Parker stared at me with an apologetic smile on her face. “Sorry.” Even through the closed window, I heard her.
With a shrug, I opened the door and put on my best smile. The one I reserved for Nox, and Nox alone.
“You’re in the way of tacos, my man.” Tugging on his hand gently, I pulled him into step next to me and we walked into the restaurant. “So you better speed it up and you can have some, too. You know…” I leaned down next to him to whisper. “I don’t share my tacos with anyone at all. Not even your Momma. So me sharing my tacos with you is something special.”
“Your tacos are on me today,” Parker said when she joined us. “I’m sorry to spring it on you last minute, but Remy and the guys are going out to Galloway Bay this weekend to help with something to do with roller derby. And after everything that happened, I don’t trust Nox with anyone but you.”
She didn’t say anything else about it because Nox was right there, but I knew what Parker was talking about. Hell, everyone in Birch knew what happened the night Nox got taken and buried alive.
Parker had every right to be psychotic when it came to her son’s care, and I wouldn’t blame her even if she didn’t trust me.
“Hey, Nox.” I pointed him in the direction of my favorite booth at the back of the restaurant. “Go have a seat. I’m sure Vi is gonna bring you over some food as soon as she sees you. I got my taco order on repeat.”
He took off like a bolt of lightning, leaving me standing there with Parker and a tiny bit of privacy.
“How is he?” I missed being at the house with them, but honestly, I liked having my own space and not hearing my big brother having sex. Which actually happened a lot. They were loud after Nox went to bed, and my room happened to be the halfway mark between the two rooms, so I heard it all.
“He’s a lot better than I am,” she admitted with a long look at her son. “But he’s still having nightmares sometimes. I wouldn’t ask you to stay with him, but this trip seems pretty important to Remy. I guess one of his friends needs help. You know how he is about loyalty.”
I was already nodding though. “When a friend asks for help, you give it to them.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Kennedy.” We slowly made our way to the table. “We’re not leaving until tomorrow, but Nox got so excited about spending the weekend with you. If you don’t want to, I can ask Rose.”
“Shut the front door.” I raised an eyebrow while she tried and failed to come up with a response, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air. “I’ve got the next four days off, to use some vacation time before I lose it. It’s honestly not a big deal. Nox is my favorite, too. Of course I’ll keep him.”
“Good,” Nox said loudly from the table. “You didn’t have a choice. Mom said she’d break out the big guns if she needed.”
“Big guns?” I slid into the booth next to him and thought about how many tacos the two of us could possibly go through.
“Yep.” He nodded his head with the air of an old man, and not a six-year-old kid. “She said I could use the crocodile tears if you didn’t say yes.”
“Traitor,” Parker muttered in response as she took her spot across from us.
Almost immediately, Vi appeared with two plates of tacos, proving yet again that she was beyond a badass who saw everything, and ran Lucy’s like a champ.
“Thanks, Vi.” Nox reached over the table to give her a high five. “Can I please have my usual?” There weren’t very many kids who had a ‘usual’ at any restaurant, but that was the benefit of his mother running the place. Plus, he was so cute and caring that everyone just loved him to pieces.
“One Shirley Temple coming right up,” Vi answered him seriously, making sure to write it down before offering him a playful wink. “Anything else?”
“Nope.” He sat back down and snuggled into my side with a smile. “Auntie Kenny’s gonna share her tacos with me.” He completely ignored the fact that Vi had brought him his own plate of tacos to eat.
Parker and Vi both snorted at Nox’s statement. If it were anyone else in the world, I would have stabbed them in the hand for trying to steal my food. But not him. Since the first time I met him, when he cried and held his hands out for me to take him from his mother in the middle of the grocery store at three months old, I was his. Literally, he owned me. Heart and soul. It didn’t hurt that he looked exactly like his father and uncle, either.
He had blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles under his eyes that would drive girls crazy when he became a man. Not only that, but Parker had raised Nox to be a gentleman, even if he was only six.
“Auntie Kenny?” Nox looked up at me with a question in his eyes, and I realized that I’d completely missed part of the conversation.
“What’s up? Sorry, I’m sleepy.” I yawned for dramatic effect. “I didn’t hear the question.”
Nox eyed me suspiciously, wrinkles on his forehead as he gave me a dissatisfied and sarcastic expression. “I asked,” he said dejectedly. “If you still have all the blankets we need for a blanket fort. You’re my favorite auntie, and that means you have to have the blankets, right?”
That little shit even batted his eyes at me. He knew he was my weakness, and if I had to turn my living room upside down and inside out to make a fort for him to keep my top-shelf placement, I would.
“Duh,” I snapped playfully. “What kind of aunt would I be if I didn’t have the blankets?”
“Great.” Nox clapped his hands together as his drink showed up. “Let’s eat. Then we can make a fort and watch a movie.”
Parker left us there with the promise to send videos and pictures, but not before she inhaled an entire plate of tacos. Nox and I made sure to eat our fill, and to ask for a to-go box as well. By the time we made it back to my house, Parker had dropped off Nox’s backpack and a stack of extra sheets on my front porch.
“Mom knows what’s up,” Nox explained when we walked onto the front porch and saw them. “She probably knows you don’t have enough blankets.” He nodded to himself before opening the door and walking in like he owned the place.
We proceeded to tear apart the house completely. The couch was moved. Every one of the dining chairs that my mother gave me when I moved in was dragged to the living room. We even grabbed an entire bin full of clothespins that I’d bought to dry my blankets outside during the summer.
There were sheets and blankets pinned everywhere we looked. My windows were covered, even the TV itself was covered so that we could sit on the floor in front of the couch and still watch the movie he’d picked out.
Long after bedtime had come and gone, Nox was curled into my side with wide eyes.
“You’re the best, Auntie.” He yawned loudly. “Better than Mom and Dad… I mean Remy.”
Nox was too young to understand how hard his words hit me, and the immediate effect they had on my heart. My heart throbbed, not for myself, but for him. The loss he’d suffered before he was even born, and whatever regret he had at calling Remy his father.
“You know.” I coughed to try and clear the emotion from my heart, unable to breathe through it for longer than I wanted. Instead of forcing the words, I wrapped Nox in a hug as tight as I could manage without hurting him. “You know.” I tried again, and still couldn’t get it out.