Page 3 of Rules to Love By

“For you maybe. Kindness was never enough for Johnathan. He wanted the recognition.”

“But none of the hard work.”

Tris one-arm hugged him. “You’re not wrong. But she loved you, and who gives a shit what the rest of her family thought.”

Marcus nodded, running his fingers one last time along the carvings. “I know.” And acknowledging that he was her brother’s grandson, even if no one else in her family ever did, was her way of showing it. He’d always known he was only marginally one of them as long as she was alive. It surprised him to find he cared that they’d never acknowledge him now.

“Shouldn’t matter, should it? None of them ever even came to look at me. They didn’t know my father, and they didn’t know me. I shouldn’t miss what I never had.”

“Just because you don’t miss being part of Iris’s family doesn’t justify their refusal to acknowledge your existence.”

“I don’t know if I want them to, really. Not if they’re all like Johnathan.”

Tris stopped at the front door of the B and B, turning with his head to one side. “But what if they’re all like Iris?”

“Because she was a paragon of the warm and fuzzies.” He tried but failed to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.

“She—”

“I know. She cared for me, kept me fed and a roof over my head. She taught me not to be my deadbeat parents. She did a lot she didn’t have to do. But she never introduced me to her family, and I have to wonder why. After more than a decade living with her, I never met a single one of them except Johnathan. So… why?”

Tris nodded. “That’s a fair question, I guess.”

“I know you had a horrible start, Tris.”

“But at least I knew my parents. I knew they were shitholes. I knew their parents weren’t any better. I guess there’s something to be said for knowing.”

“And if distant, unaffectionate Iris and greedy, bigoted Johnathan are the best my family have to offer?”

“Do you really want to know the rest. I get it.”

“There has to be a reason she had so little contact with them.”

“Too bad she never shared that with you.”

“Too bad she never shared a lot of things with me. But that was just how she was.”

Packet of tools under his arm and coffee in hand, Tris yanked open the creaky screen door of the Oaks to go back inside. “I have to get back to work. But you know as long as you need their back room, Kreed and Lucky are happy to have you here. And you don’t have to keep fixing shit around the place to keep your welcome.”

“Better I’m fixing things than sitting around doing nothing.”

“True, true.” Tris grinned at him and waved at the house. “In that case, you wanna find some oil for these complain-y hinges?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Again.” He glared at the door like the house could see his annoyance at her on-again-off-again, attention-seeking minor ailments he was continually fixing.

The door wavered in the slight breeze, completely silent on non-squeaking hinges. Because of course she knew what he was thinking.

“You know I’m happy to have you here too, right? I hope I wasn’t sounding like I was trying to get rid of you.”

“You weren’t.”

“Good. I just worry. You’re a city guy, and Griffon’s Elbow is a lot of things, but definitely not city. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He offered what for him amounted to a shy grin, though it was far more dazzling than anything Marcus ever managed. But this was Tris, and Tris sparkled all the time. “But I like having you here.”

And he liked being there. But now that he’d finished fixing the front porch, he was going to have to find something else to do. He couldn’t just sit around while Kreed and Lucky put him up and fed him without contributing or paying his way.

That wasn’t how he’d been raised.

The soft tinkle of windchimes and click of the door latch brought his attention back to cleaning up the rest of his tools. The B and B would open in a few minutes, and he wanted to be out of the way for the first coffee customers of the morning.

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