Page 13 of Win Some Love Some
It was loud. Christmas music was blasting over a portable speaker. There was chatter and boisterous laughing.
Kids sprinted between adults. People shouted at them to stop running. I took off my flannel lined denim coat and found a spot for it on a hook weighed down with about ten other coats already.
Surely the Barnes house couldn’t hold this many people. Would Sheriff Bobby cry foul at what had to be a fire hazard? Probably not.
I made my way through the throng of people. Telling myself I was looking for some representative of my family, but the truth was, I was looking for her.
It had been two and a half damn years.
I had to make this right. I had to get us back to some semblance of normal. I wasn’t so self-absorbed that I attributed her staying away from Calico Cove to me. But I did know this opportunity might not present itself again for another year, so I had to take advantage of it.
I ran through a bunch of introductions in my head.
S’up, Kiddo?
Come here and say hello, Squirt.
How you been, Norry?
Always with one of the annoying nicknames she hated.
Because that would be normal between us. She’d glare at me to put me in my place, then she’d smile and launch herself into my arms.
And the world, my world, would return to normal.
It wasn’t until I stood among the crowd of locals, most of whom had a drink in their hands as they tried to talk over the background music of Mariah Carey, that I realized how desperate I was for all that to play out.
Realizing she wasn’t in the living room, I pushed into the dining room which led to the kitchen and another family room off the back of the house. I’d helped Roy build the extension ten years ago when Vanessa was pregnant with Bethany.
He’d showed up at the shop, said Vanessa was knocked up again and they were going to need a bigger house.
I’d laughed my ass off, explained the merits of condoms, although secretly I think both Roy and Vanessa adored having a troupe of kids always around them, and gotten to work.
Had it been that summer, that I’d basically spent shirtless with a hammer in my hand in her backyard, that Nora had gotten…ideas about me?
Immediately, I shook off those thoughts. That was the point of coming here tonight. To make all that go away. To not think about it anymore.
To go back. All the way back.
“Nick!” I turned my head and waited for the explosion of female energy to charge at me, only it wasn’t Nora calling my name. It was Charlie, her closest sister in age. She’d just started her first semester of college, and I noted that, like a good daughter, she’d actually come home for the holidays after being away for months.
Charlie had all of Vanessa’s blonde coloring, and sometimes when I looked at her, and saw how completely different she looked from Nora, that’s when I remembered. That Nora wasn’t Roy and Vanessa’s biological child. But the daughter of a distant cousin of Roy’s, who’d tragically died from drug addiction when Nora had been just a small baby.
“Hey, Charlie,” I said with a chin nod. “Good to see you.” Keep it cool, I thought. “Where’s Nor?”
“Merry Christmas to you too,” she said with a smile. “Nor’s outside. Dad built a bonfire. Everyone’s roasting marshmallows and freezing their asses off.”
“Sounds fun.” I shoved the bottle of whiskey I’d brought, Roy’s favorite, at her. “Put this away somewhere, yeah?”
“Yep,” she chirped and bounced off with the bottle.
With intent now, I pushed my way through everyone gathered in the kitchen. It was no surprise to see Antony and Birdie hovering over a stove that was covered in pots and casserole dishes. Their backs were to me, so I didn’t bother to interrupt their work.
Instead, I stepped out through the sliding glass doors onto the deck, then out to the backyard where I could see the fire pit lit up. Only a handful of people were standing around it.
Nora.
She was telling a story about something and everyone in the circle was glued to her every word. Her younger brother, RJ. Conner, Jackson and Lola’s oldest. Bobby and Mari’s daughter, Stella, and Gail, an old friend of Nora’s from high school.
