Page 101 of Toeing the Line

“Uncle Freddy, I’ve told you a grazillion times. I amnota princess. I’m Beyoncé.”

“Oh, how could I forget? Especially after you telling me agrazilliontimes?”

“You should probably stop drinking so much,” she says, her eyes wide and earnest.

Zach and Sarah laugh from beyond where we stand.

“Who says that?” Freddy asks.

“Everyone,” she says. “If you can’t remember who you’re talking to, you should probably check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

“Wiser words have never been spoken, my girl,” he says.

“Freddy,” Zeke calls from the gate between the garage and the house, where he carries two large duffel bags. He’s wearing a Henley shirt and it tugs across his shoulders, emphasizing the hard cuts of his muscles. My throat feels dry. “Didn’t we talk about this?”

“You’re on my case too?”

“Leave my girls alone,” he says, his voice light enough, but there’s a darkness to his eyes that goes straight to my belly.

Rachel wiggles in my arms and presses her mouth against my ear. “It’s okay to be a princess sometimes, you know.”

“Is it?” I ask, tucking Rachel’s curls behind her ears.

“Of course it is. Especially when you find a handsome prince.” She pushes off of me and I let her down so she can run to Zeke.

“Alright, while I have a captive audience,” Sarah says, her hands raised like a maestro about to conduct. “I need holiday commitments.”

“My schedule is on the fridge,” Zeke says, tossing his bags in the back of Freddy’s Jeep, parked next to his truck. “If I don’t have a game on a holiday, I’ll be here.”

“Will you come home for Hanukkah, Uncle Zeke?” Ivan asks.

“I’ll do my best to be there for as many candles as possible,” he says.

“What about you, Uncle Freddy?” Rachel asks.

“You want me to come for Hanukkah, sweetness?”

“Yes,” she says, and then seems to reconsider. “You’ll bring presents, right?”

The adults laugh and Freddy scoops her off the ground, swinging her around like an airplane.

“How can I say no to that?” he asks, as an answer.

“And Thanksgiving?” Rachel squeals as Freddy swings to a stop. “Will you bring peach pie?”

“Peach pie?” Freddy asks. “Who eats peach pie on Thanksgiving?”

“That little troublemaker does,” Zeke says, slipping next to me and stretching his arm back along the bed of his truck behind me.

“Why peach?” Freddy asks.

“Because nobody ever brings it.”

“Because it’s not peach season, Rae Rae,” Ivan says, approaching me.

I hold up a hand to give him a high five and he slaps my hand in response.

“You don’t like peach pie?” I ask.

---