“Mom’s gonna love her,” I admitted.
“Mom’s gonna start planning your wedding,” Ford countered as he slapped me on the back. “Let’s go wait for your girl. Then I’ll make sure y’all get to the bike okay.” He paused. “Her dad’s okay with the bike?”
I grinned at that. “He didn’t tear me a new one when I saw him at the game earlier.”
We walked out of the school then, shoulder to shoulder now.
I’d finally caught up to him in the height department. I still had a bit of filling out to do shoulder-wise, but I knew that one day I’d make it.
Ford took after our dad. And Ford was resembling him more and more lately.
I, on the other hand, took after my mother and I still had a lot of growing into my skin to do. But I was going to get there. That was for sure, if Ford’s transformation was anything to go by.
When we made it outside, I led him around the school to the locker room exit, then leaned with him against the brick of the building.
“How’s Ashe today?” I asked curiously.
When I’d seen her this morning, she’d been in a shit mood. Apparently, someone had broken into the cat shelter she worked at and tried to steal their cats. Meaning she’d been woken up in the middle of the night to go deal with the police since the owner of the shelter had been out of town.
Needless to say, when I’d seen her this morning when she was getting home and I was leaving, I’d said a few words to her and that’d been it. Mostly because she’d gone inside and had gone straight to bed with only a few words to me.
“She’s okay,” he said as he leaned his shoulder next to me. “Pissed. They were trying to steal the cats because they thought that we were going to kill them. When, in fact, we’re a no-kill cat shelter. Which surprised the stupid kids.”
“Kids?” I asked curiously.
He nodded. “This generation is a bunch of morons. They hear something on Facebook, and all of a sudden it’s gospel and true. They don’t fact check at all.”
I grimaced. “I’m not like them.”
He rolled his eyes. “I think it has a lot to do with how you’re raised. Dad would never allow us to be a bunch of dumbasses.”
That was true. My father—and even my mother—would’ve kicked our asses if we’d ever done some of the stupid shit that we heard kids are doing lately.
Chapter 13
Cool story, bro. In what chapter do you shut the fuck up?
-Perry’s secret thoughts
Perry
Meeting Banner’s brother and sister-in-law felt a whole lot like meeting the parents—at least, what I assumed it would feel like if I was meeting his parents.
Ashe, Banner’s sister-in-law, smiled at me warmly and offered me her hand.
I blinked, surprised to see her in a police uniform.
“You’re… you are a police officer?” I asked curiously.
She grinned. “Not so much anymore… or well, ever. I’m more of a detective slash criminal psychologist. I stay more at the station nowadays than I do anything else.”
She patted her belly for emphasis.
She was really pregnant. I could see how she wouldn’t want to be doing the things that officers did, that was for sure.
“That’s good,” I said as I stared at her. “Do you know what you’re having yet?”
She patted her belly again and looked over at her husband. “We’re told it’s a boy. Ford here is still holding out for a girl.”
Ford rolled his eyes. “It’s just that I don’t think I can handle a kid like you. And you damn well know that he’ll act exactly like you. There’s only so much my heart can take.”
Banner snorted. “You should’ve thought about that before you knocked her up.”
Ford threw a breadstick at Banner’s face.
Banner caught it, bit into it, and went back to perusing the menu.
I grinned then went back to looking at mine, trying to decide between the chicken alfredo and the lasagna.
“The lasagna is on special tonight,” Ashe said as she pointed toward the specials. “It’s really good. But so is the alfredo. Oh, gosh. I can’t pick either.”
“Get both and split it,” Banner suggested.
My brows went up and I looked over at Ashe. “I’m down if you are.”
She fist-pumped, causing me to snicker.
“How old are you?” Ford asked her.
Ashe stuck her tongue out at her husband. “Stuff it, Mazda.”
I blinked. “Mazda?”
“Ashe likes to come up with funny names to call Ford when she’s annoyed with him. He really doesn’t like it when she calls him Prius,” Banner murmured around another bite of bread.
“What can I get everybody?” the waitress asked as she finally came over.
“I’d like two sweet teas. An order of mozzarella sticks. A potato-whatever soup. A salad. Oh, and also I’d like the Italian sampler,” Banner said, handing her his menu.
The woman blinked.
“He just came from football practice,” Ashe tried to explain. “He’s a hungry, growing boy.”
The waitress, who didn’t look like she was much older than us, smiled. Her eyes lingered on Banner, then moved to Ford. “Are you two brothers?”
“Sisters,” Banner teased.
Ashe choked on her breadstick, and I covered my face with the menu.
“Umm, okay,” the waitress said. “What can I get you?”
This time it was directed at Ford, who completely missed everything that was going on because he was still looking at his menu. “Can you do them first? I don’t quite know what I want.”
The waitress reluctantly turned her eyes to me, and I ordered the lasagna. Ashe ordered the alfredo, leaving Ford to frantically look through the menu.
“Just get him the sampler, too.” Banner rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Ford. You get the same thing every time you go to an Italian restaurant.”
Ashe started to giggle again, making me smile right along with them.
I loved their brother dynamic they had going on.
It made
