“What?”
“That makesyoumy number one,” I told her softly. “What’s important to your daddy is important to me, and that’s you.”
“Daddy says family comes in all shapes and lines and colors and origami,” Aria said. I held my expression carefully, trying to decipher what the hell she had just said.Kids, man.Sometimes they needed a decoder to understand them. I tried to channel Harley as I worked through it.
“Shapes, sizes, color, and orientation?” I guessed.
“That one!”
“He’s not wrong,” I said. “My family is a crazy mess.”
“Then you should clean it up,” she replied, making me laugh.
“If only it were that easy. My dad left when I was a baby,” I told her honestly. “And my mom was… sick. She was sick, so she wasn’t around much. And my brother was just mean.”
“Daddy says we shouldn’t punch mean people,” Aria said.
“Sometimes we can punch mean people.”
“That’s not a lesson I want her to learn,” Harley called from the hallway. She giggled while I laughed, some of the tension in the room breaking.
“Shush, you. You’re not a part of this conversation,” I replied loudly. Aria rolled backward in a fit of giggles, and I grinned. When her laughter subsided, I continued. “And you know Carson, so I don’t have to tell you about Carson. But did Carson tell you how big his family is?”
She shook her head as she grabbed her zombie bear, hugging it tight as she leaned in closer.Ah, I had her attention.That had to be a good thing, right? I didn’t know. I was a little out of my element. I never had to impress Carson. And yeah, Aria liked me when I was just the fun repair guy letting her play with powertools—maybe if I handed her a drill now, this conversation would go infinitely better.
That was probably cheating.
“Carson’s mom has four older brothers, so Carson has four uncles, three aunts, and five cousins,” I explained. “And his family is my family, which means… hopefully, one day you’ll have four uncles, four aunts, and six cousins if you count Carson and Roxy.”
“That’s a lot of people,” she commented.
“That is a lot of people. And that’s not counting his Mamaw or Papaw either.”
“I don’t have any of those. I have Holly.”
“I hear Holly is pretty cool.”
Cool apparently wasn’t the right word to use when describing Holly. For the next ten minutes, she told me all about Holly, regaling me with so many stories about her adventures with Holly. I didn’t get a word in edgewise other than a little nod oroh, reallyhere and there.
“If you married my daddy, would I have to move?” Aria asked, completely changing the topic.Jesus fuck, the whiplash. It took my mind a moment to catch up.
The marriage question threw me. It wasn’t one I expected to field during this conversation. It had to be a good thing, though. At least she wasn’t completely opposed to the idea because I had every intention of marrying Harley one day. I didn’t know when or how, but that was the plan.
“Nope.” I shook my head. “But when that does happen, we would have to figure out how to make room for Duke and me here. He doesn’t take up much room, but I have all my own stuff that we’d have to figure out. I have a lot of clothes, you know. And power tools.”
“So you’d live here,” she said slowly. “But where would you sleep?”
“We can cross that bridge when we get there,” Harley cut in before I could attempt to reply.Thank fuck.
“What bridge?” she demanded in exasperation. “We’re talking about beds! I don’t want to share my bed with him. He’ll break it!”
“I don’t want your stinky, lumpy bed!” I exclaimed, matching her energy.
“It’s not stinky!” she yelled as she broke down in a fit of giggles.
“Oh, so it’s just lumpy!”
“It’s not lumpy!” Her laughter grew louder. “You’re lumpy!”
