She tilted her head and frowned deeper. “You don’t want to get married?”
I looked at my sister’s hand on her tummy. “I don’t think I’d mind getting married.” I took a deep breath. “But I don’t want to have a family.” The words came out softer than I would’ve liked, but saying it too loudly would’ve given my voice too much room to crack.
”I never knew you didn’t want kids,” she breathed, looking at me like I was a stranger. Whether she realized it or not, she was right. There were things about me she had no clue about.
“Yeah, well...” I moved the box from one arm to the other, looking everywhere but at her. It was so much easier keeping things from her when she lived in Boston. “It’s just…complicated.”
Max
“Joe Montana was the greatest quarterback that ever played football. Now that,” Cane said, tipping his Corona towards me, “is a fact.”
“I’m still going with Tom Brady. He has four Super Bowl rings and we both know the Patriots should’ve beaten the Giants in the other one. That was a loss I’ll never believe.” I sat my red plastic cup down on the end table.
“I’m sorry. I can’t handle you liking the Patriots.”
“Jada likes them, too,” I pointed out, watching his face twist in disgust.
“Fuck that. She only likes Julian Edelman and I think that has very little to do with football.”
I busted out laughing, glancing at my watch. “You’re probably right about that. Hey, it’s getting late and we should probably get going. I’m sure Jada needs to rest and I need to look over a few things for work tomorrow.”
Cane ran his hands through his short blond hair. “I got a letter from the court yesterday. Simon plead guilty to the drug charges against him and conspiracy to commit murder.”
“That makes it easier, right?” I asked, watching him try to keep his shit together. Simon Powers and Cane had a long, twisted history that had ended with a kidnapping and enough drama to write a book. I told Cane a number of times that there was no way Simon would get out of jail, not after everything that happened. I hoped this would settle him down a bit.
“Yeah,” he muttered, cracking his knuckles. “I guess.”
“What else is going on?” I asked, knowing something else was bothering him. Cane had been jittery all night and I wasn’t sure why. If Powers was going to be locked up for the foreseeable future, he should be calm.
“This pregnancy thing is making me fucking crazy,” Cane said. “It’s the only time I can remember not knowing what to do. I want her to eat so the baby gets vitamins, but it’s a double-edged sword. She’ll just puke it up, then I have to worry about that. It’s a fucking nightmare.”
I chuckled. Seeing Cane worry about someone other than himself still caught me off guard sometimes.
“And now she has these hormones going through her and she just starts crying. And I have no idea why. I left the toilet seat up this morning. She cried.” He looked at me wide-eyed. “For fuck’s sake! I’m screwed anyway I go.”
“Has she told you to put the seat down before?”
“Yeah, but it’s hard to remember in the middle of the night.”
I laughed a little louder. “Maybe it’s not about the seat. Maybe it’s about you not listening to her.”
“This isn’t funny, Max.”
“I never said it was. I don’t envy you.”
He leaned back and then stood slowly, smirking. “Yes, you do. You’d give your right nut for Kari to be pregnant right now.”
Standing and stretching out my long legs, I spun my Saints hataround on my head. “I’m not sayin’ I wish things with Kari weren’t more serious.”
“So why not make them that way?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Cane didn’t say a word, just watched me, waiting on me to explain. I rapid-fired through memories, trying to condense everything into a few words.
“If Kari is anything, it ain’t simple,” I muttered. “I just don’t know what to do with her. If I act like I’m not paying attention, not pressuring her for anything, she relaxes. She allows herself to get into a routine with me. She’ll stay at the house, talk about things, be a normal human being. But as soon as she thinks I’m pushing, she backtracks. Reminds me we are just about sex.”
He tilted his head, chewing his bottom lip. “There was a time when I loved those words—‘we are just about sex.’Now we’re sitting here talking about how to make things more fucking complicated. What the hell is wrong with us?”
