann had texted me a couple of times since the night Aly and I danced the Kizomba to ask when I could help her practice. It shouldn’t surprise me that she’d lived up to her side of the arrangement, even though I hadn’t yet.
“Yeah,” Aly said. She seemed distracted, picking up her backpack and stuffing sheet music inside it. “I told you I’d help your fanmi. Been here almost two weeks.”
“And she’s a godsend, honey.” My mother’s smile was wide and I realized I hadn’t seen her looking that relaxed, that content in months. “Really, she came in here like a hurricane and just took over everything—the cleaning, the cooking, getting Koa his bath and making sure he eats everything.” I heard the small creak of her jaw popping when she stopped to yawn. “Hell, she even organized all my cabinets and that disaster of a play room.”
“Keira, souple, it’s nothing.” Aly’s light umber skin looked flushed at my mother’s compliment.
“It’s not nothing, sweetheart. I really…God, you’re just such a help to us.” She turned back to Aly. “So, you have the sheet music. And I can send you some MP3s with the instrumentals. You’ll need that for the audition and…” she paused to stifle another yawn.
“What audition?” I asked Aly.
She finally looked at me, pushing her bag on the piano bench. “Oh, I’m thinking about auditioning for the Theater program at CPU. A dance and song audition will increase my chances of getting in.”
“Thinking?” Mom moved her head, her eyes narrowing. “You’re gonna do more than think about it. With your dance experience and a little fine tuning with your vocals, they’d be crazy not to take you on.”
Again that small flush moved over Aly’s face and it occurred to me that she may not have been frigid all this time. Maybe she was just shy, and her inability to hear anyone say good things about her just made her seem cold. “That’s awesome,” I told her, meaning it. “And Mom offered to help you out?”
“Well, yeah. I mean when she has time.” She nervously tucked an errant strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear, and looked at my mother again. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage, Keira. This job is generous enough. It’ll, um, keep me from having to pick up shifts at the diner.”
“You work at a diner?” I had no clue about that, but then I was bad about not paying attention to details. Had always made the assumption that Aly worked full time at the studio, maybe was a student like me. I didn’t know many people our age that didn’t go to CPU. And none of the people I knew worked two jobs. Damn. I really needed to get outside of the private-college/rich-kid crew.
Aly did this little shrug thing where her shoulder jerked, and a casual dip of her head moved her chin down, like she meant to bypass anything remarkable or remotely favorable about herself. “Yeah. I mean, I love teaching for Leann, but instructors generally don’t make a lot of cash. So I pick up shifts at the diner, clean houses when I’m really strapped for cash, that kind of thing.” She smiled at Keira and that smile got bigger when my father returned to the room and kissed mom on the forehead. “And now this gig too.”
“Aly Cat’s a hard worker, that’s for sure,” Dad said, laughing when that flush warmed Aly’s cheeks.
Mom sent her elbow into my father’s stomach. “Stop teasing her.”
“Look at that blush, though.”
“Kona…stop.” But my mother’s fussing was half-hearted and came behind yet another stifled yawn.
My father nodded, rubbed my Mom’s shoulders as though her sleepy expression confirmed something he’d guessed at. He started to lead her out of the room before she stopped him. “Baby, why don’t you take a nap while Koa is down?”
“I told Aly I’d help her with the song.”
“Keira, non. It’s fine.” Aly seemed to have no problem with my parents. There was a softness in her eyes when she watched them, as though she’d do anything they’d ask of her and be eager to do it. I liked that about her. She seemed to understand that they were good people. “You get some rest and I’ll see what I can whip up for an early dinner.”
“No, this is your day off, Aly.” Mom tilted her head, bringing her hand on top of Dad’s as though she was giving up the fight to stay awake. “I only asked you over so we could go over that song.”
“I don’t mind. Really.”
“I can cook,” I told them. It was Sunday and I’d come here to see them. Being in the city away from my family, had me wanting to pull my weight. If Aly could swing it, so could I, but as soon as I’d made the offer, I regretted it. I could tackle, I could sack, I could play music and land a high GPA with little effort. Cooking, though, wasn’t really something I’d been successful at. And when my mom looked at me in disbelief, I realized what a stupid offer I’d made. Still, I didn’t want to look like too much of an idiot. “What?”
“What?” Mom repeated. “Bobby’s kitchen, Thanksgiving, six years ago.”
“The outside of the turkey was perfect.”
Mom did that pathetic little ‘Oh, honey, no,’ head shake. “Sweetie, the outside was ‘done’, but the inside was still frozen and the mashed potatoes managed to be runny and lumpy at the same time. And we won’t even mention how Bobby’s stove caught fire when you left the dishtowel on the burner.”
“Mom, that was…”
Kona’s laugh interrupted me. “We’ll call something in.” He looked at Aly. “You’re staying for dinner. No arguments. But for now, Wildcat,” he turned to my mother, “You need to nap.” He guided her out of the room by the shoulders and ignored her last attempt at a protest. “Come on.”
Aly’s gaze followed them as they walked away. I still hadn’t seen her smile, just a small dimpling of her cheek here and there, but as she watched my parents walk out of the room, I studied her. Today she wasn’t dressed in anything like what she wore at the studio. No baggy shirts or fitted dance pants. She wore a pair of denim capris that cupped her large calf muscles and a flowy spaghetti strap top with a trim lace that seemed to tease me into staring a bit too long at the smooth skin around her cleavage. Her hair was still pulled back from around her face, but rather than in a messy bun, it was in a loose braid that hung down her back.
When she looked back at me, her expression was still impassive, but not unfriendly. Still, she didn’t smile. I wondered if she ever did.
“So, Aly Cat?” I said when the awkward silence lingered too long.
Aly rolled her eyes as though the name had come from something simple and silly. “Kona came in a few days ago while Koa was having a temper tantrum.” I tried not to stare at her chest when Aly leaned against the piano. “Your mom was sleeping and he was being, well…”
“Himself?”
“Yeah.” Another swipe of that stray hair to behind her ear and I noticed she wore a silver bracelet with a single charm. A ballet slipper. “He didn’t want to eat his lunch and I didn’t cave so he was crying. I’ve learned that fussing at kids doesn’t work, and I tend to try the whole ‘be calm’ thing, but Koa…”
“Yeah, that shit won’t work on him.” My kid brother was a ball of energy and Dad tended to overcompensate by spoiling Koa rotten, despite Mom’s complaints. It just added to his being incorrigible, even at nearly two.
“So, instead of fussing at him, I started making cat noises just to distract him.” A small lift of the right side of her mouth and I swore Aly almost smiled. She shook her head and that charm slid back and forth when she waved her hand. “Stupid, I know, but it worked and Koa just laughed. Your dad saw the whole thing go down and just started cracking up. Told me I sounded like an alley cat.” Aly moved her elbows to the piano top and glanced over her shoulder as though she wanted to make sure my father wasn’t around before she whispered, “I think he thinks he’s way funnier than he is.”
