Page 19 of Hot Chicken (Sunday Brothers #6)
CHAPTER NINE
MARCO
“Okay, how about this one?” The kitchen chair creaked as I lifted a T-shirt out of the purple storage tote on the floor and held it up for Drew’s inspection. “Keep, Toss, or Donate?”
Late-morning sunlight streamed through the kitchen window of the Sunday farmhouse—now Luke and Webb’s place—spotlighting all the dust motes Drew and I had stirred up and making the room incredibly hot… at least by most folks’ standards.
Drew, who sat cross-legged on the floor in his gauzy “new” caftan printed with pictures of the Golden Girls—one he’d picked up for “a song” at last weekend’s charity rummage sale since it “was just like one he had at home”—seemed not to feel the heat.
He tipped down his red-framed reading glasses and pursed his lips in thought, like whole civilizations might rise or fall based on his choice.
I stifled a sigh. Sorting through decades of assorted clutter was not my favorite way to spend a sunny summer day.
Not when I could be gardening, or up at the lake with Aiden and Luke, or visiting my granddaughter, or even in bed at home with the air conditioner jacked down so low I’d need to pull out the duvet. But this task was important .
When Drew had finally moved in with me two years ago, he’d left a few things behind in the farmhouse basement so he could take his time sorting through them. I think we’d both underestimated just how long we’d put off the project, though, and how long it would take once we finally got started.
Lord knew I’d underestimated what “a few things” meant.
Still, I was determined not to get impatient. Not today. I’d learned my lesson the last time I’d lost my patience and had made a careless mistake as a result. A mistake that was very obviously coming back to bite me in the ass.
If I’d learned one thing in the seventeen years Drew Sunday had been my partner, my lover, and my best friend, it was that there were consequences when the man felt rushed or bossed around.
“Hmmm.” Drew leaned toward me and ran a hand over the front of the T-shirt, fingering a spot that was nearly worn through and another where mutant-green speckles dotted the hem. I knew for a fact this shirt was two sizes smaller than anything Drew currently wore. He smiled. “Keep.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and blew out a breath. “Drew. Baby. We’ve been at this an hour already, and we have twenty more storage totes to go through.” I pointed at the multicolored containers stacked along the kitchen wall. “You can’t keep everything, honey. That’s not what downsizing means .”
“But Marco, that’s the shirt I wore when I helped Emma dye her hair green to protest climate change back when she was thirteen, remember? I was so proud my girl was such a justice fighter. I can’t just throw it away.”
“But—”
“Can’t.” He lifted his chin in challenge.
“Can. Not.” He grabbed the shirt from my hand and deposited it in the Keep box, alongside a mix tape labeled “LILITH FAIR ROAD TRIP TUNES 1995!”, a construction paper snowman with googly eyes, a cucumber-shaped sugar bowl emblazoned with the words “I GOT PICKLED IN WINSOME,” and a rusted aluminum pan.
“This is the twentieth item in a row you’re keeping,” I pointed out. “Compared to…” I glanced into the Donate and Toss bins and pretended to count on my fingers. “Zero items you’ve gotten rid of.”
“And what would you have me do?” Drew demanded, all dramatic outrage.
“Toss the snowman Porter decorated with a pound of glitter because he knew his Uncle Drew would love it? Toss the sugar bowl you and I bought at that adorable little store in Winsome while we were on our first date? Toss the only pan big enough to hold the cheesy broccoli casserole I make our family every Thanksgiving?” He sniffed. “You love that casserole, Marco.”
Drew’s green eyes—eyes that were the last thing I’d seen before falling asleep, five thousand nights running—glittered fiercely, his face flushed pink beneath hair that was a good bit thinner than it used to be, and when he folded his arms over his chest, the caftan pulled against his belly.
He remained the most beautiful man, inside and out, that I’d ever laid eyes on.
I nudged aside the box at my feet and leaned forward to tug on Drew’s hands. After a brief show of reluctance, he unclenched his arms and let me twine our fingers together.
“Drew, we said we wanted to spend the next couple of years traveling,” I reminded him gently. “To do that, we need to sell off my house and buy a smaller place and a travel trailer. That’s still what you want, right?”
His posture relaxed. “Yes.”
I nodded. “And you don’t want to keep your things in the basement here anymore? Because Webb said?—”
“No.” Drew shook his head. “He and Luke deserve to have their space.”
I nodded again, unsurprised. We’d gone over this repeatedly in the past few weeks. “Then I don’t see a way to accomplish those things without giving up some of this ju—” I winced. “Some of these items .”
