Page 9 of Shine For Me

I hold Harrison out. “You want to try?”

“No,” she squeaks, the weird expression shifting to something akin to panic. “I’d break him!”

Rose laughs. “Babies are actually pretty resilient. Dad dropped River a bunch of times when he was a baby, and he’s almost completely normal.”

River reaches over to pull our sister’s braid, which leads to her slapping his hand, which leads to him digging an elbow into her side. I grin down at Harrison. “We need to get you some more siblings and cousins pronto. There aren’t nearly enough baby Ransomes to make your life miserable yet.”

June starts coughing next to me and I look over again. “You okay?”

“Just fine,” she squeaks out, her face red, eyes darting around, looking anywhere but at me. I shoot Rose a confused look. My older sister has a master’s degree in social work with a background in psychology and she understands people better than anyone else I know. But if she has some idea of why June is being so weird, she’s not sharing it with me. Instead she locks eyes with River, both of them looking strangely amused for some reason.

“Should we go find some slightly more normal people to hang out with?” I ask Harrison. He pulls my hair.

“Watch out, kid,” River chides his son, grinning. “Uncle Fox pays a lot of money to have that hair tousled so perfectly.”

I cover the baby’s ears. “Fuck you, Riv.” Then I smile down at my nephew. “You coming with me, or you staying here with your loser dad?”

“Give me my baby,” River says, holding out his arms. I hand the kid over and turn back to June. “Let’s go get a drink and see if we can find my parents.”

She looks more like herself as she waves at my siblings. We’re stopped a few feet away by my Aunt Paige, who goes on and about how pretty June’s hair, dress, shoes, jewelry, and make-up are, and how nice she looked in the pictures of us from last night, which of course she already saw because she was trolling the gossip sites first thing this morning. Eventually I nudge my way between the two of them. “I assured her the teenage girls weren’t going to bother her today, but apparently you were the one I should have been worried about.”

Paige rolls her eyes but June cuts in before she can respond. “He’s just jealous because you didn’t tell him how prettyhelooked last night.”

Paige laughs as she pats my cheeks. “You looked lovely, too, Fox. I like that haircut.”

“Can we go find something to drink yet?” I ask. “What kind of hostess are you, anyhow?”

My aunt gives me a wicked grin that I know means trouble. “Careful, kid, or I’ll tell all your Hollywood friends about the time when you were four and you ate a half-dozen crayons then technicolor vomited all over yourself.”

I groan, grabbing June by the elbow as she cracks up. “Always nice to see you, Aunt Paige.”

“Love you, honey. Have a good time, June!” she calls after us. June is still laughing when we approach the bar.

“Man, they went all out,” I say, looking at the liquor selection. “Family parties usually mean cans of beer in a cooler.”

“It’s a pretty big deal, their youngest kids graduating,” June says. “I bet your dad and uncles wanted to make a fuss.’

The bartender arrives and I order a beer. June asks for a sparkling water, and I make a face at her as he walks away to get our drinks. “We’re filming in five days,” she says.

“You can’t have a beer five days before the shoot?”

“I drank champagne last night and now my face is all puffy.”

I roll my eyes. “You look freaking gorgeous, June. The same way you always do.”

She ducks her head, but not before I see her cheeks pink up. Huh. You’d think someone like her would be used to hearing compliments like that.

But she still takes her sparkling water when the bartender hands it to her. I decide it will be my personal goal to get her to drink something fun before the day is out.

“My dad and uncles are definitely not the ones to make a fuss,” I explain, going back to our earlier conversation. “This was all the moms.”

“I thought your dad was like, really involved with you guys?”

“Oh, he is.” I nudge her shoulder to turn her toward a corner of the patio where my dad and his three brothers are sitting. Every one of them has a glass of whiskey in their hands, and every one of them is staring morosely at the ground, totally incongruous to the festive atmosphere around them.

“What’s wrong with them?” June asks in a whisper, like she’s afraid someone might be deathly ill or something.

I laugh. “That, my friend, is man-baby depression.” I gesture around us with my beer bottle. “This is their worst nightmare. Their youngest kids are graduating. Going to college. Moving out. Most of them are legal adults.”