"I'm past close, babe. Like always. The kids are all inside—all four for once. Dinner just needs heated up on 350. You or one of the kids can do it. Asa is wound up tonight—I think she had caffeine today. She’s already pestered B.J. and Devin and I think Tris is hiding in the game room from her or something.”
Bryan winced. His daughter wound up on caffeine could be a bit of a nightmare. She would go, go, go, until she just turned cranky and crashed. “She been into soda?”
“I think so.” Cass rolled her eyes. “May the force be with you tonight. Solo, you are going.”
His mouth quirked at the Star Wars reference. His wife was such a nerd sometimes. When she had free time, she devoured Sci-Fi movies and books. Sometimes, when they were lucky and got to be alone for a bit, they’d cuddle up and watch old movies together. It had been a while since they’d been able to do that. Damn, he really wanted to hold her tonight. Maybe he’d stay up after the kids crashed out. Be waiting when she got home. He just…needed some time with this woman of his. To recenter himself or something. “She waiting for me specifically?"
"She has questions. And I think her questions even have questions." Cass opened her car door after flicking snow off the windshield. Bryan grabbed the ice scraper and reached where she couldn’t. She was a shorter woman, his lady. He liked doing what he could to take care of her. All he’d ever really wanted was to take care of her in the way she deserved. “I’m sure she’ll bombard you when you get inside.”
"About what?" She scooted into the car, and blew him a kiss, before fastening her seatbelt. Bryan closed her door for her. She rolled down the window a bit.
"Ask her yourself. I'm already late. I love you, you know. You…are rocking the wooly lumberjack look today, by the way. Super-sexy. I mean that. Noticed the ass, you know. Looks so good in tight jeans like that.” She backed out of the driveway and was gone before he made it to the porch.
He yelled “I love you, too, woman!” He yelled as she sped away a bit too fast on the snow-covered road. She always had driven too fast for his sanity.
Bryan found the casserole in the fridge and got it in the oven, along with some canned vegetables and two cans of crescent rolls. He had four growing kids to feed tonight—he’d make certain to keep a bit back for Cass when she got home. She didn’t often do evening shifts at the hospital, but with the weather—some of the other nurses had called off, he suspected. Not every road in Daviess and Martin counties were easily passable. Even days after storms. And Cass loved to help out when she could.
They didn’t need the money she brought in nursing, but that woman loved to help people. And it made her happy; that was all Bryan really wanted.
Now, he had to deal with one of the results of that love for his wife. The kid was terrifying at times.
Asa was at the kitchen table with her homework spread out in front of her, but she wasn't writing anything. She had that exaggerated perplexed look that made her look a bit like a kid-sized bug. The maroon hat on her head didn’t help, and it looked like she had six or seven braids in her pale blonde hair. He didn’t know where the three boys were—they were probably spread out in different corners of the house. Hiding from the terror.
She looked up at him and grinned. “Daddy! You’re finally home. I’ve been waiting for hours. You’re kinda dirty. What did you do today?”
She still called him daddy…sometimes. She was getting to the age when she’d stop soon. That made him sad to think about. “Drywalling, mostly. What did you do today?”
“They had softball signups at school. I signed up. I’m not sure I want to play still—the coach is kind of a butthead—but Courtney and Riley signed up, so I did, too.”
“You love softball.” He’d coached her for three years, until it came time to switch to coaching her younger brother. And…time for her to have a coach other than him. To learn more than he could teach her.
“I know. But I do not like that coach. Total douche?—”
“Asa! I do not want you using that word.”
“Dad, do you even know what it means?”
He just sent this kid of his a look. She grinned at him—his own mother’s dimples flashing back. She looked a great deal like her grandmother, and half her cousins. Stenson girls looked like Stenson girls. No denying it.
She was more trouble than all of his nieces combined. He gave her a significant look, then pointed at the hot pink skateboard he’d almost tripped on. That thing was not supposed to be in the entryway, and she knew it.
“Did you know Uncle John was here today? He was here when I got home from school. Courtney’s mom drove us home so we didn’t have to walk in the snow. Mom asked her to. Mom said she’d pick us up tomorrow.” Ninety pounds of teenage girl was bouncing around his kitchen right now. Caffeine somewhere within the last six hours, most definitely. They normally limited the kids on caffeine and sugar, but…the older three were teenagers. Hard to stop what they got at school.
Any minute, and she’d be riding that skateboard around the kitchen again. Even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to. Or…hanging from the ceiling fan, or climbing the walls with her toes. His kid hyped up…yes. He’d dealt with that before.
Then her words registered.
John had been told years ago not to come to the house when it was just Cass. Or Cass and the kids. Bryan’s eldest brother had upset her too many times before. "What was your uncle doing here?"
"I don’t know. He was just here when I got home. I didn’t know he was here—he’d parked behind the garage and everything. If I had known he was here, I would have just gone home with Courtney for a while, and walked home later.” She wrinkled her nose, telling him without words how she felt.
Asa had no love for her uncle, either. Hell, not many people did. Since John had lost both his kids more than fifteen years ago, he’d had trouble with the rest of the family. Bryan had tried his best to make things easier for his brother, but there came a time when John needed to help himself. Sometimes, he just felt like he was on the damned hamster wheel. With everything lately. It was getting…heavy. Maybe…maybe Cass was right. Maybe they should consider taking a long vacation next month. Letting the kids miss an extra day of school, around Spring Break or something.
Give them all a break from everything. He could take the kids down to Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. They liked the state park there, even if it would be too cold for swimming. They could hike, that kind of thing. Maybe rent a boat, do some fishing.
"What did he want?"
“To bug mom about all that stuff going on right now. He kept asking her questions about the FBI. Like the real FBI, Dad. Like on TV." The real FBI. Asa was fascinated by the cop shows on television. Especially old reruns. His little girl had a love of science, and had been doing forensic experiments for two years now. Whenever she could. Her favorite skateboarder she’d found on YouTube worked full time now as a forensic scientist somewhere in Texas. Asa had told him that repeatedly.
