“What does that mean? That phrase you said. I’ve heard it a couple times now, but Owen hasn’t translated it for me.”
“One day, when he is ready, Owen will tell you what it means. As his mother, I also keep his secrets. When it suits my purpose.” She adds the last bit with a sly smile just as we reach the table. “I saved young Tristan from Mrs. Potter; you should have kept a better eye on her, Owen.”
Owen rolls his eyes, earning a smack on the back of his head from his mother that has Stella giggling. “I was holding Stella while she took a nap, Ma.”
“I’m sure you’ve done something else to deserve it. Lesa, be a dear and scoot down some so Tristan can sit next to her daughter.” Maureen waves her hand in a shooing motion, leaving little choice but for Lesa to move down to make room for me. I swing my legs over the bench and set the plate I had made for us to share in between Stella and me.
“Are those flowers for me? They’re lovely. I simply adore sunflowers.” Maureen scoops up the small bouquet of flowers I’d left on the table before heading out to forage for food. She barrels on before I can confirm that the flowers are indeed for her. “Owen said you had a bit of an allergy, so we’ve been careful to make sure nothing we’re serving today could be harmful. Now, is someone going to introduce me to this sweet little girl?”
“I’m Stella.” Her mouth full of hotdog causes the words to be mumbled and little bits of hotdog, bun, and ketchup to come spitting out. I barely contain my groan. I know my daughter has manners; she must have a ton of them stored up as she hardly ever uses them properly.
“Well, Stella, I’m Mama G.”
Stella giggles, swallowing her bite of food. “That’s a funny name. Like Leeham. Mama G.” She tries out the name Maureen told her to call her, giggling the entire time. “Mama G and Leeham.”
“Well, now, I have to go find Leeham to make sure we have enough hotdogs and hamburgers cooked up before the next wave of people show up. Owen, after she’s done eating, can you make sure that Stella takes a turn in the bubble machine? Something tells me she’s going to like it.”
“Bubbles!” Stella shoves more hotdog in her mouth, trying to eat as much as possible as quickly as possible.
“Are there really more people coming?” I ask in awe. Broward isn’t that big; how could there possibly be more people?
“There’s always more.” Wyatt takes a long drink from his beer. “And somehow Ma always finds them.”
“I like having people.” Stella wipes her hands on her pants, much to my dismay. “Before, we didn’t have people, but we have them here, right, Mama? Like Owen and My Huck.”
I lick my lips, looking at the group seated around the table. It seems we do have people, or are getting people, whether we want them or not. From day one they’ve stormed into our lives in the best possible way, giving us exactly what I had been looking for with our move to Broward. We were planting roots.
“Is that his official name now? Did we file papers?” Wyatt pops a chip into his mouth, talking around it. “Are we calling him Stella’s Huck?”
Owen just laughs. “He’s more hers than mine now. He whines until I let him out and then he runs right over to their porch and scratches at the door before he comes home crying because they’ve already left for the day.”
I scrunch up my nose. “I didn’t know he did that.” I move the cut-up watermelon closer to Stella on the plate, happy to see her pick up another piece.
“Every morning,” Owen says with a nod. “I think if Huck could talk, he’d call her My Stella.”
“He’s mine,” Stella states definitively. “My Huck. Mama, I wan ice cweam. Chocwate, pwease.”
I’ve hardly touched my food, but the cute, little angelic smile on her face makes me want to drop everything and go get her ice cream. Owen must see the look on my face because he pushes away from the table. “I’ll take her. You finish your lunch.” He leans down, dropping a kiss right on my mouth in front of everyone, and I can feel the heat slide up from my neck before it moves across both cheeks and I’m sure I’m as red as a freaking tomato at this point. Stella slides her hand into Owen’s, and the two of them head off in the general direction of the ice cream truck I’d spotted earlier.
With Owen’s dark hair and Stella’s ink-black curls, she looks like she could be his. It sends a sharp pain to my chest, reminding me that Trevor will never be able to take his little girl for ice cream, and giving me a fuller understanding of what Stella has been missing out on. Having been raised in the foster system, I don’t really understand the naturally deep, loving relationship Owen has with both of his parents and all of his siblings. It’s fascinating to see.
And I want it for Stella.
Hell, who am I kidding? I want it for me.
“Soooo” Nora drawls out the word. She’s pushes her sunglasses up on top of her head and eyes me closely. “What’s up with you and Owen?”
Wyatt throws his napkin down on his now empty plate. “If this is turning to girl talk, I’m out. Let’s go get a beer, Bash.”
“What if I want to hear the girl talk?”
“You would.” Wyatt snorts. “Pussy.”
“Dude.” Bash pushes away from the table. “Listening in on girl talk is like a gold mine. You learn all kinds of helpful shit. But since this girl talk is going to revolve around Owen and his girl, I think I’m out.”
“Both of you are idiots,” Monroe mutters, sliding down closer to where Nora and I are sitting. Lesa is still sitting at the far end of the table, and I can see the indecision on her face. She wants to join the conversation, but she’s clearly in love with Owen.
I give her a small smile of encouragement, and she finally slides down to join Monroe, Nora, and I.
It’s hard to fault her taste in men, after all.
“All right, it’s just us girls now, Tristan.” Nora shifts her red Solo cup out of her way, leaning forward on her elbows and comically batting her eyes at me. “Give us all the details.”
“No,” Monroe is quick to interrupt. “We don’t want all the details. Let’s remember he’s my brother.”
“Your brother.” Nora emphases the word your. “He sure as heck isn’t my brother and I want all the details.”
I laugh softly under my breath. “Don’t worry, Monroe, they aren’t the type of details Nora is looking for. He kissed me the other morning when he was dealing with my car—”
“I can’t believe someone did that.” Nora is hardly discreet as she looks directly to Lesa when she says it. When she looks back to me, I give a quick shake of my head. I still don’t think Lesa was the one to vandalize my car. She might have a thing for Owen, and be upset that he is, whatever he is, but with me she’s a genuinely lovely person. I simply can’t see her painting my car in the dead of night because Owen stopped seeing her.
“Derrick said your car was just about ready.” My eyes narrow in on Monroe and the way she says Derrick’s name. She reaches up and runs her fingers across the stones on her necklace. “I saw him here earlier.”