Page 12 of Make Mine Sweet
My phone buzzes, and I step onto the porch to check it. I get about as many phone calls as I do visitors these days, and I have a good guess who’s calling. A glance at the screen proves my hunch.
I let his last two calls go to voicemail. Probably best I don’t push my oldest brother any further. I don’t need him tag-teaming with Amy, showing up on my doorstep to harass me in person.
“Pierce.” I chuck Dutch’s drool-covered ball across the yard.
“Ian. I’m pleased your schedule opened up enough to take my call.” His voice is thick with sarcasm. He preferred it when I was in Durango and couldn’t avoid him.
“You know how it is.”
“I don’t have a clue how it is. You avoid all my calls. Most of my texts are left on read.”
“I’m a busy guy.”
He got enough first-hand experience with how I’m doing in the year I tried to keep working at our company. Don’t think he really needs a minute-by-minute update when nothing about my status has changed.
He grumbles into the phone. “I’ll skip the pleasantries and cut right to the chase.”
“Were you going to be pleasant?” I cut in.
“I was going to tell you about the baby, but you can forget it now.”
“Man. That would have been pleasant.”
Pierce is expecting his first child and absolutely losing his mind over it. He treats his wife, Bonnie, like she’s a fragile little bird, had the nursery painted and furnished months ago, and it seems to physically pain him if he doesn’t bring the baby into every conversation. He’s an absolute beast on a mountainside, but the softest kitten when it comes to a kid who isn’t even here yet.
The nonstop pregnancy updates I got when I worked in the office might have been as bad as all the “chin-up” commentary.
I toss Dutch’s ball again, waiting for my brother to crack. He clearly has something to say. It takes ten seconds of silence, max.
“Bonnie decided she didn’t want to wait any longer to learn the baby’s sex,” he finally says.
“That’s nice.”
He huffs another breath, and I grin to myself imagining his exasperation. He can’t expect much else when he calls me. I’ve never been great at playing along.
“You’re not even going to ask?”
Best to indulge him. If I refuse, he really might show up on my porch. “Are you having a boy or a gi?—”
“It’s a girl!” He sounds like he’s celebrating at the summit of a mountain peak.
“Congrats.” First grandchild in a family of brothers who haven’t been in a rush to start families—our mom will spoil her rotten. “Try to get Bonnie to hold out until my birthday.”
Pierce chuckles. “She’ll throttle you if you say that to her. She’s ready to deliver her now, and she’s still got a few weeks left to go.”
“Just tell her to relax. She always loves it when you do that.”
“You’re trying to get me murdered.” He exhales long and low. “I can’t believe the baby will be here so soon.”
Pierce has climbed some of the most dangerous mountains in the world, stays calm under pressure, and knows more about business finance than I would ever care to. Strange to hear him talking about a kid like it’s the new center of his whole life.
Happy for him. I just don’t get it.
“Can’t wait to meet her.”
“Exactly why I called.” His voice loses the dreamy quality and slips back into no-nonsense mode. “When are you coming home to Durango?”
My brief spark of joy for my brother fizzles out. “I have no immediate plans.”
