Page 61 of The Rut in the Road

“No,” Mason answered. “Different genetic parents. Zane is five days older than Grace.”

“Can I…?” She let the question trail off.

Grace punched the side of Mason’s jaw, and he winced again. “Maybe try Zane. Just watch the hooves,” he warned. “They’re sharp.”

Jackson smiled at her. “Just grab him under the armpits,” he said. “Hold him up until he stops kicking.” He held up a hand with a healing cut on the back. “We can’t file them until he’s six months.”

Vi nodded, but she didn’t seem at all nervous as she hoisted Zane out of the carrier. He let out a kind of bleating laugh, kicking his feet a few times before settling down. Vi pulled him close to her chest, and he bopped her in the face with his teething ring, although a lot more gently than Grace would have.

Jackson grinned, shrugging out of the carrier. “He likes you,” he told my sister. “Hi, by the way. Jackson Turner-Manning.”

She smiled back. “Violette Alverno,” she replied.

Jackson’s eyes skipped over to me. “You’re Rayn’s sister?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m helping out.”

Jackson grinned. “Cool,” he said. “You going on gigs and stuff, too?”

Vi looked at me.

“She will be,” Mason answered, stooping to set Grace in one of the two pack-and-play sets they had out in the lobby. The diaper bag swung into the side of it, and he grimaced, shifting his weight to try to keep it on his shoulder while also disentangling Grace’s fist from his braids.

Jackson reached out to help, taking the bag and setting it on the floor. “I keep saying I’ll go,” he said, his voice a little resentful. “But Mason says I’m not old enough.”

“You’re not,” his uncle replied mildly. “The legal age to work in Virginia is fourteen. Last I checked, you’re still twelve.”

Jackson made a face. “I’m as tall as a fourteen-year-old,” he complained.

“That may be true,” Mason replied, sounding amused. “But I’m not really interested in getting arrested for violating child labor laws.”

“Don’t worry,” Vi told him, bouncing from foot to foot, causing Zane to gurgle happily. “Once you start working, you’re going to wish you didn’t have to keep working in order to do stuff like eat.”

I almost pointed out that Violette didn’t have to work a day in her life, most likely, given how much money our parents had left her, but then thought that she might not want other people to know how much money she had. She’d complained before how most of the people she referred to as her ‘so-called friends’ really just wanted her to buy them dinner or take them to movies or ‘lend’ them things they’d never give back. She used her fingers in the air to indicate quotation marks when she’d said ‘lend.’

Jackson snorted. “Yeah, but then I can spend it on what I want, instead of having to ask permission to buy stuff,” he said.

“That’s true,” Vi agreed.

“It generally doesn’t take long before you realize that you can’t eat or wear videogames, though,” Mason told him, winking at me.

“Pizza has all the major food groups,” Jackson replied. “And it’s pretty cheap.”

Mason chuckled softly. “Be sure to let me know how your all-pizza diet goes once you start it,” he told Jackson. “And in the mean time—homework.”

Jackson rolled his eyes, but went over and flopped down on the couch, taking off the backpack he’d had on his back and pulling out a laptop and a pair of headphones.

Vi was murmuring something to Zane, hop-dancing around the room.

“Well, she seems to be settling in just fine,” Mason remarked, watching my sister dancing with his son.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure how this was ‘settling in,’ exactly, but everybody seemed happy, so I wasn’t going to disrupt things by asking questions nobody thought they needed to answer. That was another lesson I’d started to figure out—when people are happy, don’t wreck it by asking questions nobody else seems to think need asking.

“How’s Victor?” Mason asked, his tone casual, although I knew the question was nowhere near as disinterested as he made it sound.

I watched Vi move around the room, cooing at Zane. “The same,” I answered Mason. “He seems to be able to escape his crate whenever he wants, but he also doesn’t seem bothered by it, since he often goes back to it himself.”

“You got him a crate?” he asked.