The narrow look my lover sent me suggested that he’d heard the word I hadn’t said. “I know you don’t understand this, but my stuff isn’t junk , Marco. These are memories. My precious memories. My whole life, in boxes and bins. They’re who I am .”
I opened my mouth, probably to put my foot in it, but I was saved by the click of the front door opening, followed by the sound of two men cackling as though they were trying to be quiet and failing.
“Shhhh,” Porter’s voice said, though he was laughing so hard it came out in staccato bursts. “I thought I was bad at subterfuge, but you’re way worse, Professor.”
Drew’s gaze met mine, and I rolled my eyes. Drew grinned.
“Hey! Unlike some, I never aspired to a life of crime,” Theo complained. “Now, hurry up and put the cock back in the kitchen before your brother and Luke get home and realize you stole it.”
“ Borrowed it,” Porter corrected. “And now we’re returning it.”
“ We ? Oh, no. I’m here as your lookout, that’s all.”
“But baby, we’re a team?—”
“Not if you’re going down for Grand Theft Poultry, Sunday. This pretty face wasn’t meant for prison.”
Porter snorted. “But if I get locked up, you’ll wait for me, right, bab— oh. ” Porter appeared in the kitchen doorway, spotted Drew and me, and stopped dead.
Theo, a pace behind, bumped into him. “ I’m bad at subterfuge? You can’t just—? Oh .” Theo looked from me to Drew to something tucked under Porter’s arm. “Drew! Marco! Nice day, isn’t it?”
“Theo,” I said mildly. “Porter.”
Drew remained silent, folded his arms over his chest, and looked at Porter, just as he had when Porter was a mischievous child.
“Gosh!” Porter smiled winningly. “ Wow . This is… this is so great, seeing you both again. So soon. Here in Webb’s house. Where we didn’t expect to find you. We, ah…” He looked at Theo helplessly.
“We were on our way to the pond to meet Webb and Luke and Aiden,” Theo volunteered gamely. He gestured at his swim trunks and flip-flops. “But we stopped here to, um…” He nudged Porter’s hip.
“To drop something off,” Porter blurted. He set the thing he’d been carrying on the sideboard. “Anyway?—”
“Porter Sunday,” Drew began.
If I knew Drew—and I did—he’d been intending to tease Porter a little longer, just to see him squirm. But when Porter backed up a pace and Drew saw what he’d been carrying, his jaw and his eyes widened.
So did mine, for an entirely different reason. Fuck .
“It’s a rooster cookie jar,” Porter said unnecessarily. “Hawk bought it.”
“Well, I’ll be darned.” Drew’s eyes lit with delight. “I have one just like that. Somewhere.” He gestured vaguely at the stacked-up storage totes.
“Similar, maybe,” I agreed, a bead of sweat running down the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the warmth in the kitchen. “Sort of. Not really.”
“No, it is,” Drew insisted. With a hand from Porter, he hauled himself to his feet and went to inspect the rooster. “The resemblance is uncanny!”
“Well, lots of people have things that look alike,” I said. “They just buy them at the same places.”
Drew turned with the rooster in his hands and gave me a look of rebuke.
“Not possible with my rooster. It’s one of a kind!
I got it at an artists’ fair over in Burlington,” he explained to Porter and Theo.
“It was a summer day as hot as this one, and I was strolling up the aisles looking for some hand-dyed fabric to make harem pants—you remember my harem pants era?”
Porter smiled. “I think everyone in the Hollow remembers that era.”
“It hadn’t even occurred to me to look at ceramics that day, but suddenly, there was this beauty just gleaming in the sunlight, like the Universe was saying This!
This is what you didn’t know you needed, Drew .
So of course, I rushed over to the table…
but by the time I got there, someone else was reaching for it. ”
Theo chuckled. “Ooof. Did you two have words?”
“You better believe it. I told the guy I’d wrestle him for it, and I meant it.” Drew clutched the rooster to his chest with one hand and flicked the skirt of his caftan sassily with the other. “I won.”
“Hell yeah.” Porter held up his hand for a high-five. “You scared him off, and you got the cock.”
Drew’s mouth twisted up in a tip-tilted smile as he slapped Porter’s hand. “I certainly did.”
I rolled my eyes.
“And on that note,” Theo said dryly, “Porter, the pond?”
“Lead on. We’ll see you guys later.” Porter grabbed Theo’s wrist and stepped in front of him. “On second thought, let me lead. Kinda liked it when you ran into me on the way in.”
There was the brief sound of a scuffle, followed by Porter’s yelp and Theo’s laughter, and then the door closed behind them.