I frown at her, but she’s already moved on to helping Lilly with her plate. I roll my shoulders back and grab a plate of my own. I’ll go through the motions this morning and cut out of here as soon as I can.
I shouldn’t have stayed away this week. Giving Ava space was a mistake. She’s a thinker, and she probably thought herself into knots worrying about what we did last weekend.
“Uncle Jake, I got a part in Charlotte’s Web!” Lilly says, bouncing on her toes in front of me.
“I heard that!” Shay says. “Congratulations, Lill! Or should I say Fern?”
“That’s awesome!” I smile at my niece, and it’s probably my first sincere smile of the day. “Great work.”
“I told Ava she didn’t need to give her any special treatment,” Ethan says softly at my side.
I shake my head. “She wouldn’t need to. Lilly is made for the stage.”
“Mom, let me get that,” Carter says, lunging forward and grabbing Mom’s plate.
Mom sighs heavily but lets him take it. “Just when I was starting to feel like I could do things for myself again, I had to go and break my ankle.”
“Pretty clever way to keep your kids waiting on you,” Brayden says, winking at her.
Some of my tension fizzles away as we all head into the dining room and take our seats. Family. This is what matters.
But on the heels of that thought is the thought that Ava should be here. She’s already part of this family—has been for twenty years—but she got out of the habit of coming to Sunday brunch when she was with Harrison. I should have pulled her back in the second he walked out her door.
“Carter had a big date last night,” Levi says.
Mom beams. “A date!” Mom says, and you can practically see visions of future grandbabies dancing in her head.
I’m not the only one who thought we’d all so easily find what she and Dad had. Sometimes I wonder if she worries she did something wrong. Here we are, all of her six children grown, and only one of us is in a serious relationship.
“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” I say to Carter.
Carter shoots Levi some serious stink-eye, and Levi chuckles.
“Carter’s doing the Straight Up Casual thing,” Levi says.
Mom tsks. “I don’t want to hear about you boys having casual sex.”
“That’s not what that means, Mom,” Carter says, cutting his gaze to me for a beat before returning it to Mom. “It’s a company that sets people up based on their profiles, and then sends them on blind dates together.”
He leaves out the part about the liquor, but I figure Mom doesn’t need to know about that anyway, so I don’t chime in.
“You do these blind dates a lot?” Mom asks.
“Last night was my first time,” Carter says, clearly reluctant to share details.
“Was the girl nice at least?” Mom asks.
Levi cracks up, as if he can’t hold in his laughter anymore. “It was Ava,” he blurts.
“Excuse me?” Mom says.
“Ava and Carter were matched up last night,” Levi says. He turns to me. “So I guess you give her the baby and Carter gives her the dates? Is that how this works?”
All the eyes at the table go to me. Except Carter’s. That fucking chicken-shit coward keeps his gaze on his plate.
What the fuck was Carter doing with Ava until two a.m.?
“Rumor has it they had a really nice time,” Levi says, stretching out the words. “Laughing together at Howell’s until last call. Really cozy in their booth.”