“Baby, my pipes are clean,” he flirts, wiggling his eyebrows.
“More than I needed to know,” I tell them.
Everyone’s at the table. Ethan next to me, and Kadi takes a seat across from me next to Summer and Jace. Cereal is the breakfast of choice for many. Others, like me, prefer a hot breakfast to get their energy up.
“Uncle Linc?” Kadi prompts.
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“You remember the other day I wanted to ask you a question, but you had to go training with Coach and Jabber Jaws?”
I laugh and hear snickers from around the breakfast table. Jamie “Jabs” Royal: he may be my buddy, but I’m not going to let him live this one down. His nickname will forever be, Jabber Jaws.
“I remember.”
“Can I ask them now?”
Them? She said a question. Here we go. “Sure. Do you want to go in another room?”
Kadi tilts her head, considering. “No. I think here is okay.”
She leans forward in her seat across from me at the breakfast table. The table is no more than a very long picnic table with long moveable benches.
“Ask away, Tiny Dancer.”
She smiles at that. The kid’s barely seven, and she’s so damn talented.
“The other day, I saw you and Uncle Ethan kissing.” She quickly turns to her dad, Jace, and says, “I swear I wasn’t spying.”
Jace nods an okay, trying not to laugh, and, holy fuck, just what has that girl all seen? More than a few of us shift uncomfortably.
“Mommy Summer says you’re only supposed kiss like that if you love someone a whole lot.”
Oh hell.
“Do you love Uncle Ethan a whole lot?”
Well, fuck me sideways. Except for Ethan choking on a bite of waffle, not a sound can be heard. We don’t discuss things like this in public. It’s ours and it’s private. I pat him on the back so he doesn’t choke. We’ve been in love with each other for most of our lives, though we didn’t say it much until I moved here. I don’t know why. Maybe just in case we’d never be together-together, in the same zip code.
I run a hand over my face and chuckle. “Nothing like putting your Uncle Linc on the spot, huh?”
She just stares at me. Waiting for an answer.
“Of course I love Ethan a whole lot.”
“Like, love like you love Jesse or love-love like Daddy loves Summer?”
I give Jace a glance, and he’s over there grinning like the tool he is. I point at him. He’s just been put on notice.
“Definitely love-love,” I tell her, looking at Ethan and giving him a wink. He’s next to me nervous as fuck, not knowing whether to laugh or crawl under the table. I hope the wink set him at ease. He hates being in the spotlight.
“So… how does that work? Can two boys get married?” she asks.
“Lord have mercy on my soul, this kid,” I mumble as I drop my forehead to the table and roll it back and forth.
She climbs up onto the table top then pushes my head up with her tiny hands, pulling my skin and hair back. Jace laughs out loud, and Summer coughs to cover hers. The rest of the family, well, they’re trying not to be loud, but I can hear them laughing.
I sit up and look down the table at them. “At least Summer had the decency to try to hide her laugh. Fuckers.”
