“I don’t know. I’m going to have to dig into it as soon as I get to this pork.”
“Don’t burn it,” Macon growled, taking a bite of salad. He seemed to have an enormous amount of greens on his plate, and since Joshua was looking at him with keen interest, Prior figured out exactly why his brother suddenly liked salad. Because everything that he put on his plate, Joshua did the same.
And I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
No, Dakota noticed, too. And from the look on her face, I didn’t think she was all that happy about it.
I needed to keep an eye on that, but then again, it wasn’t any of my business.
“Looks great,” Paris said, coming up to my side as I opened the smoker. She waved smoke from her face and grinned. “Smells amazing. If it wasn’t so hot, I might jump in there and snuggle it.”
“That’s an interesting visual,” I said with a laugh. I was doing my best to not look at her. To study her face to see if she was okay. She was acting like everything was normal.
I didn’t think anything was quite normal.
“Thank you, by the way,” she said as I pulled the pork off the smoker.
“For what?” I asked, trying not to drop the damn meat. My brothers would never let me live it down if I did.
“Thank you for that night. Well, for most things recently. But thank you for getting me home. I’m okay now. I just needed to talk with the girls and get it out of my system.”
“I’m here if you want to talk to me, too,” I said, trying to sound casual. Because I wanted to know what was up. I wanted to help her make things better. However, it wasn’t my place.
“Everything will be fine. Just fine.” She was talking fast, and I raised a brow.
“It will. I promise. I just needed to get my bearings. And maybe I still do when it comes to certain things. In the end, there’s nothing for you to do. The fact that you were there when I needed you…and your brothers, as well? Thank you. There’s not much else I can say about that, other than I appreciate it. And I don’t want to talk about it ever again.”
“Noted. Now, let’s dig in.”
“It’s about time,” Nate said, then hugged Paris tightly before getting a plate for himself.
I watched the way Paris leaned into my brother as if she didn’t have a care in the world, and nothing was weird between them.
And then I kind of wondered why I was jealous of that? I shouldn’t be. After all, she was my friend. My coworker. I shouldn’t be insecure about the fact that Paris and I sometimes yelled at each other, or things got awkward between us.
And then my gaze moved across the table to Myra, who stood there with her knuckles white where she gripped the edge. She seemed to see me watching her, and she smiled, her hands relaxing. And then it was as if nothing had happened. As if I hadn’t seen anything.
Ever since Cross had brought Hazel home, the dynamics in our family had shifted. I didn’t mind it. I liked the new people, the fact that we had grown. Things were very complicated, far more than they used to be.
And I couldn’t help but wonder what I was doing with a woman who didn’t want to be here. Who wanted nothing to do with what I had with my family.
“You look serious,” Joshua said from my side. I looked down at the kid and shook my head.
“Just thinking thoughts. Don’t worry. I’m about to dig into my meal.”
“Make sure you get salad, though. Because Macon got salad, so that means you should probably get it, too.”
I grinned, noticed the way Dakota’s brows rose, and piled my plate with salad.
“That sounds like a good idea. Though I’m going to have to eat some more salad if I’m going to keep up with you. I mean, vegetables do help a boy grow.”
“That’s what Macon said. And one day, when I’m older, he’s going to help me lift weights. He said that he can’t lift weights that much right now because he’s still getting better from the bad man.”
Everybody was quiet for a minute before Hazel cleared her throat.
“You know, I should probably start lifting weights, too,” she said with a laugh.
“I like you the way you are,” Cross drawled.
“Yes, but I feel like the only thing I lift is a bottle of wine. That probably means I should get something more into my workout regimen.”
Everybody started talking about yoga and jogging, and nobody mentioned the bad man or the fact that Macon had even mentioned it to Joshua.
When my brothers got shot, everything changed. I was the one who usually joked around, while Nate joined in. Macon had always been quiet, yet not sullen. Now, something was different about him. Something we couldn’t change.
Cross had been shot in the attack as well, but he had Hazel to lean on. Had all of us. Macon had withdrawn, closed in on himself.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
By the time we finished our first course, because I had a feeling we’d go back to it, I was full, happy, and excited to get to the next phase of our gathering.
“Okay, let’s wrap everything up so we don’t add bacteria to our day. Then, it’s football time.”
“Wait, we have to play football?” Myra asked, looking down at her open-toed shoes.
“No one actually said football with the invite,” Paris said, wincing. “I would have brought tennis shoes.”
“Shit, sorry,” I said. “We usually play a game when we’re together.”
“Next time, I’ll bring the right shoes,” Paris said, and Myra nodded.
“We have the right shoes,” Hazel said, hip-bumping Dakota. “Cross warned me because he loves me.”
“It was just a happy accident on my part,” Dakota said.
“Traitor,” Paris said with a laugh.
“Okay, let’s get everything cleaned up, then we’ll play for a bit. And then figure out something to do with the two barefoot women.”
“If you say we should be cheerleaders, I will have to hit you,” Paris said, grinning.
An image of Paris in a cheerleading uniform right alongside Myra flashed through my mind, and I purposely pushed it away. No, thank you. I was not going to think about that at all. That was wrong.
And…fuck, I had a girlfriend. A girlfriend I wasn’t sure I even liked anymore, but still, I was not an asshole.
We cleaned everything up, dug into more pulled pork and a rib or two because we couldn’t help ourselves, and then we slowly made our way out to my back yard.
By the time we were done with the afternoon, we were covered in dirt, had a few bruises, Joshua was asleep on the bench outside after laughing and playing so hard that even I was exhausted watching him, and I just knew that this family was pretty cool. Somehow, we had all come together in this weird mesh of families and connections.
And I didn’t think it would be the same if Hazel’s friends hadn’t shown up.
I met Paris’s gaze, and she grinned, but I saw the sadness in her eyes. Once again, I wanted to know if there was something I could do. There was nothing.
As my phone buzzed, and I looked down to see a very not family-friendly photo of Allison on it, I groaned.
And not one of pleasure. Nope. I hadn’t expected to see my girlfriend’s tits on my phone like that.