Titus reclined in the armchair, watching with tired eyes as Callie opened up another present with a wide grin on her young face. They had started opening presents roughly twenty minutes ago, reading what was written on the cards, taking pictures of everything, and eating strawberry shortcake until their stomachs had burst.
He leaned over to help Callie read what was inside of the glittery card, wincing at the pain that shot up his spine and now shoulders. Chest and neck still slightly slightly damp from having showered off after working and the baseball game – which he, Taivon, Trace, and Anna had lost – Titus felt out of it as shifted around in the recliner and forced his eyes to stay open.
Like how he had been doing for the better half of the day, Titus mentally cursed at the thing he hadn't been getting nearly enough of. Sleep had evaded him last night, mainly due to a certain redhead who was handing the six-year-old a large, pink-wrapped present that Anna had bought only today after sleeping in until eight in his bed – the very same bed in which he hadn't been able to hold her how he had wanted to because she hadn't fallen asleep.
He could still remember as his unjustified frustration grew with every very wide awake breath Anna had taken last night, especially when that breath made the air smell of mint whenever she came back from the bathroom. Last night had not been a good night – one of the worst he had seen so far. Every hour or two had graced Anna with an upset stomach that threw everything back up.
It had been about four o'clock when her stomach had finally subsided, and he had gotten to sleep. There was only one problem. An hour's worth of sleep wasn't nearly enough for Titus to function throughout the day. From beginning to end of the time he had been finishing up the miniscule amount of chores that needed to be done, he had been off his game, zoning out here and there and just resting against whatever was solid enough until he had finally finished.
And now he had to stay awake while Callie opened up the limited edition Barbie playhouse with the hot tub. The little girl's eyes widened, and she started screaming like she had for the past gifts of a Spider Man action figure, a Dora the Explorer mermaid with necessary accessories, some nail polish kit, and a huge stuffed unicorn that was taller than her.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Callie squealed, throwing her little body into his arms.
It took him a little longer to react than normal, but nobody seemed to notice. He kissed her on the forehead, hugged her, and then watched as Anna did the exact same, smiling up at him after Callie went back down in the middle of the living room to help her father throw away all the wrapping paper.
“Wait!” his mom said, taking out her camera to take a few – as she liked to call it – candid pictures. She turned, looking at him and then back at Anna and then back again with an expectant look on her face. “Aren't you missing something?”
He racked through his brain, trying to think of what a husband would do in the situation of a niece's birthday. “I don't think so?” The words came out as more of a question as he looked full-on at his mother.
“Your wedding photos! Please tell me you didn't forget about them.” Ma rolled her eyes. “You did, didn't you?”
Before he could answer, she was gone, sprinting up the stairs faster than he thought any sixty-seven-year-old could. The living room was quiet as his brothers just looked at him as if he had just told the funniest joke ever known to man. And when his mother came back down a second later, they all burst out laughing, eyes watering and mouths wide open.
“You see,” Ma huffed, holding a few boxes in her arms – some very slim yet long and the others average-sized – “we asked the photographer to mail them to us instead. So I made a scrapbook and framed pictures so you can hang 'em up in here.”
His father sent him a look that said, Your mother worked really hard on this. If you don't like it, you put a smile on that face anyway, or I just might beat you. Titus gulped and nodded at the same time, taking the surprisingly heavy packages from his mother's small arms and sitting down next to Anna on the long couch where his wife looked completely stunned.
“Mrs. Cantrell...wait, Tina,” Anna stressed, most likely remembering the teasing scolding that had been given to her after she had called his mother Mrs. Cantrell yet again. “Thank you so much, but you really didn't have to-”
“Oh, of course I did! I want to be an involved mother-in-law. This is my way of contributing. Now, open them.” Ma grinned and sat down next to her husband, Titan, who was looking at them even more expectantly.
Anna subtlely nudged his leg with her thigh, telling him that he should be the on to open up the very first gift. Just a little too tired to disagree, Titus tore the wrapper as neatly as possible, sliding out the heavy frame and encased picture until everything was revealed.
“I freakin' love ya, Ma,” he said, trying not to tear up at the huge picture in his and Anna's laps.
In a plain, wooden frame that was simple yet very pleasing to the eye, was a photograph of him and Anna on their wedding day. Dressed in the old wedding dress that had been tailored to her body to fit just perfectly, Anna looked absolutely stunning as she leaned back into his hug, tilting her head back to kiss him lightly on the mouth with him looking down at her with all of the emotion he would always feel for her.
