Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(47)
The grin stuck on his face and I got that he had more to say, many more jokes at my expense that he wanted to toss my way, but another headache was starting at the base of my skull and my ankle throbbed and ached without the wrap on it. “Are you done yet?” I asked, nudging him with my good foot.
“Deflection. Man, you’re never gonna change.”
“Has the swelling gone down?”
That made him refocus, moving my foot to the left, easing his thumbs against the tendons in the back along the ankle. “Down enough. We can try walking on it in a couple of days.”
It didn’t matter really. I was stuck in New Orleans, away from my team indefinitely. It had been a week and the doctors had insisted. Rest. Heal up and come back in a few weeks when my thick head and my busted ankle were better.
IR until then. Fuck me.
“Whatever, man.” I sounded useless, pointless. I sounded, as my father had reminded me this morning when Koa and Mack kept screaming at each other during a game of Mortal Combat, like a whiny old man wanting a couple of rowdy kids off his lawn.
“You know,” Tristian started, looking down at my foot and busying himself with the wrap, moving it over and over my ankle. “This attitude…”
“Tristian, don’t start. I hear enough of it from my dad.”
My cousin paused, sliding the Velcro clasp closed. “He giving you shit?”
“Isn’t that what they all do?”
“Dude, I have no idea.” Tristian’s grin widened and I had to fight the mild urge to smack him around a little. “Remember I was the overachiever. Did absolutely nothing to piss my folks off.”
“What the hell ever. Please. I could give them a list.” Tristian hadn’t been a good kid whatsoever. He was just oddly efficient at covering his tracks. There were many times we’d gotten into shit so thick I was convinced we’d be stuck in it until we were old men. But Tristian, slick bastard that he was, always found a way to wiggle out of the messes we made.
“Nah, they’d never believe you.” He looked up at me, smirking, an expression he generally reserved for women he was trying to do very filthy things with. “This face, dude, please, like a damn angel.”
The house had been mostly quiet the whole time Tristian wrapped and iced my ankle. We hadn’t moved from the sofa as Dad and Mom corralled Koa and Mack into doing their chores so it was a little bit of s shock when Makana thundered through the room at the sound of the doorbell chiming.
“I got it!” she screamed, elbowing Koa out of the way when he tried to beat her to the door. “I said I got it.”
“Whatever, lolo. Damn,” Koa muttered, quickly disappearing onto the patio when I shot a glare his way.
My mother joined Mack in the foyer, holding the door open a bit wider and I felt the blood draining from my face as she ushered Aly inside. “Shit.” The word was spoken low enough that only Tristian heard it over my mom and Aly’s friendly conversation and Mack’s insistence that Aly help her with some new bracelets she wanted to make.
“Please,” my cousin started, sitting on the edge of the sofa glancing between me and Aly’s profile as she talked to my little sister. “Like you aren’t happy she’s here.”
“I don’t need anyone’s pity.”
Tristian whipped his gaze to me, head shaking. “Maybe not, but you’re a f*cking liar if you say you don’t need everything else from her.”
“Why don’t you stay out of my business and go call Kiki?”
He deflected a pillow when I flung it at him and slapped my leg, just above my ankle, making me straightened up, ready to throttle him before he cleared up his bag and slipped out of my reach.
“Hey beautiful,” he greeted Aly, lifting her by the waist when she reached in for a hug. “When are we gonna run away together?” She glanced at me long enough for Tristian to take advantage of the distraction to kiss her neck, earning a quick slap to the shoulder. “Come on, Aly Cat. You’re the daughter my mom never had and she likes you more than me. Besides, when I land a position at Tulane or some other hospital that can’t be without me, I’ll be totally loaded. Forget the lawyer or, a,” he nodded toward me, “other less than worthy mortals and let’s go make babies.”
“In your dreams, Bankston.” Aly patted his face, slipping from his hug before my mother returned to the kitchen with Tristian following after her.
“Keira, I have mended your pathetic son’s little booboo. Feed me, woman.” Mom threw a cold, insulted scowl over her shoulder at Tristian and he quickly retreated, hands held up. “I mean…beautiful cousin, what’s in the fridge?”
Aly moved around the living room, half distracted by Tristian and all the blabbering he did with my mother. My eyes wouldn’t leave her. The way she moved was like music—slow, subtle and before you knew it, the crescendo of her hips would sway into something that stuck in your head for days. Today she wore fitted jeans with black knee high boots and a maroon cardigan. I always loved that warm color on her. It reminded me of fall and the way Aly’s eyes matched the color of the oak leaves as they faded.
She leaned against the sofa opposite me, as though she wanted to test me, see if the tiger would pounce if she got too close. “You feeling okay?”
But I didn’t want to talk about how I felt. I knew why she’d come. There was something she wanted to say. That much I could still recognize in her pinched lips. It wasn’t Aly’s style to level a “I told you so” at me, but that didn’t mean she’d keep her opinion to herself. She was here to find out what I planned. She wanted to know if I was too stupid to see reason.