“What’s going on?” Nelle asked when Tock refused to do anything but stare blindly at a show for children.
“I didn’t want a party,” Tock complained.
“It’s not a party. It’s a casual dinner involving pasta and Charlie’s amazing meat sauce.”
“She invited the Malones.”
“Of course she did. They’re family now.”
“I just wanted to relax.”
“And you can’t do that in a house filled with badgers, cats, and bears who will be doing nothing more than swimming, eating, and sunning themselves like lizards on a rock?”
Tock’s eyes locked on Nelle and she asked, “Why can’t you just let me be miserable?”
“You’re too good at it. When you get in one of your moods, it takes days for you to come out of it. And I’m guessing we don’t have time for you to lock yourself away in a tiny room with all your tools and equipment so you can build baby bombs until you feel better.”
“I guess.”
“So, instead, why don’t you find a way to entertain yourself?”
“And how do I do that?”
“Well . . . Mads is walking around with a basketball and dressed like she’s about to be teleported back to the nineties so she can actually witness one of the Chicago Bulls’ championships.” Nelle grinned. “Now are you just going to let that go unchallenged?”
*
After stopping first to pick up a new phone for Shay, the Malones arrived at the MacKilligan house with Dani, Princess, and a crate filled with puppies. Unwilling to deal with any of it, Keane simply walked away from the SUV. Finn offered to carry Dani, but she wanted to “help Daddy with the crate,” which really meant putting her hand on its side and walking beside Shay on his left, while Princess stayed on his right.
While they walked together, Shay and Dani discussed her math camp. It was a day-camp thing that her mother had wisely gotten her into. Why a kid wanted to spend their summer break learning about math, Shay didn’t know. He hated math when he was Dani’s age and he hated it now. He used the calculator on his phone for everything and had a very smart brown bear accountant handle his taxes. Anything was better than attempting to do it himself. His baby, though, loved math, and if she wanted to work on equations over the summer, Shay wouldn’t let anything get in her way.
“I go Monday through Friday. Mom takes me there before she takes the boys to practice. Or Aunt Lei takes me.”
“I can always take you, if you want.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“Can you hang around and meet some of my friends and the teachers? Or will Uncle Keane be mad? I know you have practice.”
“Uncle Keane will probably want to come, too, to make sure everything is up to his standards.”
“I’ve been in math camp all summer. He wants to come now?”
“Baby, don’t try to use logic when dealing with Keane. You know better than that.”
Laughing, she pulled open the screen door to the MacKilligan house and walked inside. Shay began to follow but had to stop immediately.
Shay wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he walked into that house, but what he didn’t expect was the wave of nostalgia that swept over him like a minor tsunami.
Maybe it was the delicious scent of tomato sauce. Or the grizzly triplets in the living room, sitting around the huge coffee table playing Scrabble and arguing about which were real words and which were made up. “Josaltude” was definitely made up. Or maybe it was the laughter and conversation he could hear coming from the kitchen and outside from the yard. He really didn’t know what it was, but when Nat came out and saw Dani, the pair squealing and running at each other for a big hug, Shay had to turn around and leave the house, taking a seat on the porch bench.
His heart raced. His hands shook. And he was positive he was on the verge of tears. He just didn’t know why.
Princess sat in front of him, resting her big head on his knee while he carefully placed the crate filled with her puppies on the chair cattycorner from him. She patiently waited while he tried to sort through his feelings. Not an easy task. He wasn’t big on, you know . . . feelings. Shay usually just went through life doing what he needed to do. Being dependable. Being a good dad. Trying not to twist people on the F train into pretzels when they got on his nerves. What every shifter did to survive life in New York.
“You okay?”
Shay slowly raised his gaze. Taking in Tock’s red Nike high-tops, bright blue knee-high sweat socks, long blue shorts, and cutoff blue-and-red Detroit Pistons jersey.
“Pistons?” he asked. “You’re from Detroit, too?”
“No. Only Mads. This is just to irritate her. She still worships at the throne of Michael Jordan and the Bulls. And this is a signed Isiah Thomas jersey.” Tock tossed the blue-and-red basketball she had in her hands up in the air rather than dribbling it. He appreciated that.
“You cut a signed Isiah Thomas jersey in half?”
She shrugged. “I don’t care about Isiah Thomas. Mads does.” She jutted her chin toward him. “So what’s going on with you?” she asked. “You look positively . . . Irish.”
He shook his head. “I walked in that house and . . . it just reminded me of my dad. Everyone hanging out. Having fun. Waiting for dinner to be ready. It hasn’t felt like that with my family since he died. It just . . . the feeling . . . it took me by surprise.”
“Yeah. I call that the Gift of Charlie.”
“The Gift of Charlie?”
She sat down beside him on the outdoor love seat, but turned to the side so she could look directly at him. “No matter what’s going on, no matter where we are, Charlie has this amazing ability to make it all feel like home. Even when she’s yelling at Max and ordering the rest of us around, it still feels like a family thing. All this,” she said, jabbing her thumb toward the house, “is because she wanted to make sure I ate some carbs before I passed out.”
“You feel like you’re going to pass out?”
“No. Not even a little. I feel great, thankfully, which is good because it’s taken her all day to make this sauce. But Charlie likes to feed people and I’m not about to turn down her spaghetti.”
“It does smell good.”
“Right?”
They went silent after that, and Shay tried to think of something to say to keep the conversation going. He didn’t want Tock to think he was silent because he didn’t want to talk to her. He just didn’t have anything interesting to impart. He was really bad at small talk. He left that to Finn, who was really good at it. Keane didn’t like small talk either, but he did love to complain. He could complain for hours, and some people didn’t mind listening. But Shay . . . he only spoke when he had something to say. One of the things he loved about his daughter was that they could sit for hours, drawing or reading or watching TV, and never had to say a word to each other. They just enjoyed each other’s company. Dani’s mother, though, tended to call it “plotting cats ready to pounce.” But they weren’t plotting anything.
He glanced at Tock. She was staring off, not really appearing to focus on anything specific. He tried to come up with something that could start a conversation. The weather? No. Shifters didn’t care about weather. The rivalry between Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas? Nah. It seemed her current ensemble had more to do with pissing off Mads rather than honoring Thomas. The state of the country?