“Or drive the boat,” Travis added.
“Or do the backstroke in the pool.”
“Or make Saturday morning toaster tarts.”
Dave chuckled. “Like there aren’t instructions he personally wrote on every single package.”
Gavin had it in his head that he could do anything better than the rest of them, and he took a lot of pride in showing them exactly how to manage it.
“Three seconds in the fucking microwave.” Travis grinned a wry smile. “Takes longer to pull them out of the wrapper than to cook them.”
“Which is why God invented the pop-up toaster,” Dave said, the mood finally light.
Travis smirked. “Not thinking that was God.”
“Can’t tell me He didn’t have a hand in it, so we didn’t have to use the microwave for three fucking seconds.”
Travis’s foot stalled midair as he considered the possibility that he and Dave could roll Gavin in the mud pit that was the east side of the lake, instead of pushing himinthe lake.
Mud would be harder to get out of his pants. It’d take longer than three seconds to pretreat all those stains,and that thought had Travis grinning like a kid.
Yeah, Travis and Dave could pull that off.
Travis reached to press the doorbell, careful not to bump Rachel’s wreath or the handmade wooden sign that announced,Welcome! Did you bring margaritas?
He didn’t get invites to the house unless it was for a birthday party or something for the boys, so he’d never brought her booze. Once, he’d tried to bring Gavin beer when they’d lived at their old house. Turned out, according to his mother, it was inappropriate to bring alcohol to children’s birthday parties.
The door flew open and Kellan gave a whoop.
“It’s the uncles,” he shouted, flinging himself at Dave.
Kellan’s twin, Brady, took in the scene, a grin on his face but the slightest bit of concern etched around his eyes. The kid seemed seriously older than his years.
“It’s the nephews,” Dave replied, ruffling the kid’s hair even as Kellan released him and bolted past, checked the street, and ran back inside.
“It’s not here yet,” Kellan yelled, still on a flat run through the entryway back up the stairs. “Uncle Dave and Travis are,though.” He yelled the last part loud enough that Travis assumed he was alerting his mom to their presence.
“Hey,Uncle Trav.” Brady grabbed Travis’s hand, hanging on tight. “What do you think it is?”
“What what is?” Travis kneeled so he was eye to eye with his nephew. He didn’t have a favorite, but if he did, it’d probably be Brady. He couldn’t say exactly why, but he and Brady? They just understood each other.
“The birthday present from Dad.” Brady didn’t let go of Travis’s hand. “He couldn’t bring it today. He had to go to Boston again.”
“I’m sure whatever is in Boston is important,” Travis said, instead of what he wanted to say. Which was that Gavin should show the fuck up for once.
“He’s having it delivered. Do you know what it is?” Brady’s hand was getting sweaty in Travis’s, but he didn’t make a move to take it away.
“No idea, kid.” Travis shrugged. “Hope it’s good,though.”
Knowing Gavin, the odds of it being spendy were 100 percent, but the odds of it being good? Well, those were more fifty-fifty.
“Hey.” Rachel emerged from the office she kept near the dining room. Her office was mostly a desk she’d set up in the alcove under the staircase so she could hear upstairs and downstairs at the same time. “I got a two-for-one deal on the uncles this time.”
Rachel pulled the elastic from her hair and the long, blond waves fell around her shoulders.
Travis loved her hair. The way she pushed it behind her ear, flicked it over her shoulder.
And why the hell was he thinking about her hair? He shook his head.
