Page 111 of No Cap

A year ago, Quincy had gone out to buy me a new Tahoe. The old Corolla had gone to Tay, who had done a lot of work to get back into my good graces again.

Tay got out, and he was smiling as he saw Garrett and I exit my house.

“You ready?” Tay asked.

“As I’ll ever be.” I patted my belly, hefted my purse, and then rolled my eyes as Garrett caught my arm and helped me down the porch steps.

“Thanks, G,” I said with a smile.

He winked and headed to his own place, which was just down the road from ours.

I dropped into the car, which took a little more effort than it used to and waited for my brother to be my chauffeur.

He obliged me and took me to the hardware store where my tree was waiting for me.

“There’s no way that’s gonna fit in the car,” he said as he saw how huge the box was.

“The roof,” I suggested. “We have a luggage rack.”

He grimaced just as the man who’d brought the tree out for me interrupted.

“Will you be putting that up yourself?” the worried looking man asked.

I was just about to answer when a grumble from beside me sounded. “No, you sick fuck. It’s going in her living room. Not her ass!”

There was a long, silent pause and then I said, between an explosion of laughter, “Tay, darling. I think he was worried I’d try to put the tree up by myself while being eleven and a third months’ pregnant.”

“You’re not eleven months pregnant,” Tay muttered. “You’re nine months pregnant.”

Why did he always have to take things so literally?

“Yes, Tay. That was a joke. Which obviously went right over your head,” I said to my younger brother. “Are you ready to go?”

Tay shrugged.

Our relationship was… questionable.

Some days I felt like we were making it, others, not so much.

But he didn’t leave.

He stayed around, and he was the only one of my family who didn’t come and ask me for money.

Did he bum dinner off of me sometimes? Yes. But that was a young adult for you.

Humfrid had called last week to say that she’d gotten her fourth speeding ticket, and they’d taken her to jail.

How she’d gotten a speeding ticket on a moped, I didn’t know.

But I didn’t bail her out.

As for my mom and dad? They were at different prisons, serving their twenty-two years a piece.

Mom divorced Dad in the middle of the trials, and Dad didn’t fight it.

Why bother?

They would both likely be too old when they got out to do much more than find a minimum-wage job or live off their government assistance.