I frown, pulling one of Poem’s dining chairs up to rest on the table. The table legs can be replaced. The chairs, not so much.
Poem sighs, pulling out of Mom’s arms. “No,” she mumbles, lips downturned. “Fox is right.” She shudders. “Not all is lost. And I really did need to hear that. When he got here, I was catastrophizing.” Her eyes land on me, cool and reluctant and beautiful. “Iguessit wasn’t the worst thing in the world, getting a reality check before I fell fully into my freak out.” She coughs, averting her gaze. “He’s still a stupid, stinky boy, though. You’re right about that.”
“I don’t think I called him stupid,” Mom says dryly. “Or stinky.”
Poem’s doe eyes blink. “You didn’t?”
“No,” I huff. “She did not.”
“Well.” Poem hums. “I must’ve read between the lines a little bit.”
“Uh-huh,” I mutter. “Or maybe you were reading lines from a different book.”
She sticks her nose in the air to flounce across the carpet, her superiority hampered somewhat by the squish of flooring beneath her feet. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I believe we’re talking about how Fox is a man who does man things, and you are a woman who does woman things,” Dad says, amusement rumbling through his words. “And how sometimes these things are contentious, and sometimes they’re exactly what the other needs.” With that, his attention lands sweetly on his wife, who blushes.
I look away.
“Since we’ve established we’re all men and women here, do you think you big, strong men could help me save my furniture?” Poem asks, stopping her flounce next to her TV stand. She eyes the electrical outlet that her sound system is plugged into. “I think… I am going to go turn the power off. Just to be safe.”
Dad follows her to the breaker box in her laundry room, and Wolfe and I take turns shooing Mom out of the water and moving furniture to safety. By the time Dad and Poem get back, all of the chairs are up on the table, the TV stand is on the couch, and Mom is damp but not soaked.
Success is relative.
“Beauty, let the boys do that,” Dad murmurs, ushering her away when she tries to lift one of Poem’s side tables. “We raised gentlemen for a reason, and it wasn’t so they could watch their mother do manual labor. Take Poem and go back to the bar. We’ll handle this and be there when it’s finished.”
“I don’t thi–”
“Bu–”
“None of that,” Dad orders, cutting off both of the women.
Wolfe and I exchange glances, eyebrows raised and mouths pressed thin. Only Dad. Only Dad could talk to these two this way and not be divested of an organ or four.
Poem proves this theory correct when she only rolls her eyes, kisses his cheek, and hooks her arm through Mom’s. Mom’s lips purse but she goes without protest, sticking her tongue out over her shoulder at Dad.
Dad’s face softens, and he blows her a kiss.
She shakes her head, blowing him one back.
My chest pangs.
I want that. I want it so bad that I’d do anything for it. I want it with such a deep yearning that I can hardly stand the pinch of it below my skin. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
And I can’t have it. Yet, anyway.
Poem turns and catches me watching her. She startles, mouth forming a surprised o while her brows furrow, and I quickly rearrange my face. Lovelorn puppy is not exactly the look I want her seeing on me, and judging by her reaction, it’s not the look she’d like to see on me either.
I clear my throat, dip my chin, then give her my back.
And I ignore my heart wrenching in protest as I do.
Chapter Eight
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She’s a stray (kid)!
