“Well, that’s just silly,” she chided. “Brick’s as far away from a criminal as you can get. I’ve never met anyone with a bigger heart.”
“Big,” his grandfather wheezed.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Brick could hear the smile in her voice. “That’s why everyone thinks I call him Brick. Because he’s so big and strong. But really it’s because he’s impermeable. Indestructible.”
His grandfather chuckled then opened his mouth nice as you please for another spoonful. Brick shook his head. His grandmother was at her wit’s end trying to get her stubborn husband to eat. And all it took was a pretty girl who didn’t make him feel like an invalid. He couldn’t blame the man.
“While we’re on the subject, what did Brick and Spence’s dad do to end up in jail?”
Brick closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, willing the dread away. It didn’t matter what she thought. She was a teenager. The eight years that stood between them might as well have been an entire generation. She was the youngest of a tight-knit, loving family. He was the oldest of a splintered, scattered faction that didn’t have things like Christmas morning traditions or family cookouts.
His grandfather struggled with the words. She waited with what looked like patience and interest, just the right amount of both to defuse Pop’s automatic rancor at his condition.
“Hang on!” She lit up like the world’s greatest idea had just landed in her head. “Why don’t you write it down? I’ll get you a piece of paper.”
That sneaky little redheaded manipulator. Gram had mentioned to her in passing last week that they couldn’t get Pop to do his physical therapy. Which included writing.
“Here. I got you a pen, a pencil, and a marker,” she said, dropping the items in front of him on the sheet of paper.
Brick watched in amusement as Pop picked up the pen, then discarded it in favor of the thicker marker.
“I’ll get the cap for you,” Remi insisted. “There you go.”
Pop took the marker and, with a shaking hand, guided it to the paper. She leaned over the table, red hair falling over her face like a curtain of fire.
“Oh! He was a con man!”
At his grandfather’s harrumph, she rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not like he’s out there kidnapping and murdering people.”
“True. Still. Lazy,” Pop wheezed.
“Well, yeah. I mean, obviously, if he’s just taking someone else’s money and not trying to earn his own. But Brick’s nothing like that. I mean, all you have to do is look at how happy-go-lucky Spencer is. That’s all his big brother’s work there. I’m sure you know Brick didn’t have to come here. He’s a grown man. But he feels responsible for taking care of his brother. It’s obvious he’s done a heck of a job there. Spencer seems happy and well-adjusted to me, and I’ve known my fair share of teenage boys. There’s only two places that could have come from. His big brother and his mom.”
His grandfather’s shoulders slumped. “Should be with them,” he rasped slowly. The words seemed to exhaust him, and for the first time, Brick glimpsed the bone-deep disappointment Pop had for his only daughter.
She should have been with them. But, like William Callan II, their mother had chosen another life. And just because her choice wasn’t illegal or unethical, it still left the same bitter aftertaste. Both parents had chosen something other than them. Than him. He never wanted Spencer to feel the weight of that.
Remi patted Pop on the arm. “I know. But if she were, they might not be here. It might be just you and Dolores in this big old house, and Brick and Spence might never have found their way to our little island. You gave them what they needed most. A home, a place to finally plant some roots. And they fit right in like they were born and raised here. That’s your doing and Dolores’s doing.”
That manipulative, little redhead. He saw exactly what she was doing. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Pop struggled to say something, his lips working uselessly to form the words that wouldn’t come. He gripped the marker and moved it over the paper.
“Pink s-h-o-r—” Remi broke off laughing. “Spencer’s pink shorts! They are terrible, aren’t they?”
To Brick’s amazement, the stubborn Pop gave a shuddery chuckle. The man had never once laughed in his presence.
“Okay, maybe he doesn’t fit in quite as well as Brick does. But his grades are up.”
The old man nodded once.
“I tell you what,” she said. “If you eat the rest of that mac and cheese, I promise I’ll spill something really bad on those pink shorts the next chance I get.”
Brick watched as Pop raised his trembling right hand and managed a shaky thumbs-up.
“It’s a deal. Let me just warm this up a little bit for you so you don’t have to eat cold mac.”
Remi snuck another scoop from the pot on the stove into the bowl on her way to the microwave.
Her head lifted, and her eyes found him in the doorway. “Well, hey there, Brick. How were the horses today?”
Busted.
He pried off his other boot, dropped his cowboy hat on the bench outside and warily stepped into the kitchen. “Fine,” he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“You want some mac and cheese? We made a whole pot of it,” she said brightly.
He eyed his grandfather, looking for a reaction. Pop reached for the paper and dragged the marker over it in a familiar pattern.
Brick stared down at the large hash mark, and Pop pointed to the chair Remi had vacated.
An unexpected invitation. Unsure, he glanced over at Remi, who flashed him a wink.
“I should shower first,” he hedged, hand on the back of the chair. He’d been under the impression his grandfather hated the idea of his dirty grandsons on his antique furniture.
“Quality time doesn’t require soap. Hang out with us now, shower later. Besides, I kinda like the smell of horses. Don’t you, Pop?”
Pop didn’t answer. Instead, he drew a crooked X in the top right of the hash mark and then slowly, painfully nudged the paper toward him.
Brick’s throat tightened. There were a lot of reasons in the moment. The ravages that time and age took. The unexpected invitation. The absolution of a father’s sins. The acknowledgment of how fucking hard he’d worked to give Spencer as much normal as he could.
The girl with the wild red hair lighting up the room and making it all possible.
His toes curled in his socks, gripping the floor, but he did as he was told and sat.
Just as he carefully drew his first O, Remi leaned over and placed a bowl of neon yellow noodles in front of him. She smelled like sunscreen and summer, and he knew he’d never forget the scent. Or the memory she’d made for him there that day.
He and Pop were in the middle of their third game when Spencer burst into the kitchen in a V for Vendetta t-shirt and the infamous, god-awful pink shorts. His hair was getting lighter thanks to the island sun. Mackinac seemed to agree with him, to Brick’s relief.
“I caught the biggest freaking fish today!” he announced.
Remi whirled around from the open refrigerator with a squeeze bottle of ketchup. An arc of tomato red noisily squirted out, raining down on his brother’s shorts.