Page 62 of No Cap

“There’s no reason to act like you’re this goody two shoes,” Mom agreed. “But none of my boys are. You would think being the children of two cops they’d be good kids. Since they know that we know everyone and everything. The DFW metroplex may have seven and a half million people in it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know every single cop in the area. We caught them doing things before they even knew they could be caught.”

The woman who was now leaning into me looked up at me and smiled. “Is that right?”

“More than right,” Dad said. “I think I caught at least all of them smoking weed a time or two. Right in the middle of our house, even. I think they thought they could get away with it since we weren’t home, but we were always running home to change, or eat, or catch a bit of sleep. And every time I’d catch them doing something stupid.”

“That was just life with teenage boys,” Quinn said as he took his usual seat at the table.

I took mine, and pulled Hollis with me into the seat that Atlas usually took.

Atlas took the seat to her right, then everyone else filed in after that, including the kids.

One of which looked at the salad and curled her lip. “That stuff is too green.”

“That stuff will help you grow,” Ande countered. “Your body can’t live off of Mamasauce’s caramel candies.”

I looked at Addison, knowing damn well she was going to have a comeback, and she didn’t disappoint.

“Sure it can,” Addison said, sounding so much like my sister that it hurt a bit. “You ate a whole bag of those iced oatmeal cookies yesterday that you told me were for my lunch.”

Ande’s daughter was named after our deceased sister, Addison, Ande’s twin.

And she looked and sounded just like her at times, too.

Like right now, giving Ande shit, when she didn’t get her way.

“Salad’s gross all by itself, sure,” Hollis interjected. “But I see you like ranch.”

Did she ever.

She had a bowl full at every meal. Like right now. She was dipping her shredded cheese in a cup full of it, I was sure, courtesy of my mother.

“Everyone loves ranch,” Addison interjected.

“Not everyone,” Hollis mused. “But if you put ranch on it, and cheese, and eggs, and sometimes bacon crumbles, salads are fantastic.”

I had to agree. I didn’t eat salads bare, either. I wouldn’t be touching the salad my mom placed on the table.

Addison looked thoughtful for a long moment, then looked at my mother. “Do you have bacon to go on this salad?”

“Bacon bits!” Dad crowed as he came from the pantry.

I hadn’t even seen him leave.

Some detective I was.

He placed them down on the table, and Addison reached for them.

Then she dumped them straight into her ranch cup, grabbed three leaves of spinach and lettuce, and the cheese she’d been dipping into the ranch, and stirred it up with her finger.

Hollis ducked her head and started giggling.

“It’s a start,” Keene, my brother-in-law, mused. “Thanks.”

Hollis grinned. “No problem.”

Snorting, I reached for the bread, but was stopped when my mother said, “Everyone will have salad. Right?”

There were groans all around the table, mainly from the male members of my family.