Soaring (Magdalene #2)(68)

He would know badgering. He was an attorney.

“I figured it was something like that,” I muttered, then clearer, I said, “He’s blaming me, so I appreciate you sticking up for me, but I’d prefer you stopped doing it.”

“He mention the kids?” Lawr asked.

“No. Why?” I asked back, my neck muscles tightening.

“I called them too.”

I stared at my reflection in the window. “I’m sorry?”

“Told them to cut you some slack. Told your son that you don’t have anybody since his father tore apart your family so he was up to bat and had to take care of his mother. Told your daughter she had one good female role model in her life and she was going to blow it if she lost that.”

So that was why they spoke to me. Because their Uncle Lawrie, who they both loved, adored and respected, had called them and laid it out.

God, I loved my brother.

“Should have done that years ago,” he murmured.

“They were a lot better at the last visit,” I told him.

“Good,” he said softly.

“Kinda shocking, you being a pain in the behind big brother for twenty years then turning out to be so cool when you’re nearly fifty.”

“Shut up, MeeMee,” he returned, a smile in his voice.

I smiled at my reflection and asked, “Do you have more time?”

“Are you my MeeMee?”

God, I loved my brother.

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Sock it to me, sweetheart,” he invited.

That was when I started pacing again because I did. I socked it to him and told him everything—absolutely everything—about Mickey.

This took a while. There was a lot of pacing. I was still in my slingbacks and it would be a lot later when I would come to the happy realization I could walk that much in them and they’d still be comfortable even being new shoes I’d never worn.

When I was done telling my brother everything, I stopped, wrapped my free arm around my belly, stared at my toes and asked, “So? Is Pippa right? Is this guy into me?”

At that, I heard Lawr burst out laughing.

My head came up. “What’s funny?”

“Is this guy into you?” Lawr asked my question back to me, his deep voice still vibrating with humor.

“That’s the question and in my current circumstances, I don’t find anything funny,” I snapped.

“Right.” That word sounded kind of strangled, like he was choking back laughter, and he still hadn’t quite done it when he went on, “I’ll confirm a fourteen-year-old girl’s keen perception of the way of things with you and this guy are even though she witnessed you with him for all of five minutes. Amelia, this guy is into you.”

I felt shivers trail over my skin at his confirmation and his emphasis.

But my voice was an octave higher when I asked, “How can that be? For weeks, we’ve hardly exchanged a pleasant word.”

I barely finished speaking before Lawr launched right in. “First, a guy might see a man in a woman’s face and intervene, but he will not offer to help her around the house unless he likes what he sees.”

“That’s impossible, Lawrie. I hadn’t even had my hair highlighted then,” I informed him.

Lawr ignored that and continued, “He also doesn’t give a shit she’s running herself into the ground doing some house sale, so he certainly doesn’t ask her over for a barbeque to help her relax.”

“When you do something like that with children involved, and you’re interested in the woman you’re inviting, it requires planning,” I shared haughtily. “Mickey’s invitation was near on spur of the moment.”

Lawr kept ignoring me. “And if he’s not interested and his daughter asks for her recipes, or wants her over for dinner, he tells his daughter to go over herself and get them and he finds a way to say she can’t come over for dinner.”

“He doesn’t have full custody of them, Lawrie,” I reminded him. “So she’s not around all the time. And she’s sweet. She’s a hard girl to say no to.”

My brother again ignored me.

“And bottom line, a man does not lose his mind every time another man is anywhere near this woman if he doesn’t want her for his. He doesn’t expend the energy to fight with her because if he doesn’t give a shit, he wouldn’t bother. But in his case, he was fighting with you instead of doing what he really wants to do with you. And he sure as f*ck doesn’t shove her into an alcove in a restaurant and kiss her, infuriated she’s out on a date. And I’ll say that also saying I know your age, I know you’ve been married and have kids, but I’m talking about a man shoving my little sister into an alcove and kissing her and I’m doing it under duress.”

I almost smiled at that.

But I didn’t.

Lawr carried on, “I’m also doing it saying that was a bold move, and commendable, if the woman he wants is stubborn and irascible, like you are, he’d reached the end of his control, and the time had come where he needed to make his play.”

I moved to the window and leaned a shoulder against it, dropping the side of my head to the glass, eyes out to the dark sea, ignoring his comment about me being stubborn and irascible, because we both knew I was so there was no use discussing it.