He jerks his elbow back toward the girl, who raises a hand and waves awkwardly with a murmured “hello.”

“Um . . . ” I can see how nervous this kid is from here. It’s ridiculous. He’s shaking so bad I could knock him over with a cough. “We were just wondering . . . ” He glances back at his sister, who finally rolls her eyes and tilts her body to look past him, toward us.

“We were wondering if we could take the sofa.”

It takes me way longer than it should to figure out what she’s talking about. Then I realize they’re not looking at the house itself, not pointing and laughing and looking down at it like those women had. Instead they’re looking at the sofa that we’d set out on the curb that afternoon.

“Oh,” I say, and glance back at Star. She’s got her free hand clapped over her mouth, so I can’t see her smile, but it’s shining through clear as day in her eyes. I smile and sink my teeth into my bottom lip, trying to stifle it. The last thing I need is for them to think I’m laughing at them, even though I kind of am. I turn back to Maisie and York, and beside me Bruiser wags his tail so hard I’m sure I’m going to have a bruise on my thigh where it’s thumping over and over. “You want it—” I turn slightly to catch Star’s gaze. She nods and I feel the smile spread across my face as I turn back to Maisie and York. “—it’s all yours.”

One sofa down. Only five more to go. Maybe this wasn`t going to be as bad as I thought.

After that, the tension slowly dwindles and then dies, and we stand there talking and laughing together as the sun sinks below the horizon.

“Look, man,” York says, shifting from foot to foot. I’ve only known this kid for maybe an hour all put together, and I can already tell that he never really settles down. He is always in motion. It is making me fucking dizzy. I want to reach out and grab him by the shoulders and tell him to stay fucking put. “I heard about the shit that went down at the diner when you applied. And what happened to your car. I just wanted to say, you know. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” I say, taking a drag of my cigarette and ashing it onto the sidewalk. “Not your fault.”

“Still . . . ” he says, trailing off and bouncing a little bit on the balls of his feet, hands still in his pockets.

“What my brother is trying to say, and failing,” Maisie says, shooting the kid a dirty look before shaking her head and turning back to me, “is that we’re sorry you were treated that way.”

“Not super surprised, though,” York adds, helpfully.

We all turn to look at him, and his eyes widen. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and holds them up in front of him, in defense. “Hey, woah, no. No. Not like that.” He turns to me. “I didn’t mean like you deserved it or anything. Seriously. I just meant that the people at the diner suck, that’s not news. It isn’t shocking that they’d treat you like that. That’s all,” he says, and glares at his sister like way to throw me under the bus, sis.

I chuckle and take another drag, turning away and blowing the smoke out as far away from the pregnant girl as I can, realizing that smoking in front of her probably isn’t cool. I drop the cigarette onto the ground and stub it out with my toe, hoping that no one notices. I feel like an idiot often enough. No need to draw any more attention to it. Besides, they’re kind enough to take one of the gazillion sofas from the house off our hands—apparently they’re renting a trailer on the other side of town and they need furniture. I don’t want to make things any harder for them. They seem okay in my book.

Star rolls her eyes at us, and turns to say something to Maisie, who has her hands folded on top of her round belly, and I’m halfway through turning back to York to give him a little shit, just for kicks, when I get a jolt.

“Wait,” I say, turning around to face Maisie as the idea turns over in my head and clicks neatly into place. “You’re knocked up, right?”

Jesus, the fucking looks all three of them pin me with. Like you think, dumbass? I wave my hand at her belly and roll my eyes. “Okay, not actually the point,” I say. “I’m not stupid. I know you aren’t hauling around a beach ball under there.” Though, to be honest, it’s starting to look like it. The girl’s kind of tiny and her belly is getting huge. She looks like she’s at risk of tipping over at any minute.

“What’s your point then?” York says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Good, I think. Stick up for you sister. God knows I’d do anything to have family do that for me. Pretty sure Star would, too.

I glance back at Star, and give her a little wink before turning back to the siblings.

“How would you like some diapers?”

***

“Thank you for this,” York says again, after we’ve unloaded the last of the stuff we brought over for them, settling it all into the trailer. “Seriously. Thank you.”

“Seriously, kid. Shut up about it. It’s not a big deal,” I tell him and jerk a thumb toward Star just as she disappears into the other bedroom with Maisie to look at some of the baby stuff or some shit. I don’t know. Women. “There was an entire room of this shit at her mom’s place.”

“Look,” he says, dumping the last box into the trailer’s second bedroom and shutting the door. “It may not be a big deal to you, but it is to us. My sister can barely afford this place as it is. They pay shit at the diner. I have no idea how she’s going to be able to afford this baby, even with me helping her out. So, no. Not gonna shut up about it. ’Cause it means a lot.”

I can’t help it, I look around the place. It’s kind of a dump, but then, so is the entire trailer park, so for all I know, this one is considered a palace by comparison. Except for my five years away, I’ve spent my entire life in Avenue, and I’ve never set foot in the trailer park before. Everyone pretty much knows it is a shit-hole and stays away.

My mom would be having kittens if she knew I was here.

I can’t even imagine trying to raise a kid here.

“If you don’t mind me asking, where’s the dad?” I say. “I mean, isn’t he going to pitch in?”

York just sort of boggles his eyes at me, like I’m speaking in fucking Chinese or something. “The dad.” He repeats, like the word doesn’t make sense or something, like he’s trying the words out for the first time, seeing how they feel in his mouth.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m pretty sure your sister didn’t climb on top of herself and get herself pregnant.”

He scoffs, and I can tell I’ve touched a nerve. “The dad,” he says, like he’s trying to wrap his mind around just how to put his anger into words. I know the feeling. Anger management helped with that. A little. Mostly it just stopped me from taking my anger out on the few possessions I’d been allowed to keep in prison. Destruction wasn’t the most helpful of coping mechanisms, I was told. “The dad is a fucking piss-ant bitch,” he snaps, and I can’t help the smile that image brings up. This kid is pretty creative with the insults. “Maisie won’t even tell me who it is, you know that?” His eyes are wide and I can see the hurt that lingers behind them.

“Dude, really?” I say, because I’ve seen the lengths this kid will go to for his sister, and the fact that she won’t even tell him who the daddy is, well that’s gotta hurt. “That sucks, man. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like I’d even care,” he says, throwing his hands out, and wow. This kid has been keeping this bottled up for a long-ass time. He’s pissed. He looks like he’s about to start pacing around the trailer. “But she doesn’t want me to know, which means that either she doesn’t want him to find out she’s pregnant, and she’s afraid I’ll go hit the guy up for child support on her behalf or something. Or—” he scrubs his hands over his face and lets out a sigh. “Or, the guy already knows and doesn’t give a shit, which means he’s the biggest bastard on the planet and she’s afraid I’ll try to kill the guy. Either way, you’re right.”