“Too late.” Joey held up a jar of pickles and closed the fridge. “I’d warn you that you were the number one topic of conversation over lunch, but you probably know that already.”
“The kid wanted popcorn chicken.”
“Taking a right out of the campground and driving a few minutes up the road doesn’t seem like tough directions to give.” When Brian flipped him off, Joey leanedagainst the counter and set the pickles down so he could cross his arms in big brother mode. “This is one of the messiest situations anybody in the family’s ever gotten into, and everybody’s just afraid you’re going to do the one thing that would make it a whole lot messier.”
A familiar anger triggered by his family being up in his business rose up, but he didn’t allow himself to react until he had it under control. If ever he’d been in a situation that affected all of them, it was this one.
“I was talking about their fries and she said I could join them, so I did. I’m super grateful everybody’s handled this so well, but it was nice to have a break from the goldfish bowl.”
“And that’s it?”
What, exactly, was Joey getting at? There was no way he could be implying it was some kind of date. “We talked a little. Kelly came up, and that was tense.”
He sighed, wondering where his dog was. Stella either hadn’t seen him come home or she was getting so spoiled by belly rubs or food she didn’t care.
“She came up in what capacity?”
Brian snorted. “She’s a pretty central character in this drama we’ve found ourselves in. But to answer your question, I asked where Kelly lives now and Siobhan doesn’t know.”
“She doesn’t know where her sister lives?”
He could understand the skepticism, but not every family was like theirs. “She said she hasn’t seen her since the adoption was finalized and my gut says Siobhan hasn’t lied to me. And before you ask, yes, there’s a chance we might have to involve her, but that’s a next week problem. This week’s about the wedding.”
“Yeah, the bride’s been walking around with the ballfor twenty minutes, trying to get people to show up at the playground.”
He snorted. “She probably thinks she’s going to win because nobody can play rough with the bride three days before she walks down the aisle.”
“She’s a Kowalski. She should know better.” Joey chuckled. “But still, dibs on being on Team Bride.”
Chapter Ten
“Who are you rooting for?” Mary asked as she settled into the chair next to Siobhan’s. The spectators were lined up along the tree line, where they’d be safe from wayward balls. Hopefully, anyway. Siobhan assumed they wouldn’t let the ball hit the matriarch of the family, so the closer she sat to Mary, the better.
She smiled at the woman who was probably her son’s great-grandmother and decided not to admit that of course she’d be rooting for Brian’s team. “I don’t know. I heard Evan’s in charge of the grill tonight and that he makes an exceptional homemade marinade, so I might root for his team.”
“Plus, nothing drags down the wedding photos like the father of the bride nursing a broken nose.”
She winced. “Does that happen a lot? It seems like you must have a lot of experience with broken bones.”
“There have been a few over the years, I guess. I had kids who played hard and they had kids who play hard, but there probably haven’t been as many injuries as you’d imagine. They learned all the rules and boundaries before they started testing them, and they look out for each other.”
Like the pool, Siobhan thought. Chaos, but a controlled and safe chaos. “Who are you rooting for?”
Mary shrugged. “All of them, of course, but I’ll cheer for whichever team Leo’s on because he’ll be grumpy if I don’t.”
“Leo’s playing?”
Lisa, who was in the process of setting up a chair on the other side of her mother-in-law, laughed. “Try to stop him.”
Terry leaned her chair against a tree, opting to sit on the blanket with Oliver and Stella—probably because they had a bag of Goldfish crackers. “Dad is the unbeaten champion of The Annual Kowalski Volleyball Death Match Tournament of Doom, so they can’t play without him.”
“Wait. His team wins every year? Does he cheat?”
They all laughed, but it was Mary who explained. “His team doesn’t win every year, but as the patriarch of the family, he claims the glory trickles down so all wins are traced back to him.”
“Mom, please don’t saytrickle downwhen talking about the family gene pool.”
“Teresa—” Mary was interrupted in the process of middle-naming her daughter by the fact that Lisa had almost choked and spit water all over her legs. “So much for trying to impress Siobhan.”
