I nod, looking at the dirt path under our feet as we walk toward the van, silently agreeing to fetch my and Nadia’s bags.
“I talk to Levi,” I say, an unquestionable defensiveness seeping into my tone. “I always respond when she messages.”
“I know. Thank you.” Nik nods, hitting the back of Berthajustright so when he twists the handle, she opens willingly for him. She’s always liked Nik more than me. “We ask her or Nads for signs of life when we get worried.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I say, hopping into the back of the van. I slide Nadia’s heavy-ass bags toward him, and he picks them both up without so much as a flinch. Once a farmhand, always a farmhand, I guess. “I’d tell you if there ever was,” I say, jumping out.
Nik nods, drawing a line in the dirt between us with the steel toe of his boot.
I tilt my head to the side, pushing my hair back, and spot a far more interesting subject of conversation. “What’s the story there?” I ask, jutting my chin toward Nadia and Aleks on the porch steps, standing at an awkward distance apart as they both nod a little too eagerly at every other word.
“There definitely is one…but he won’t tell me shit.”
Aleks, who was known to our family as “the weird neighbor kid” until he was simply one of us, developed into quite thelooker. Not my type—I’ve learned my lesson not to mess around with my brother’s friends—but possibly Nads’s type, based on her softened gaze. “What does Sef know?” I ask.
“Everything, as per usual, but she won’t tell me either—you know what her and Nadia are like. I just know that there’s unfinished business, for sure. I get the feeling that they spent a lot of time together after we’d left home.” He clicks his tongue, watching alongside me as Aleks attempts to lean onto a porch banister, nearly falls over the railing when his hand misses, then attempts a smooth recovery. “Hard to believe anything could have happened. Nads would tear him in two…” Nik whispers.
I laugh, closing Bertha’s door. “I don’t know, maybe not. She wasnervouswhen we spotted him on the drive up. Maybe we’ve finally found her one weakness.”
“Huh…” Nik says, pouting his lips in disbelief. “Well, wouldn’t that be something.”
A banshee screams and I flinch, turning to watch my niece dramatically collapse to the ground as her older brother holds a toy over her head.
“Wyatt!” Nik booms, then shakes his head menacingly when Wyatt looks over. He slowly lowers the toy to the ground in front of Perry and smiles sweetly at his dad, knowing he’s been caught.
“Wow. Do you ever make them do tricks?” I ask. “Sit, spin, play dead?”
My brother sighs, hoisting the bags back up on his shoulder as he keeps his face pointed to the ground. “It’s good to have you here, man.” Nik walks ahead, toward the house, then turns to walk backward as he smiles, looking me up and down. “I was tired of being the dumbest person in the house.”
I scoff, looking at his wet-mouthed youngest who’s pulling at Sef’s braid as Sef breaks up an argument between two of babyQuinn’s other siblings.I’m at least smarter than her,I think to myself.I’m not drooling.
“This is you,” Nik says, opening the door to a spare room off their kids’ basement playroom. I glance around the wood-paneled and orange-carpeted room, nodding to myself. There’s a dresser, a lamp, a fan, and a futon laid flat with actual bed linens. Compared to where I’ve been sleeping for most of the past ten years, it’s luxurious. “Sorry it’s, uh, yeah…” He rubs the back of his neck. “We tried our best to make it nice.”
“This is great,” I tell him sincerely. “It’s a nice house, man.” I know how tight things have been for them, scraping together every penny they could since Levi was born to save up and buy something of their own. Getting pulled around the house by the two eldest of his kids, I got to see Nik’s handiwork all over the old home. The small upgrades that I know he’d insist on doing himself, the kids’ heights measured against the kitchen doorway, the repaired drywall by the door that looks like the consequence of a kid’s tantrum. Nik even built the table we had dinner at this evening. He made it big enough for twelve, as if he’s always ready to welcome more folks to feed.
I look at the wallnextto him as I say, “Really…It’s great.” He’s got what he’s always wanted. A stable, normal, family home. “You, er”—I clear my throat, looking to him—“you should be proud.”
He bows his head bashfully, wearing a thin-lipped, appreciative smile.
“How far is the bar from here?” I ask, needing to immediately change the subject.
“Two minutes up the road if you’re driving. It’s just around the bend from the gas station store.”
I nod, unzip my bag to pull out my sketchbook, and toss it onto my bed. I don’t know why, it’s always the first thing I do when I find a place for the night. It’s as if seeing it next to a pillow can make anywhere feel like home. “Oh, yeah, we were there earlier. Must have just missed it.”
“Most of the businesses are closed on Sundays,” he says from behind me. “Or at least they are whenever it’s not tourist season.”
Don’t bring it up. Don’t bring it up. Don’t— “We stopped by the gas station to pick up some…” I let that sentence go unfinished. “The sign said they’d be open, but they weren’t.” I pull a pile of shirts out of my bag and walk over to the small dresser in the corner.
Nik smiles softly,strangely,at me while I unpack my clothes, then seems to shake himself out of it. “Oh, yeah, Sef said there was a phone-tree message about that earlier.” He straightens the mirror on the wall above the dresser, then shuts the drawer after me when I leave it open. “Something about a wedding, I think.”
“Phone tree?” I flash him a wry smile. “What is this, 1995?”
He winces, his eyebrows jumping in agreement, before he crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Apparently they tried to start a neighborhood group on Facebook but someone kept anonymously posting grainy photos of vintage Playboy magazines. They called it quits and went back to their roots.”
“This town already has Dorset beat for entertainment; I’ll give it that.”
“We like it a lot so far. I hope you will too.”
