Craziest shit I’d ever felt.
She didn’t know it. She might not ever know it, but the second this changed between us, the night Sydney gave herself to me in a way I will never fucking let go of, that was it.
Fucking it.
She came.
And I was a fucking goner.
I wouldn’t give Syd what I was giving her now and have this shit going on behind her back. Fuck no. Never.
No matter if she found out about this or not, I wouldn’t betray her like that. I wouldn’t taint what we had or spit on what she gave me.
It was everything. From the start, from that first mistaken phone call, it was everything.
Everything I had and wanted and needed.
I’d do this new arrangement and get the cash for the kid, help his family the way I needed to be helping them, and I’d have my girl in my ear at night.
Fuck yeah. This would work.
It had to. I didn’t have any other options.
* * *
Balancing the two boxes on one hand, I took to knocking after ringing the doorbell once and not getting an answer, hoping the pounding of my fist would grab someone’s attention.
It did.
The door swung open seconds later.
A round face with big brown eyes framed in blue glasses and freshly bathed hair, wet and wild looking, drew my attention down from where it was fixed to greet my sister.
Oliver, my nephew, filled the doorway instead, standing in his Star Wars pajamas and the dog slippers he got for Christmas last year.
“Hey, Uncle Brian,” he greeted me with his crooked smile, then immediately slid his eyes to the boxes in my hand, where they went wide and stayed wide as he pumped his fists in the air and jumped up and down, chanting, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”
“Pizza?”
I heard another little voice calling from inside the house, then not two seconds later Olivia came rushing up to stand beside her brother, grinned big when she saw me and even bigger when she saw the pizza boxes I was carrying, pumped her fists in the air but did it by alternating them in time with her knees drawing up as she bounced from one dog-slippered foot to the other, also chanting, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”
“You guys eat yet?” I asked over their chanting, stepped inside, and closed the door behind me.
“Nope! Momma’s making a roast and it smells like feet. We don’t want it,” Oliver answered, scrunching up his nose after.
I kept my laugh silent.
“Feet?”
“It really does, Uncle Brian,” Olivia assured me, reaching out and tugging on the bottom of my shirt. Her hair was wet, too, and fell in two long braids past her shoulders, making damp spots on her flower-covered pajamas. “Can’t you smell it? She put onions in there and those green things we don’t even like! She’s trying to poison us.”
“Now we’re having pizza.”
Oliver held up his hand and his twin high-fived him.
“Yes!” Olivia whispered excitedly.
They were seven. Got along great for siblings, which I figured had to do with them being twins and sharing something regular siblings didn’t share.
Regular siblings fought, at least occasionally. These two didn’t. Siblings also liked having breaks from each other, alone time, but not Oliver and Olivia. They mourned each other if they were ever apart. Even for a night.
My sister Jenna moved into the room then from the direction of the kitchen, wearing an apron and wiping her hands off on a towel.
“Uncle Brian brought us pizza, Mom!” Olivia shrieked, pushing her matching blue glasses up her nose when they started sliding down. “Can we have it?”
“But I made roast,” Jenna replied, watching both kids drop their heads. She gave me a wink, then shifted her gaze between the two of them. “Yes, we can have it. I’ll save the roast for tomorrow.”
“Yes!” Oliver pumped his fist into the air, then spun around and took the boxes from me.
Olivia followed behind him into the kitchen, hooting and hollering.
“Big brother,” Jenna greeted me, coming over for a hug. “It’s good to see you.”
She was two years younger than me, which kept us tight growing up, petite like our mother and barely came up to my chin. Her dark hair tickled my jaw as she squeezed my waist.
“You, too,” I said, reciprocating the affection. “Figured I’d bring food since I haven’t made it over in a while.” I gave her an apologetic look as she pulled away. “Sorry. Work shit.”
I was including getting called to Xstasy in the “work shit” excuse. There was nothing shit about Wax, and nothing Wax related ever kept me from coming over here.
“It’s okay. I get it. I’m just happy you’re here now.” She gave me a smile. “Come on. Let’s eat before the two of them put all that food away and leave us with nothing but roast that apparently smells like feet.”
Laughing, I followed behind Jenna and got some of the pizza.
After dinner and cleanup, I stood in the kitchen while Oliver and Olivia played the Wii in the living room.
Jenna was putting away the roast and the vegetables now that they were completely cooled, and she was doing this after warning her kids they’d be having roast and Brussels sprouts for dinner tomorrow.
Bellies full of pizza and soda, they didn’t give her any lip over it.
I stood with my hip to the counter finishing off the last of my second Coke, taking in the surroundings of my sister’s small but cozy apartment and the two kids in the other room, absorbing their laughter and triumphant squeals when she nudged my side.