Page 27 of Crazy In Love
“She can’t moveanywhereshe wants. She still has to follow the rules.” He’s getting pissed, scratching the back of his neck and huffing through his anger. Which is exactly how he gets when he plays against Tommy. “You should move your knight.” He picks it up and does it for her. “That would be a good move, because then you cut off my pawn and stop my attack.”
“Really?” She settles back in her chair and swirls her wine—just one glass, she declared, so she can still drive to the hospital when we need to. Sipping, she hides her smile and masterfully manipulates the kid into playing against himself.
It would be genius, if it wasn’t so fucking infuriating.
“How do I know you’re not putting my knight there so you can take it later? Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.”
“You can trust me not to trick you.” He takes his turn—would have been a pawn move, had he not trapped himself with her knight—selecting his bishop instead. “It’s not winning if I’m cheating. I like to win properly, Aunt Fox. You know that.”
“Yeah, but…” She folds her legs, entirely too at ease. And because she’s determined to fuck with us both, she spins the silverware Franky already set out for dinner. “I wonder if, as you’re getting older, and especially now that you’ve got a baby sister on the way, maybe you’re less about winning fairly and all about winning, full stop.”
She sets the fork back where she found it… but upside down.
“You know that’s not true.” He leans across the table and puts the fork back the way it was. “Take your turn.”
“Can I move this knight?” She pinches her king between her fingers and waltzes him five squares forward. “That’s a good spot, right?”
Frustrated, he puts the damn king back and moves her castle instead.
“Have you received any updates since the last one?” Relaxed, she folds her neck back and flashes a taunting smirk my way. “I guess things are getting a little more serious, since Tommy’s been less text-y.”
“Nothing since five centimeters.” I peel one end of my steak up and check underneath, so when I find it browned to perfection, I kill the gas and plate each cut up. “You were there for Franky’s delivery, right? How long did that take?”
Piqued, Franky’s eyes swing to his aunt.
She takes a long, easy sip of her wine and savors the flavoron her tongue. “I was there for every single minute of it. I even saw her poop.” She grins, but that grin turns to a snicker in response to Franky’s reddening cheeks. “Took about seventy-two hours from start to finish. It felt like aneternity.”
I grab the salad bowl and move to the patio table, setting it in the middle. Then I head back for the potato salad Fox insisted on putting together. “Exaggerating for the sake of exaggerating is dumb.”
“Cute. Except I wasn’t exaggerating.” She brings her eyes around to Franky and trades her wineglass for the fork on her left.Mine. “She went in on Monday, around dinnertime, and your slowpoke butt didn’t turn up till Thursday. It was the longest three days of my freakin’ life, and though I rarely,rarely, feel bad for men, those recliners they get to sleep in are rough.”
“Was Colin there?” Setting the potato salad down, I snatch my fork from between her fingers and put it back where it belongs, before returning to the grill and grabbing our steaks. “Wouldn’t he have been the one sleeping in the recliner?”
“Sure, he was there, and he was honestly the kindest, calmest, most thoughtful dude ever. He brought us food and drinks and blankets and such. But he wasn’t her ride or die. I was.”
“He was her husband.”
“He was herfriend. A man who saw a woman in need and knew it was within his power to help.” She snags my fork again and turns it in her fingers. “Alana had no health insurance and no fixed address for state care, but she had a baby on the way. That’s a dire situation to be in and one that could have been exceptionally dangerous if things had gone badly. Thankfully, before we even had to consider birthing in a back alley, Colin had a marriage certificate in hand and a health insurance policy drawn up. He was a good, good man, and any woman would be lucky to marry him. But they never…”
I toss her plate onto the table and steal my fork back.
In response, she chokes out an irritating laugh and rubs her hand, like my fast swipe hurt her.
It didn’t.
“They never consummated their marriage, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”
“Subtle.” I place Franky’s plate in front of him, and then I head back to the grill to get the third for myself. “You’re seriously telling me he did all that purely out of the goodness of his heart?”
She shrugs. “I doubted him, too. But it’s been ten years, and he’s still aperfect gentleman. Oh,” ignoring me while I sit, she swings her eyes back to Franky, “but that brings me back to topic. Your mom’s water broke on Monday, so we were living it up in luxury for a couple of days while you took your sweet time. Which was kinda nice, since, back then, we were just a couple of hooligan teenagers who’d never lived so comfortably before. Colin was at the hospital pretty much the whole time, helping when I told him what we needed. But when we got down to the business end of things,Iwas the one who got to hold you right after your mom.Igot to cut the umbilical cord, too. It was like,” she makes a show of gnashing her teeth and squeezing her hands. “Toughest sausage I ever cut through in my life.”
I press a hand to my mouth, sweat beading on my brow. And when I glance across to Franky, I find him in a similar state.
He gags, green in the face. “That’s so gross, Aunt Fox. Don’t say things like that.”
“Sorry.” Not sorry at all, she lays her chin on her shoulder and looks me up and down. “You got a weak stomach, too, Watkins?”
“Not weak. I just expect a certain decorum at the dinner table. Discussing such topics while we’re eating is hardly?—”
