Jagged (Colorado Mountain #5)(100)

“It’s not gross. It’s delicious,” I contradicted Zander.

He squirted some devilled yolks into an egg, didn’t do a very good job of it, and I didn’t care. Then he looked up at me.

“I don’t like eggs,” he informed me.

“No?” I asked, loving every smidgeon of information I learned about my nephew, even the knowledge he didn’t like eggs, and I didn’t care one bit if that made me a freak.

He kept sharing the wealth. “My breakfasts of choice are pancakes or waffles or Nona’s hash brown casserole.”

Although I found the concept of Aunt Wilona’s hash brown casserole intriguing, I returned, “Eggs make you strong. Rocky Balboa drank raw ones before going out for a run.”

Zander scrunched up his nose.

“Raw ones?” he asked.

I nodded.

“That’s gross… er,” he decreed, then asked, “Rocky who?”

“Rocky Balboa,” I answered.

“Who’s that?” he queried and I blinked.

“You don’t know Rocky Balboa?”

Zander shook his head.

Therefore, as any conversation about Rocky Balboa was wont to make you do, I tipped my head back and cried in a deep guttural tone, “Adrian!”

When I was done shouting, I knew eyes had come to me but I only had eyes for my nephew, who was laughing and staring at me.

“You’re crazy,” he declared, still laughing.

“That’s what Rocky shouts after his big fight against Apollo Creed. Adrian is his woman,” I told him.

“Is he a cage fighter?”

I shook my head in mock disgust, leaned down to him, and allowed myself to do what I’d wanted to do during both of the dinners Ham and I had shared with him and Aunt Wilona at her house.

I ran my hand over his hair and cupped the back of his head, dipping my face close. “Rocky is a movie. A great movie. One of the best movies of all time. And, if you want, you can come over, I’ll pour a bunch of stuff in bowls, all of it not good for us, and we’ll eat and watch Rocky Balboa be awesome.”

“That’d be cool,” he said quietly, his eyes having changed. He looked somewhat uncertain but at the same time not uncomfortable and also pleased.

It was not lost on me in the time we’d shared with him and Aunt Wilona that she was affectionate with Zander. She wasn’t fawning and he was a growing boy so she didn’t get into his space being too motherly. That didn’t mean he didn’t get many indications in a variety of ways that he was loved.

But he’d never had one like this from me.

And, if I was reading him right, he liked it.

So I pushed it, lifted up, kissed the top of his head, and then moved quickly away so as not to freak him out.

My eyes swept through the house as I did but they stopped on Ham, who was across the room, beer in hand, talking to Latrell and Jeff, but his eyes were locked on me.

And his mouth was smiling.

I smiled back and then turned my attention to dumping stuff that was not good for anyone into bowls in order to replenish the generous but swiftly disappearing food supply.

“Are all these people really my mom’s friends?”

These words were asked by Zander but his voice was quiet and strange.

I looked down to him to see the eggs done, the pastry bag still in his hand, but he was looking over the bar into the house that was a crush of people, rock music on low drowned out by happy chatter with spurts of laughter.

“Yep,” I answered.

“She knew a lot of people,” Zander noted and I again got close to him but not too close.

Conversationally, I said, “Yeah, she did. She knew a lot of people but these aren’t just people she knew. These are her friends.”

He set the pastry bag aside, tipped his head to look up at me, and remarked, “She had a lot of friends.”

I went down in a mini-crouch so we could be eye-to-eye and told him, “Your mom was funny. She liked people and showed it. She was generous and she’d do just about anything for anybody. And people liked her because of all that. If you’re like that, you get a lot of friends and that’s what she did.”

Suddenly, his face changed again, definitely uncertainty and something I didn’t get until he spoke.

“I’m scared to go out there,” he whispered.

Surprised at this admission, I asked, “Why?”

“Because they liked her so much. What if they don’t like me?”

My heart squeezed and it dawned on me why, since Aunt Wilona and Zander arrived half an hour ago, he’d stuck to her or me like glue.

He was nervous and he wanted his mom’s friends to like him.

Carefully, I asked, “Why wouldn’t you think they would like you?”

“’Cause you said I’m not like her. They’ll be expectin’ me to be like her.”

I shook my head even as I smiled.

“You don’t look like her,” I clarified. “But you told me you have a ton of friends. You’re funny. You’re open.” I got closer and dipped my voice low. “As far as I can see, you’re just like her.”

When his eyes lit with hope, my heart squeezed again and I lifted a hand to curl my fingers around the side of his neck. Feeling the warmth of his skin, his pulse beating against my palm, for some reason I fell in love with him more just because he was so… very… real.