Page 111 of Denim & Diamonds

I shook my head. “I should damn well fire you.”

Elvin smiled and thumbed toward his truck. “You ready to go, Brock? I promised Linda I’d be home in time for dinner tonight. I’ve been working late the last few days.”

“Go where?”

“You said you’d take a ride with me to pick out roofing materials. Linda isn’t too happy with the blue tarp I have covering the leak in the living room. When it’s windy at night, it flaps around and wakes her up.”

“Shit.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I forgot. I’ve been so busy with work and the bar, not to mention trying to figure out all this baby shit, that it must’ve slipped my mind.”

“The forgetfulness only gets worse after the kid’s born.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “Just what I needed to hear.” I turned to Nick. “Think you and Tim can finish up milling the rest of the log pile without me?”

He nodded. “We’ll get it done, boss.”

“Thanks.” I nodded toward my truck and spoke to my brother. “We’ll probably be over the weight limit for your truck. Roofing shingles are heavy. So let’s take mine. You always have half your bed packed with personal shit anyway.”

“Just wait. That’s where you’ll be keeping your most valuable possessions, too, someday—when the kids take over every inch of space in the house and garage.”

Kids.As in plural. I wasn’t sure I was going to survive one, let alone multiple. But I kept my mouth shut, and Elvin and I climbed into my truck. Sullivan Roofing Supply was a twenty-minute drive.

“How you feeling about the baby coming?” he asked. “You seem a little calmer than the other day when I saw you.”

I glanced over at Elvin. “I must be hiding it better. I’ll kick your ass if you share this with any of our knucklehead brothers, but I’m scared shitless. I feel like I’m going to fuck up. Though at the same time, part of me is starting to get excited to meet my kid. I guess I’ve warmed up to the idea a bit in the last few days.”

“It’s only been, what, ten days since Nina dropped the bomb? It’s good that you’re already settling into the idea of being a dad. And youaregoing to fuck up. We all do as parents. We’re still human, after all. Screwing up is basically part of the job description. Becoming a father is like assembling furniture from IKEA. Half the time you have leftover pieces, and sometimes you put it together backward. But hey, the kid will still turn out fine. Probably.”

I shook my head. “Thanks for the encouraging words.”

“No problem.” Elvin’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket, checked the screen, and tucked it back into his jacket. “You’ll do fine.”

I sighed. “It’s just not the way I pictured things when I thought about having a family someday.”

“And I pictured myself living in the Lost City of Kitezh with Angelina Jolie.”

I smirked. “I forgot all about your Angelina Jolie obsession when we were kids. Remember the time you wrote her a love letter and mailed it with that terrible drawing you did of her as Lara Croft fromTomb Raider? The sword looked like she had a big dick in her hands?”

“What are you talking about? You never mentioned that.”

I smiled. “Mom and I laughed our asses off when you weren’t around. Why the hell did you think I asked you if she wrote back a million times?”

Elvin shook his head. “You’re such a dick.”

“You all had pipe dreams. Fritz wanted to be a YouTuber who reviewed snacks.”

“And Trevor wanted to be an actor. Remember when we convinced him he should make some videos to put together an audition reel, and you and Maddox wrote a script for him? He was supposed to pretend he’d just witnessed a murder and call the cops in a panic. Except Mad actually dialed nine-one-one, and the police showed up with lights and sirens blaring.”

“Mom was pissed.” I smiled. “Especially because we busted the coffee table filming the pre-murder fight scene.”

Elvin chuckled. “I guess none of us is exactly living the dream we had when we were kids. What did you want to be when you grew up? I don’t remember.”

I stared at the road, not really seeing it. Good thing they were usually empty around here, and I could drive them blindfolded. “I wanted to build log cabins.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “Grandpa gave me a set of Lincoln Logs when I was three. By four I was building shit out of twigs in the yard.”

“Huh. I guess some dreams do come true.”

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