I was extremely careful driving to the motel and pulled up just fine but realized I’d forgot to ask Avery what his kid even eats. Since I knew nothing about kids, I figured it was better to order in once we decided what the child would want.
I found the room he’d text me and knocked, stepping back and looking around to make sure nobody was sticking their nose in my business. It was already big enough gossip topic that Jensen and I were dating. Mom had been getting phone calls about it for days, asking when she thought the wedding would be. People in Arrowood needed to get a life or mind their own business or something.
“Hey,” Avery said when he opened the door. He looked much the same as he had fourteen years ago, a few more lines around his eyes and a big one on his forehead. His hair was a little thinner, but for the most part, he looked exactly like ten-year-old me remembered.
Tears welled up in my eyes.
“Oh for fucks sake. You’re not going to cry on me, are you?”
“Stop judging me!” I pushed at the door so he’d move. “Do you want me to be out here blubbering for everyone to see?”
“That does sound funny but worse for me.” He stepped aside and welcomed me into the shitty motel he was staying in. It was a place so far outside the ski resort that it was on the local's side of town and usually where people came to pay by the hour. Not that there was anything wrong with that sort of thing, just not the place my brother should be with his kid.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked around. The HillTop Motel was the same as it had been in high school when we’d come here after games, I’d never attended to play spin the bottle. I’d seen Jensen here my senior year. He’d been with someone else. Making out, sitting in the back of a truck.
I colored at the memory, remembering how much I’d wished it had been me he’d been kissing that day.
“What’s got you all weird?” Avery turned around, venturing further into the room and shuffling over the worn carpet towards the chair.
“Nothing.” I swallowed back all the images in my head and looked around for my niece. “Where is Ellie?”
A head popped up behind the second bed. “I’m building a fort.”
“On the floor?” I wrinkled my nose.
“Dad said there was seamen down here but I’ve looked and looked and have not found a single submarine.”
My mouth fell open and I turned to look at him.
“It was a slip and I do not want to talk about it.”
I grit my teeth and stared at him. But before either of us could say anything I had an eight-year-old standing before me, hands on her hips. She looked much smaller than an eight-year-old should in my mind, but Avery had told me her age.
“Hello, Ellie, it’s so nice to meet you.”
“You aren’t what I pictured an uncle to look like,” she said after studying me.
“What did you expect me to look like?”
She gestured at her father. “Old.”
“Thanks, kid.” Avery rolled his eyes.
“You’re balding.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Why are we staying at this place?”
“We came back to where I grew up to see family,” Avery said, and it sounded like he’d told her over and over.
“You mean we are moving here since mommy moved out.”
“I didn’t say that.” Avery turned on me. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should come back. It doesn’t feel like we belong anywhere anymore.”
I frowned and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve missed you and I hope you do stay. I think mom and dad will want you to, too.” I didn’t mention Adam because he was the wild card. He held onto stuff like a mother fucker. Whereas the rest of us got sarcastic and got over shit. I guess the sunny had to be contrasted with a dark trait. The only thing that made sense.
He nodded, looking at his feet. “I guess we’ll see. We still need to figure out how we are going to do this.”
“Come to dinner tomorrow like we planned. We are doing our normal Christmas Eve thing.”
“I don’t want to just show up unannounced and I am having second thoughts. I shouldn’t have come. I need to stop running away when things get hard.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Really, dude?”
We both looked at the kid. Ellie didn’t seem to notice.
“What’s left for you back there?” I asked. I knew the answer. We’d been talking about it for months before his divorce was finalized.
“Nothing.”
“Exactly. Come to dinner.”
“You don’t think it will cause a big scene?” he asked.
“No one is going to care.” A total lie. Adam was going to care, but well that was going to be collateral damage. “You can’t spend Christmas here.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Ellie can’t spend Christmas here. You don’t even have a tree.”
“Fine, but it’s going to be a disaster.”
He was right, but I hoped it would be a mostly manageable disaster. We stood around, nodding at each other.
“Let me go get you two some food. I wanted to ask what Ellie likes to eat.”
“McDonald’s!”
“Kids,” Avery said, exasperated. “There isn’t one in town.”
Ellie made a face like ‘what kind of fresh hell did you bring me to?’
“I’ll grab burgers and fries, Ellie. They’ll be just as good. I promise.”
She pointed at me. “They better be!”
“Otherwise I get negative uncle points?”
She jutted her chin out and nodded. “Correct.”
“Tough customer.” I walked toward the door when there was a knock.
Avery and I both jumped and looked at each other.
“Are you expecting someone?” I hissed.
He shook his head going over to look through the peephole. “Shit.” He pulled open the door a little aggressively and I was expecting Adam, except it wasn’t Adam. It was Danny—the guy who ran the body shop.
“So it’s true.” There was a bite to Danny’s words.
“What?” Avery asked.
“You’re fuckin’ standing here.”
Avery held out his hands.
Danny shook his head and turned around and stalked off.
Fourteen
AIDEN
How’d it go with your brother?” Jensen asked as we got dressed to go to dinner.
“I don’t know,” I said, not sure I’d processed it myself. It had been fine eating there in that dump when I wanted to invite Avery back home with me. But walking in with a kid in the middle of the night wasn’t my brightest idea.
“What does that mean?”
“He wants me to warn them, but I don’t think that’s the best idea.” I made a face at Jensen as he turned around.
“I can’t believe you’ve left them at Hilltop for days.”
“It’s not that bad in there,” I said, completely ignoring the semen comment Ellie had made. “It’s only for a few days, and he wasn’t ready to see Mom and Dad the first day they were here. Avery said he had some things to deal with.” I shrugged and picked up my scarf. “But what do you think about me warning them?”