“Of course. Until it all grows too big, why not,” she replied cheerily.
“You’re saying that like it’s a done deal.”
“Oh Uncle Del, there are people waiting for you to resurface, both from your restaurant and your cable days. It’s not like you’ve been completely forgotten.”
He would’ve loved to believe her, but sometimes it wasn’t that easy.
“If you say so,” he murmured.
“I’ll talk with a friend who does YouTube on the side. See what he says about editing and stuff. Cameras too. I’ll email you when I have something concrete.”
“Sound good,” Del said, just as Harper came into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. “Hey, Harper, have a good nap?”
She nodded and yawned, then froze as she saw the phone.
“Do you want to say hi to my niece, Abigail?” Del smiled at Harper gently.
“Uh, okay.” Harper edged to Del’s side of the table and peered over his shoulder curiously but so very cautiously.
“Hi, Harper!” Abigail waved at her.
“Hi.”
“I like your hair. I’m glad my friend could help out.”
“Yeah, it was nice. Thank you. Del’s gotten much better at fixing it.” She smiled a little bit.
“Good!”
“Oh, and thank you for the clothes,” Harper said suddenly, surprising the hell out of Del
“I’m happy you liked them! I’d rather they go to someone in the family and not a stranger. Did you get the orange jumper?”
“Here, you sit down and talk to Abigail, I’ll go get your sister,” Del said when Scarlett let out a tentative little babble from the living room.
The girls started to talk about clothes, and Harper looked so happy and relaxed it squeezed Del’s heart. When he picked Scarlett up, he realized that Abigail had said Harper was family. The sudden feeling of being all choked up came over him in a flash.
Scarlett snuggled against him, sighing happily, and Del had to lean to the nearby wall to stay upright.
They were family. These kids and Justin, they were his family, and calling them that felt so fucking right it almost hurt.
* * * *
Del made dinner with the kids. He’d started to give little tasks for Harper and Wyatt, and they seemed to enjoy them a lot.
Harper was rinsing the salad while Wyatt shucked some peas with Del. It was taking a lot of time, but they weren’t in a rush, and Wyatt was having the time of his life, giggling whenever the peas went bouncing.
Scarlett sat in her high chair nearby, dancing wildly to some Rihanna—Harper’s choice, which Del approved of wholeheartedly. Despite his tendency to listen to emo bands, he could appreciate some well-produced pop music, and Rihanna was pretty high up there.
“Del?” Harper asked as she put another leaf on the rinsed pile.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I don’t want to go to our house anymore,” she said almost quietly enough for him to miss it.
“Oh…”
“If you and Justin are boyfriends and you have a nice house, shouldn’t we like, live here?”
She had a valid point. It wasn’t like Del hadn’t thought of it.
“There’s not ‘should’ in relationships, Harper, but I’ll talk to Justin, okay? It’s not as simple as moving you guys in and then you live here.”
“Why?”
“Well, there’s all kinds of adult stuff that needs to be figured out,” he hedged, unable to come up with a good enough explanation while put on the spot like this.
“Oh, like Emily stuff?”
No, Del was pretty damn sure Emily would be the first one with a box in her hands.
“Maybe, that’s what we have to figure out.”
Wyatt managed to send a pea flying across the table, and it bounced off the wood in front of Scarlett’s chair. She burst into giggles, and so did Wyatt, and by the time Justin stepped inside the house only moments later, the house was filled with laughter.
* * * *
On Saturday night, after another long shift at work, Justin seemed more tired than in a while.
He put the kids to bed, and then came downstairs to cuddle with Del on the couch.
Del ran his fingers through Justin’s short hair. “Tired, baby?”
“Yeah. We had to move some stock around and all the while there were customers needing help with the heavy lifting and…Ugh.” Justin practically burrowed under Del’s arm and hummed happily at the petting.
“Seems like Harper wants you guys to move in,” Del said after a few moments of blessed silence.
Justin tensed. “She does?”
“Yeah. I told you we had to talk about it and take care of adult stuff that’s complicated. So, there’s no rush to decide anything,” Del said, hoping to hell that Justin would relax again.