Marco came down the hall, Brian close behind. From the looks of their disheveled clothing, they’d been playing around. I didn’t want to know. “You staying or leaving?” I asked, hands on my hips.
“Staying.” My brother glanced between Wayne and me. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Behave, hear me?”
I said, “Good night” to the room in general and headed out the door, ignoring the voices that called after me, especially Wayne’s. I’d had enough for one night. Maybe a lifetime.
* * * *
I had a big breakfast with Marco on Christmas morning, our personal family tradition where we exchanged gifts and teased each other, reminiscing about what our parents had done on other Christmases as we had pancakes, bacon, sausage, and hash browns. I left him to clean up since I had to be at work by n
