So engrossed in this, when my hand was taken in a firm grip, my body gave a slight jump and I turned to see Aunt Wilona, her eyes aimed out the window.
“It’s all but over,” she said to the window.
“I figure it is,” I agreed.
She looked at me.
I smiled at her.
Her eyes dropped to my lips then came back to mine and she smiled back.
“Cookie, get away from the f**kin’ window!” Ham ordered loudly even though he was only five feet away.
I rolled my eyes at my aunt, gave her hand a squeeze, then moved from the window.
Lifting my hand to my forehead in a salute directed Ham’s way, I yelled, “As you wish, mein herr!”
Ham shook his head.
I turned to my aunt, looked at her cheek, and whispered, “Let’s go to the kitchen and get you some ice.”
She nodded. We did that. I left her with Wanda in the kitchen, found Zander with Mindy and Becca in the guest bedroom, and I relieved my girlfriends.
Once they left, I gave him a good onceover. I didn’t know him all that well but I could still tell he was freaked mostly because you couldn’t miss it.
I sat next to him on the bed and took his hand. “It’s all cool, darlin’.”
“Uncle Reece was real mad,” he replied.
He was not wrong about that.
“Yep, he likes me a whole bunch and doesn’t like it when someone hurts me, but he’s okay now,” I assured him.
“Is Nona okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’ve got a good friend takin’ care of her.”
Zander’s eyes moved over my face, possibly in an attempt to make sure I was telling the truth.
I figured he believed me but still, he asked, “Can I go to her?”
He was a good kid and he loved his Nona. Which meant she’d earned that love.
Without delay, I got off the bed, pulling him up with me. “Let’s go.”
I took Zander to Aunt Wilona. They huddled. I hung with them, taking their pulse, and when it seemed Aunt Wilona had it covered, I wandered out of the kitchen and found Ham.
I moved right to him and fitted myself to his side.
When I did, one of his arms went around my shoulders and he lifted his other hand, shifting my hair away. His fingertips gliding over the shell of my ear, and they slid down my neck and across my throat.
“All good?” he murmured.
“Better than ever,” I replied and when he looked like he didn’t believe me, I leaned into him whispered, “I think you may have noticed this already, but some of us Cinders, we’re survivors.”
He held my eyes and lifted his hand to cup my jaw as he bent his head to mine.
“Don’t know about the others, but I know that’s true about you.”
My arms already around him tightened.
“Love my cookie,” he said softly and I felt a smile curve my lips.
“And I love my bruiser,” I replied and watched a smile curve his.
Then he dipped his head farther to touch his lips to mine, and when he was still doing that, we heard Arlene shout, “Got the champagne!”
Ham broke our contact and we turned our heads to see Arlene and Kami at the door and each held a bottle of champagne in both their hands. Arlene’s eyes were on Ham.
“Big bear of a hot guy, there’s a case in my car. I reckon you won’t have problems liftin’ it. So get your hind end out there and do that,” she ordered.
I laughed as I heard Ham’s chuckle. Then I got two squeezes and my man let me go in order to move to the front door.
I watched him go.
Then I looked through my house at my friends, Xenia’s friends, knowing my nephew was in the kitchen with my aunt, and listening to muted music, unmuted chatter, then finally hearing a champagne cork pop.
My eyes slid to one of the framed photos of my sister on my bar.
“Wish you were here, darlin’,” I whispered across the room to the photo.
As ever, I got no reply.
Then I moved that way in order to find cups.
Epilogue
Everything
Three months later…
“But I’m not crazy!”
I shouted this and Zander, lying beside me in the dark on a blanket over the snow on Xenia’s grave, jumped a mile and gave out a strangled scream.
I’d just told him one of Xenia’s doozies, a scary story that was the best of all her scary stories, with the kill line being the one I’d just delivered.
I knew it was a weird, me and my nephew out at night in the cold dark lying on my sister’s grave.
I also didn’t care.
I wanted her with us and this was as good as we were both going to get.
Anyway, Zander thought it was awesome. I’d heard him with his friends when he didn’t think I could hear and he told them I was the coolest aunt ever, primarily because I was crazy and part of this craziness was me taking him to his mom’s grave at night, this being something all his friends thought was totally weird and therefore awesome.
Since Xenia’s memorial, Ham and I saw Zander and Aunt Wilona frequently. We went to their place for dinner, they came to ours, and Zander came often, Aunt Wilona dropping him or Ham and I picking him up so he could hang, watch movies, go out to movies with us, or whatever.
And we’d had Zander and his friends over for two sleepovers and, as I mentioned, his friends thought I was awesome because I was crazy. But they thought Ham was awesome because he was big and scary, had a bike, worked at a bar, and exuded such badass awesomeness that any nine year-old-boy would appreciate it.
Zander and I were both on our backs and when he screamed, I turned to my side and got up on my forearm.
“I got ya,” I stated the obvious, smiling at him through the dark.
“Yeah,” he replied, pushing up to both his forearms in the blanket behind him and I could see his smile lit by moonlight. “That was a good one.”
“I always get ya,” I reminded him.
“One of these times, you won’t get me,” he returned.
I knew he was right. I’d run out of stories or he’d grow up and not be so easy to scare.
But we had this now. What Xenia gave to me, telling me these stories, I gave to her son because she couldn’t. And I thanked God every Sunday at church, dragging myself and Ham there even if we worked the shift the night before, in order to do it.
“Tomorrow’s gonna be killer,” Zander stated and I focused back on him.
He was right. Tomorrow was going to be killer.
Because tomorrow, in a small ceremony officiated in the church by Pastor Williams, followed by a party in a function room at The Rooster, I was marrying Ham.