Falling

47

Vinny Taylor

I woke to the strange feeling of someone watching me.

I turned over into my back and rubbed my eyes before turning to face to little kids staring at me from the side of the bed. A startled noise escaped from my throat and I jumped back at the sight of them.

"You're our cousin that lives with Uncle Jeff?" the girl, Bailey, asked.

"Uh..." I glanced over at the clock. It was after nine. I never slept in this late.

"What are you doing here?" the boy, Oliver, asked before I had a chance to say anything.

"We've never met Uncle Jeff," Bailey continued. "Dad says he lives far away."

"Um. Kind of," I replied.

I didn't want to be the one to explain to them their father had been lying to them their entire lives. That one was on Robbie.

"Bailey and Oliver, I told you two to let Vinny sleep!" Kristie said, coming in through the open bedroom door.

I cleared my throat, sitting up in the bed.

"It's fine, Kristie," I told her, the two kids still staring at me. "I, uh, I usually get up earlier than this."

"You must be like Rob, getting up at the crack of dawn every day," she said, gesturing toward the kids to leave the room.

"It's a family thing."

"Kids, go downstairs. Dad is cooking you breakfast," she demanded. "You can see Vinny when he's ready to get up."

The kids reluctantly listened to their mother and left the room, not without turning around to stare at me from the doorway.

"I'm sorry, Vinny," Kristie said in a soft tone. "I told them to let you sleep, but they were so curious about you."

"It's fine," I told her again. "Do you have an extra toothbrush I could borrow?"

She nodded. "The bathroom is across the hall. I'll leave it out for you on the sink."

I thanked her and she left the room, closing the door behind her. Once she was gone, I got up from the bed and pulled on my clothes from the night before. I sighed as I pulled Carson's shirt on over my body and shrugged on his jacket before going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth.

The smell of pancakes filled the entirety of the downstairs of the house as I made my way there. When I walked into the kitchen, Bailey and Oliver were sitting beside each other, facing the kitchen doorway. Robbie stood at the stove, a pile of pancakes on a plate beside him on the counter. When I entered the room, he turned to look at me.

"Sleep okay?" he asked.

I nodded, sitting down across from Oliver, the same seat I was in last night.

"I slept fine," I said. I had slept better in Robbie's guest room than I could in my own bed. "You got coffee?"

Robbie gestured toward the pot on the counter near the sink before reaching into the cabinet above him and taking out a mug. He handed it to me as I walked by and I poured myself a cup of coffee.