“I have family dinner, like every Sunday.” The thought of trying to convince Dad and my brothers to let me out of cooking for them was enough to make me feelanxious.
“Damn. I forgot about that!” Myla tapped her finger on her pouting lip. “What about Thursday? Do you work thatnight?”
“I don’t have to. Vince needs to be weaned off of me taking care of everything at the bar anyway. Why? What’s up?” I asked, taking the last sip of mydrink.
“Come to the game with us. I’ll have a box, and it has been too long since we all went to an Otters game together and cheered onourboys.”
“Count me in!” I had been working so much that the only time I was able to enjoy the games were the quick moments I was able to catch my breath in between mixing cocktails and dealing with annoyingcustomers.
Myla bounced on her heels, pure jubilance emanating from her. “Perfect! It’s adatethen.”
“I’ve actually been meaning to give you a call, but work has just had me swamped these last few weeks.” It had been a while since I had seen Myla and the rest of the Hayes family. It was at her brother-in-law’s birthday dinner and I had been meaning to touch base on how everything played outforhim.
Myla stopped her jittering to walk over with me to sit on a bench. “Oh yeah?What’sup?”
“How’s everything going with Griffin? Ever since his breakup and birthday, I’ve been a little worried about the kid.” Gavin’s little brother had been dumped the night before his birthday and was going through a mild quarter-lifecrisis.
“I don’t know much. You know how easy it is to get a straight answer from the guy. All I know is that he is using a PI and looking for the donor’sdaughter.”
When Griffin was a teenager, he got a bad infection and needed a heart transplant. The night of his birthday party, Myla and I helped convince him to find the donor’s daughter to help him get some closure on thesituation.
“I’m glad he is going to look for her. I hope it allworksout.”
Myla chewed on her lower lip. “I just hope he doesn’t end up even more hurt and confused than healreadyis.”
“Yeah, for sure. Griffin has definitely been through enough. Another letdown is the last thing heneeds.”
Chapter3
Jordan
Iglancedat the clock on the far wall in my father’s kitchen. Any minute now my brothers, their wives, and their children were going to be wreaking havoc on mychildhoodhome.
“Need any help in there?” Dad called from his recliner in thefamilyroom.
Grabbing a beer, I made my way in to join him for a second to check the score on the Yankees game. “I got it all under control. Everything is almost finished,Pop.Here.”
Dad took the beer from me. “Thanks sweetheart.” He looked so cute sitting with his faded blue ball cap on with his lucky shirt and matching socks. To say the man was superstitious was a completeunderstatement.
“How’s the game?” I leaned on the plush arm of his favoritechair.
“Eh.” Dad cracked his beer can open, huffing. “Bottom of the seventh. Chapman is pissing me off, walking way too many guysthisgame.”
I couldn’t say I gave even a rat’s ass about baseball, but my father and brothers fucking loved it, so I pretended to care for theirsakes.
“Have you heard anything from Jacob this week? Is Janet going to grace us with her presencetoday?”
My dad chuckled. “Fingers crossed, she doesn’t. Last week was so enjoyable without her awful faces. What do you call thoseagain?”
“Resting bitch face.” I laughed along withmydad.
“Well, for Jacob’s sake, I hope they settle their differences. I hate seeing him going through allofthis.”
Dad did his usual shoulder shrug with his hands up in the air, and that was the end of the conversation. He hated the drama his daughters-in-law all caused the family. Life was much simpler when it was just the five of us. Having three older brothers, each with a wife and two kids, the quiet house became nothing short of a warzone for a few hours once a week. Even though it was stressful, I loved every second of the bat-shit-crazy Bates Family SundayFunday.
I made my way back into the kitchen to make sure I had everything perfect for thenight.
Pot roast almost done—check.