Troy laughed, gesturing for me to follow him into the kitchen. “Anything to make sure they sleep through the night.”
“Oh, good point.”
He took an icepack from the freezer for himself, then pulled a couple of beers from the fridge, popped the tops, and handed one to me. After we’d clinked the bottles together, we each took a pull before we headed into the living room to sit down.
“Oh, my God,” he groaned as he sank onto the sofa. “I’m getting too old for this.”
I laughed into my beer. “You said it, not me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Shut it.” He put the icepack on his knee and grimaced as he adjusted it. “Give it a couple more years, and you’ll have your share of aches and pains to bitch about.”
“Hey. I have plenty of aches and pains. I’m just not a whiner.”
He tossed a throw pillow at me, and I laughed as I batted it away.
“And for the record,” I said, “you might not be quite as sore if you hadn’t checked me like—”
“Oh, please.” He took a swallow of beer. “You check me like you did in the third period again, I will kick your ass.”
“Pfft. Keep dreaming. And besides, your dumb ass deserved it.”
He started to respond, but right then, the front door opened, and Roseanne called out, “Incoming!”
A second later, the whole house shook with thundering paws just before “the girls”—their three enormous black and white Newfoundlands—exploded into the living room.
I put my beer on a coaster in the middle of the end table, safely away from those huge tails, and leaned forward as all three dogs tried to crawl into my lap. “Hey, guys! Did you miss me? Did—Junie, no, I’m sorry, you are way too big to be a lapdog.”
She whined a little and pawed at me, shoving my knee into her sister’s face.
“What?” Troy said with theatrical hurt. “No love for Daddy?”
Immediately, Lacey climbed over her sister, over me, and right onto Troy’s lap, where she flopped down. He grunted, but patted her belly as we both dodged flailing paws and I tried not to get hit by that enormous tail.
A sharp whistle yanked all three dogs’ focus away from us and onto Roseanne, who had just walked in with three large dog biscuits in her hands. The two dogs by my feet spun around, one of them shoving the coffee table off kilter, and Lacey wriggled out of Troy’s lap with all the grace of a very large fish out of water.
My brother and I both laughed, brushing dog hair off our clothes as the girls sat obediently in a row at Roseanne’s feet. She gave them each a dog biscuit, and they all dropped onto the floor. Instantly the room was filled with the sounds of happy chomping and tails thumping on the carpet.
I picked up my beer again. “I thought you said they’d settle down as they got older.”
“Yeah, but they’re only a year and a half old.” Troy gestured at them with his own beer. “Another year, they’ll probably calm down. A little.”
We both chuckled.
“We just need to buy a place with a bigger yard so they can really run around,” Roseanne said. “That’ll at least wear them out until they grow up a bit.” She paused. “And, hey, Jase. It’s good to see you. How are you doing?”
“Good.” I smiled back. “You?”
“Not bad. Sorry I wasn’t here when you got here.” She nodded at the girls. “Had to go for my nightly drag.”
I laughed. “And people said dogs would be boring.”
“Pfft. Not these girls. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. I’ll leave you boys to it.”
She went back into the kitchen, and Troy and I kept talking in the living room. Or, well, we tried to. Turned out that the nightly drag hadn’t been quite enough to wear out the dogs, and they’d all decided to wrestle over a toy in the middle of the living room.
So, Troy and I went out to the back deck. It was a pleasant evening—on the cooler end, but not cold—and it was much quieter out here.
Quiet enough I couldn’t ignore the way my heart kept thumping, or the way my stomach would lurch every time I looked at my brother. I’d come here to talk to him. Not just shoot the shit, but actually talk, and I didn’t want to let myself chicken out. I needed to do this.