Page 27 of Everything You Hate
Piper puts down her book—a romance novel, based on the cover—and wanders over. She’s pretty in an understated way—dark hair loose around her shoulders, freckles, big blue eyes behind her cat-eye glasses.
“Hi,” she says, and there’s a shyness in it that instantly makes me want to stand between her and the world. “Don’t mind us. We’re always like this.”
“Loud?”
“Chaotic.” She considers. “But the good kind. Mostly.”
Wren appears from the dining room, phone still in hand, and gives me a grin with nothing guarded in it at all. Early twenties, with the same lighter coloring as Shea. But she’s wired differently than both of her sisters, antsy like someone who hasn’t figured out how to sit still and isn’t planning to learn.
“Are you the one Dean jumped in the harbor for?”
Heat climbs my neck. “That’s me.”
“He never jumps in the harbor. Ever. Not even for tourists who fall in. Last summer a guy went in off the ferry ramp and Dean threw him a line and made him swim it.” Her grin widens. “He likes you.”
“Uh, no. He hates me.”
“Same thing, with Dean.” She’s gone before I can respond, hollering into the dining room. “Colter! Hazel’s got the napkins again!”
Colter sets another load of potatoes down next to my cutting board and sticks out a hand and gives a smile that could light a runway. “Colter. That’s my chaos gremlin with the napkins. Hazel! Come say hi to Dean’s friend.”
“I’m not his friend.”
A small blur in crooked pigtails materializes from under the kitchen table, purple smudged on one cheek, and stares up at me with enormous blue-gray eyes.
“You’re pretty.”
“Thank you. So are you.”
She tilts her head. “Are you famous?”
The kitchen goes quiet for half a second. Not awkward. Just everyone holding still to hear how I answer a five-year-old.
“I used to be. On TV. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Hazel.” Colter crouches beside her. “Remember? Some questions are for later.”
“But, Daddy, she has sad eyes.” Hazel points directly at my face with the total conviction of someone who hasn’t learned that adults prefer their sadness unremarked upon. “See? Right there. Aunt Piper says people with sad eyes have stories.”
Piper makes a strangled sound and turns red. “I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s okay.” I crouch to Hazel’s level. She smells like grass and grape lollipop. “I do have a story. But it’s a long one, and your dad’s right. Some questions are for later.”
She nods, solemn as a judge. “Okay. But you have to promise to tell me sometime. I’m a good listener. Daddy says so.”
“She is,” Colter confirms. “Better than most adults.”
Hazel tugs my sleeve. “Do you know Great Uncle Dean?”
GreatUncle Dean?
I look toward the doorway, where Dean is standing with Henry. Same height. Same set to the shoulders. Same eyes.
Oh.
Not Haven eyes, after all. Kinsella eyes.
