“Heard them go outside earlier,” he said as he swung open the door. “Weren’t they changin’ the oil in your truck this mornin’?”
“Oh shit.” I’d totally forgotten I’d asked them to do it.
“Good thing we’re takin’ the bike today,” he joked as he left.
“They know what they’re doing,” I called to his retreating back. “They’ve done it before!”
When I got downstairs later, everyone was outside, and the front door was wide open.
“Finn kicked the friggin’ oil pan,” Jesse told me angrily, pointing to the large dark splotch on the driveway that was covered in white powder. “We don’t have any kitty litter, so I used baking soda.”
“Shit,” I mumbled, looking at Finn.
“It was an accident,” he said defensively, his cheeks red. “I was running—”
“Yeah, because you stole Dylan’s hat,” Jesse snapped. “Even though he told you not to.”
“I was just joking,” Finn shot back, his voice wobbling. “I was gonna give it back.”
“He told you not to!”
“Enough,” Curtis said, his voice calm. “Good call with the baking soda, Jess.” He looked at me. “We’ve got some Dawn dish soap?”
“Yeah. Finn, run in and grab it, pal.”
Curt caught Finn as he started toward the house and yanked him into a hug with one arm, scrubbing his other hand over Finn’s hair. “Accidents happen, bud,” he said quietly. “No harm, no foul. We’ll clean it up.”
Finn nodded miserably and ran into the house.
I opened my mouth to tell Jess to stop coming down so hard on Finn, but Curt beat me to it.
“Cut your brother some slack,” he said, his voice still calm, almost easygoing. “He’s gonna do stupid shit. So is Dyl, and so are you. When you get dragged for it, it just makes you feel like shit. He can’t go back and change it, yeah? What’s the point in makin’ him feel like shit?”
“Heard,” they replied quietly.
Surprisingly, I didn’t have anything to add. I took a moment while we were waiting for Finn to come back outside to consider the fact that it didn’t bother me when Curtis corrected my kids. I wasn’t sure if it was because I trusted him or if it was the fact that he’d never said anything that made me feel defensive on their behalf. It happened slowly, once in a while reminding Finn not to run in the house or Jess to clean up their shoes from the entryway until just the day before when Jess had snapped at me and he’d firmly told them not to talk to me that way. He’d never once raised his voice or even spoken in anger. It was always calm and measured.
“Got some scrub brushes,” Dylan announced, walking around the side of the house.
“Where the hell did you find those?” Curt asked, shoving Jess playfully as he turned toward his son.
Shit like that, right there, his way of telling Jess that they were cool—that was why I didn’t feel weird about it.
“They were in a box in the garage,” Dyl said with a shrug.
“They were there when we moved in,” Jess added. “I snooped.”
Curt laughed and waved Finn over when he came back out with the soap.
I swallowed hard, watching as Curt directed Finn to pour the soap over the baking soda and then knelt with him in the driveway to scrub at the stain.
Shit. He wasit. The guy. The one.
I hadn’t been looking for him. I’d been happy to do it on my own. I liked our trio. We’d donewellas a trio.
But we were better now. With Curt and Dylan, we were better. We fit. Our little group was tight. The kids fought like siblings, but stuck up for each other the same way. When one of Jess’s friends stopped replying to their messages, Dylan spent three days looking at that friend’s social media, pointing out different stuff about them that made them a douchebag—his words. Each of the reasons had been more funny than the last, and by the end of it, Jess’s disappointment had disappeared. At the community pool, when a little shit kept trying to dunk Finn even though the other kid was almost twice his size, Dylan and Jess had stepped in to make sure he kept his hands to himself.
We weren’t building a family. When I wasn’t looking, we’d already become one.
