Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(38)
“Hey, man,” Dad greeted Mark and then took the grocery bags inside, ignoring their loud laughter as Koa and Makana approached and our adopted uncles converged with hugs and kisses, going on and on about how much we’d all grown—which they’d like still do when my siblings and I were old—and fawned over Aly, casting skeptical looks at me when they noticed her ring.
“Girl! It’s gorgeous,” Johnny had told Aly, scooping her in a hug. Johnny was smaller than Mark, his waist narrower and he wore his blonde hair short on the sides, longer on the top and he was always impeccably dressed. Today he sported starched jeans and a blue polo that made his gray eyes look like crystal.
In contrast, Mark had the look of a man that had been very handsome when his was young and time had only enhanced those strong features. He was pale with dark hair, a full salt and pepper beard and didn’t give a shit what he wore. T-shirts and khakis were usual his self-mandated uniform.
Until I was fifteen, Mark and Johnny were the only father figures I’d had. Until Mom and Dad reconnected. Over the years, they still kept up, despite all the traveling they did with the medical charities they were involved in. But no matter where they were, we always got time with them. Like now, celebrating Dad’s birthday. They’d fly back with me to Miami for a two week visit.
Mark eyed me close, examining my expressions as his partner started in on questions about wedding planning. “What the hell?” he asked me, standing next to me with his back facing the others, but I waved him off.
“I’ll tell you about in on the plane.”
My godfather nodded, but I could tell the trip that he and Johnny took with me to spend the week at my place would be a long one. Both men were even more meddlesome than my mother.
After dinner, Koa and Tristian shot out of the house with a basketball bouncing between them followed by a few of Koa’s friends from school and one of the other interns Tristian was rooming with downtown. Koa was still a kid and Tristian was pushing twenty-six. My cousin hadn’t let med school or his internship at Tulane keep him from the game he loved, and he always tried like hell to keep up with Koa.
Ridiculous.
Aly sat on Ethan’s lap across from my mother and Makana sitting on the lounge chairs talking about the new competition season when Koa stopped next to them, throwing the basketball back to Tristian as he ran toward the small court on the other side of the pool.
“Hey man, you ball?” Koa asked Ethan. When I met his eyes, my little brother smirked, moving his head a little to the left before he focused on Ethan again. The kid was smooth, I’d give him that. “Mack said she’s seen you and some of your clerks playing on the courts behind your office. You up for a game?” He wanted to divide Ethan’s attention. Koa loved Aly. She’d help bring him up and still took up residence in his heart all these years later.
“Sure, man.” Ethan tapped Aly on the leg getting her to let him up and he looked at me as I sat on the bar next to the grill with a fresh Abita between my legs. “How about you, Ransom? Three on three?”
“He can’t,” Aly answered, seeming surprised that the words had left her mouth. She shrugged when Ethan straightened up to tug off the thin gray pull over he wore. “He can’t play pick-up games unless they’re on the Dolphins facility.”
“What?” Ethan held his shirt in his hand, adjusting the white tee he wore before setting his pull over across the back of the chair he’d just vacated.
“They pay me to tackle, man,” I offered, sipping on my beer. “Can’t jeopardize that.”
My gaze landed on Aly’s face when I saw that blush. That contract stipulation had been one of the few things that had made Aly happy when I first signed with the Dolphins.
Ethan looked at Aly, as though just remembering to get permission to leave her long enough for a pick-up game. “Go ahead, just don’t get all stinky. The other passengers on the plane will kick you out without a parachute.”
Ethan jogged toward the basketball courts my parents had installed when Koa began summer programs on CPU’s campus, looking back only once before he was on that court and the game started.
“Ransom, what was that diner we used to go to in Jackson?” Mom asked, leaning back against the chair she sat in with Cass and the girl he’d brought lounging in the seat across from her. Johnny sat on her left fussing about some message he read while Mark called to him from inside. I moved away from the bar and stood next to Mom, glancing at her face before I spotted the small congregation out on the docks, including my father and Brian. “You know,” she continued, pulling on my sleeve, “the place that served chicken and waffles? The one with all the grease on the floor.”
“Hickman’s,” I offered, shifting my gaze to Cass as he nodded, fawning over my mother like a f*cking groupie. It didn’t sit well with me, or my father, it seemed, that this guy wanted my mother’s attention, all of it, by the way he inched closer toward her, elbows on his knees and a complete disregard for his date.
On the dock, my father had his back to the water and Brian at his side, speaking animatedly with his hands moving and several of the assistant coaches around him. Kona, though, only nodded once or twice, giving the indication that he was paying attention. He wasn’t. That was plain to see with how he kept watching my mother and, with an even closer stare, Cass. Dad met my eyes, face set tight and then he sighed, reaching in his pocket to take hold of his cell.