Page 11 of Always You (A Lilac Bay Novel)

“That’s the plan.” I looked down at my nephews, who had been distracted by a particularly cool anthill in the dirt. Beside them, Rebecca's full stroller seemed to overflow with the older boy's bicycle helmets, a diaper bag, a multitude of sippy cups, and a few Ziploc baggies filled with goldfish crackers and fruit snacks. Pretty much everything a mother needed when taking three children under the age of seven out for an evening.

“Can you join us?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

My little sister was shaking her head before the words had even left my mouth. Rebecca would never have time to join the gang for a night out after a game. Not without first planning for a babysitter, at least. And though she complained often about the need for a night out, she rarely ever went the babysitter route. Complaints or not, the truth was, there was nothing my little sister loved more than hanging out with her three children. It was sweet, for sure.

But it also made me a little sad sometimes. It would be nice to see her away from the kids, even just every once in a while. To see her out of mom mode. To get to talk to her about something besides what the kids had done at school that day, or what she thought she might make for dinner.

“No, I need to go home and get dinner on the table," she said, as if on cue, sounding entirely too cheerful about the task at hand. “Jake should be home pretty soon and I’m sure he’ll be hungry.”

Jake was my sister’s husband. They had been married for seven years. In other words, since two weeks after she graduated from high school. Jake was a good guy, a police officer here on Lilac Bay and a member of the volunteer fire department. He loved my sister, loved his children. Tolerated the old-maid-sister and the not-so-easy-to-tolerate mother-in-law with a smile, most of the time. And if I still felt some lingering resentment that he had married her at such a young age, ending her plans to go to college, well, that was my problem.

"We haven't seen you around the house lately," Rebecca said, watching my face closely. “Why don’t you come over for dinner this weekend?”

“Yeah, Auntie!" Mason cried, abandoning his close inspection of the ant colony and looking up at me. “Can you come tonight?”

“Not tonight, buddy," I told him, making a face. “Your mom told me she’s making liver for dinner, and Ihateliver.”

Mason looked up at my sister, his expression nothing short of horrified. “Liver? You're going to make us eat liver? How could you do that to me?”

“Thanks for that,” Rebecca said, shooting me a disapproving look.

“What’s liver?” Jayden asked.

“It's disgusting!” Mason cried, making a face. “It’s so gross, you’ll throw up! Right on the dinner table.”

Aiden giggled, because apparently nothing is funnier to a three-year-old than the topic of vomit.

“You’ve never even had liver,” Rebecca pointed out. “So how would you know? Besides, we’re not having liver for dinner. Your aunt was just teasing you.”

“You're too easy to tease,” I told them. “You better smarten up, buddies, if you want to get the best of me.”

Jayden giggled. “You’re weird, Aunt Riley.”

I leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I take that as a compliment. It’s good to be weird sometimes. Otherwise, wouldn’t life get boring?”

“You didn’t answer me about dinner,” Rebecca said, once I had straightened. “Is this going to be another one of those things that you just act all vague about and then never show up?”

I shifted uncomfortably in my cleats. I supposed I did have a habit of doing that. It was just hard for me, sometimes, to be in her tiny little house for dinner, surrounded by her husband and kids, all of them so young, and not think about all the things she could have been. Which, in turn, made me feel so guilty I could puke—as if I was resenting my nephews, who I adored.

There was also that little matter of the not-so-easy-to-tolerate mother. And how conversation at Rebecca’s eventually found its way to an update on Mom and how she was. Another thing to feel guilty about.

All in all, it was easier to see my family like this, or take the boys out to the park or out on the water. Maybe that made me a shitty aunt—it definitely made me a shitty sister—but it was a hard impulse to fight.

And from the way Rebecca was looking at me right now, I had a feeling that she knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Hey,” Andrew said, appearing at my side. I was so grateful for the distraction that I could have kissed him. “You about ready to head over? The rest of the team has gone.”

I looked around to see the last stragglers making their way across the park towards the street.

“We should get going,” I told Rebecca, ignoring the way her eyes narrowed at me and bending down to hug my nephews. “I’ll see you guys real soon, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Bye, Wiley!”

“Don’t forget about teaching us to catch fly balls,” Mason said. “And how to steal second like you did the last game.”

“Like you could do it anyway,” I teased him. “You’re way too slow.”