Page 76 of Hot Blooded

“Will you two quit your bickering?” Ma called from her position at the stove. She was busy with the gravy, but kept one ear twigged while the rest of them socialized around the kitchen island.

“We’re not bickering,” Rob and Tessa called back at the same time.

“Shipping’s crucial work,” Amos cut in before the sibling battle could escalate. “And hard work. I take it you work in logistics?”

Rob nodded, turning his attention back to Amos, clearly mollified by the praise. As he launched into a long-winded, overly-detailed explanation of his job, Tessa stood in silent agitation, waiting for Rob to turn passive-aggressively competitive again.

“And what do you do?” Amos asked Sarah when Rob had paused for a breath.

Sarah, who’d been standing silently beside Rob, blinked, as if caught off-guard by the acknowledgment of her existence. She looked like a short, blonde owl. “Oh. Uh. Me? I’m an accounts payable specialist at Kuepper—they’re a frozen food manufacturer.” Obviously uncomfortable with the attention being on her, she quickly changed the subject. “The wine you brought is delicious, by the way.” She held her glass up.

“Well of course he knows all about wine,” Rob said, that grating competitive edge back in his voice. “He drives an Audi.”

“Will you shut up about the Audi?” Tessa snapped. “Maybe he bought it used.”

“I didn’t,” Amos said serenely.

Tessa shot him the same annoyed look she’d been saving for her brother. “It’s not like it’s a Rolls Royce,” she muttered at them both.

“Well, it’s very good wine,” Sarah intervened mildly. “I usually only—”

Isabella and Gabriel—Rob and Sarah’s kids—chose that exact moment to come racing back into the kitchen and fling themselves at Amos’s legs. They wrapped themselves around his shins like koalas.

“It’s been fifteen minutes!” Izzie declared, smiling a manic, gap-toothed smile.

“Give us a ride again!” Gabe crowed.

“I said you could come back in the kitchen after fifteen minutes,” Sarah objected tiredly. “Not that Amos was going to be your personal playground.” Amos had accidentally demonstrated his inhuman strength when he’d first arrived, tossing the kids around with a little too much ease when they’d started crawling all over him, and since then, they’d been pestering him for “rides.” Hence the fifteen-minute banishment.

“Sar, just let them have the iPads,” Rob groaned.

“Ready?” Amos asked. He lifted the foot Izzie was attached to high into the air. Izzie shrieked like a banshee, clinging and laughing as he waved her around like she weighed nothing.

“Amos, you really don’t have to,” Sarah said, looking torn between embarrassment and amusement.

“Me next!” Gabe cried. Amos set Izzie down and swung Gabe up. More shrieks filled the kitchen.

“What’s all this noise!” Ma cried. “You’re going to make me go deaf!”

“Alright, alright,” Rob said. “That’s enough. Ride’s over. You guys can stay in the kitchen if you can sit still and be quiet. Otherwise, go back in the living room.”

“We can be quiet!” Izzie promised, still clinging to Amos’s leg.

“That means no climbing on guests,” Rob said sternly.

Plaintive objections met that declaration. Tessa smothered a smile as she watched Rob—her loud, mule-headed, often insensitive brother—get bullied by his own children.

“Alright!” Ma bustled over with a platter heaped with herb-crusted roast pork on a bed of roasted vegetables smothered in pork drippings. She set it at the center of the table. “Everyone sit. Dinner’s ready.”

As they took their places—Amos finally free of his ankle weights—Ma dished everyone’s plates up before taking her usual seat at the end of the table.

“Thank you for this, Mrs. Vargas,” Amos said. “It looks excellent.”

Ma acknowledged that with an impatient gesture. “Don’t let it get cold, then.”

Tessa watched out of the corner of her eye as Amos cut a piece of pork and put it into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. “Amazing,” he declared.

Always susceptible to praise for her cooking, Ma gave Amos her first real smile of the night. “Well, there’s plenty, so have your fill.”

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