Page 19 of Hideaway Whirlwind
I pat his shoulder when he gets close enough and open my mouth, almost answeringyeswithout thinking that through either.
But Birdie says, “No, it’s freezing outside. Plus, he’s a…” She trails off and flicks her gaze to me before cutting her eyes away quickly.
A what?What was she going to say?
“Please, please? I wanna build a snowman!” Dustin says to his mama, putting his hands together in prayer with big puppy-dog eyes, hopping from one foot to the other.
“Me too!” Sydney says, throwing her hand in the air like a student in class. “Please, please, can we? Can we?”
I save them from any further back and forth by telling them, “Don’t argue with your mama. She knows best.” And then I simply walk out the door into the bitter cold.
With a mile of dense woods and icy terrain between my place and Russell’s, I know I made the right choice last night. Even with the light, weak as it is, the hike is too dangerous, at the very least for the youngins, who are used to city sidewalks and the arid desert. It also gives me plenty of time to replay last night over and over and over and over again until I’vedissected Birdie’s every minute reaction and am still lost as to what I did to make her run away.
Should I have refused her advances? Was last night some kind of test that I failed? Or did I truly hallucinate everything? I don’t know. I just don’t know. And it’s driving me crazy.Crazier.
Layla screams and throws a thankfully unopened family-sized box of cereal up in the air when I appear in her modern black-on-black kitchen with butcher block countertops and a fancy copper sink. “Dangit, Elliott! I think you scared the baby as much as me,” she says with a smile, one hand caressing her baby bump and the other laid over her heart while she catches her breath.
I grunt out an apology, especially when my brother runs into the room on high alert, only relaxing when he sees it’s me who walked into their house unannounced, which I do often enough that they should be used to it. Poor Layla.
“Good to see you home, brother. Teagan and the kids make it to Davis’s?” Russell asks, clapping my back and immediately getting down to business. He motions for us to sit on the caramel-colored couch closest to his roaring fireplace. Without power, even with their own generator, their cavernous house with its walls of windows and glass doors is much colder than mine.
I clear my throat and shift my eyes back toward the view of our shared woods. “They’re at my place.”
“Really?” Russell asks slowly with his dark gray brows raised. He may only be two years younger than me, but he looks even younger since he held onto the brown hair of our youth for much longer than I did, though more and more gray is starting to creep into his beard, which he keeps trimmedtidier than mine.
“Burst pipe at Davis’s house, so I couldn’t drop them off,” I answer, running my hand down my beard, wondering if I would look younger, too, if I were to trim or completely shave it off.Hmm. Would Birdie like that?
“You could have brought them here,” Layla says, taking a seat with a bowl of dry cereal, curling her fuzzy slipper-adorned feet under the fleece blanket Russell throws over her—though she immediately chucks it off while Russell is bundled up to his neck in extra clothing. “We have plenty of room.”
“Little Mama!” a man howls in a high-pitched moan from upstairs, and the tips of my ears burn hot when Birdie’s face flashes in my mind. That would be Trace, my co-worker and Russell’s pseudo-bonus-son,getting freaky, as Trace would say, with Layla’s former-almost-sister-in-law in their bedroom upstairs. It gets confusing sometimes, keeping track of our ever-changing and growing family, most of whom we aren’t actually related to legally or by blood.
“You know what? Maybe them staying with you is for the best,” Layla says with a blush, rolling her lips between her teeth to suppress a giggle that earns her a soft look from my brother, who has been obsessed with her since they met nearly four years ago, three of which my brother spent stalking and pining for her.
“Are you good with that?” Russell asks me, the tips of his ears as red as mine are sure to be.
I grunt, letting my expression go blank, punching my reaction to the idea of living with Birdie and the kids for a few more days back behind my mental walls. How long will I spend pining for Birdie? Forever, probably. Just my luck.
Russell crosses his arms and leans back, watching me closely. “If not, I’ll talk to Trace. Tell him to cool it for a bit.”
“It’s fine. Roads are too slick to drive, and I don’t think they could make the hike here,” I say, impatient to get back home.To them.
Russell clicks his tongue. “Smart.”
“Need a favor, though,” I say after relaying the information about having to leave the truck on the side of the road near the warehouse. I need to figure out how to get to it without being seen so I can grab what I need and scrub the trailer down. “Don’t have much by way of food at my place.”
Layla drops her bowl on Russell’s lap and stands, already moving toward the kitchen. “On it.”
“Anything else?” Russell asks.
“Uh…any idea what I can do to occupy the kids?” I ask. “They’re already a bit stir-crazy.”
“Sure thing,” he says, tilting his head toward the staircase that opens up to a game room and the spare bedrooms. “I think Paul might have left a few board games or puzzles. Let me check.”
Envy that I’ve tried for years to abolish chews me up and spits me out. Russell has it so good. His biological son is twenty-two years old, smart as a whip, and driven—the pride and joy of our family. And on top of his bonus-son, Trace, my brother now has another child on the way with the love of his life, and who knows how many more children they might have? I’m happy for him, since he certainly deserves it. But damn, it doesn’t make it hurt any less, even if my life of isolation is self-imposed.
Layla interrupts my mental spiral when she appears with two full canvas tote bags, looking as sad and drawn as she didthe first day I met her. She must have caught something on my face that I hadn’t been able to hide well enough.
“I grabbed a few clothes and toiletries, too,” she says, “in case they weren’t able to bring much with them. Let me know if they need anything else.”