They moved onto the next one, a photograph just as large but in black and white that showed a close-up of their faces as he kissed her on the forehead with her arms looped around his neck. Touching the back of his neck gently with the pads of his fingertips, Titus could still feel her touch branded there on the skin, and he wished that she would one day hold him like that for real.
“Where ya want this one?” Trace asked him, a hammer and nails already hanging from his cargo shorts pocket.
“Above the mantle,” he answered and then watched as Trace and Tobias efficiently removed the old, boring duck print and replaced it with the very first picture that Titus knew for a fact would take his breath away every time he looked at it.
“And this one?”
“Staircase.”
After all of the pictures – even the smaller ones – were hung up, Titus took some time to admire the way they just looked so right on the ranch house's white walls. He imagined this everyday – imagined that this was real and that Anna truly accepted this house as the one she would be living in for the rest of her life instead of just a temporary home for the baby.
“Titus.” Anna smiled up at him, looking as beautiful as ever in a blue summer dress with her hair braided off to the side. “You still got one more.”
“We got one more,” he corrected, jiggling the last remaining box in his hands. He put the light-weighing box into her hands. “Here, you open it.”
She took the white-wrapped package and opened it just as carefully as she had the rest, her fingers undoing the clear tape and sliding out a cardboard container. It was old and dented in more than a few places, layers of cardboard having curled up from age in certain areas.
“Just a little something for the baby,” his mother said. “He's probably gonna want something to cuddle with.”
And just like that, Titus knew immediately what was inside those ancient walls of the cardboard. It was Rodney, his stuffed animal bunny he had slept with since the time he had been born until his eighteenth birthday when his mother had taken it away and had forced him to sleep without the comforting, ratty thing.
Those months had been the hardest of his entire life. Not feeling Rodney's roughened, furry fabric every night in his arms with the bunny's head tucked underneath his chin had been awful. When he didn't think about it, he was fine, but now – now when the stuffed animal was literally in his arms again – it was a living hell.
He yanked the box from Anna's hands. “Let's open this...later. Now's not the right time.”
“C'mon,” Trace – the one who had quit sleeping with his beaver, Samson, at the age of eleven – whined. “It's not even that big o' deal. If I had to do it, you gotta, too.”
“Yeah,” Callie said. “Samson had to stay home, though. I didn't want to lose him.”
“Yes, but...it's not the same.”
“What's not the same?” Thrane asked. He had stopped with his giraffe, Elijah, by fifteen and obviously had never established a connection with something that had been Titus's rock.
“None of your business,” Titus snapped.
“It's my business! I was invited to this Thanksgiving, wasn't I? I'm part of this family, aren't I?” Thrane half-shouted and half-talked, standing up to somehow snatch the box away. “So you're going to tell me, and you're going to open the damn thing, or else I will!”
Tobias began to say something in the corner, but his words were all but drowned out by everybody's disagreeing over the box that was in Thrane's unforgiving hands.
“Seriously, Thrane? You don't-”
“– the baby always gets the stuffed –”
“– if he would just man up for once in his –”
“And you wonder why we don't spend Christmas –”
“– just give him back the box, for Christ's sake! You boys are so –”
“– you seriously can't listen to your mother for once in your life?”
And all the while, his temper got to the brimming point. He was pissed off at the veins standing out on Thrane's neck as he shouted at Trace. He wanted to scream at Tobias who kept asking what was in the box. But most importantly, he wanted to save Anna from all of this – from having to see an ancient bunny that he was still too attached to and from just being here with his dysfunctional family.
“Shut up!” he finally managed to shout above all of them before ripping the box out of Thrane's hands. Titus cuddled it to his chest, not wanting anybody except him to ever lay hands or even eyes on Rodney ever again.
Reaching for the remote, he turned on the TV, scrolled through the channels until he found something suitable for Callie, and then went upstairs where he gently placed the box into the closet where it would be well-hidden.
Thanksgiving could be damned right now. All he wanted to do was sleep and get away from his oppressive family and their constant disagreements that never seemed to stop. It was always like this – especially when it came to impress upon present guests that they were a family that never fought but only loved each other. That was most definitely not the case.
The year before last – when it had just been his family – it had been awful. A hole had been punched into the wall; he had had to replace the coffee table after Thrane had called Tobias stupid and the younger man had reacted by tackling his older brother; and he had had to lock himself in his room to just calm down before he did something even more stupid.
Taking one last, heavy breath, he regained some much needed control before making his way downstairs. He could hear his mother's voice saying something in a tone that suggested nobody had been fighting; the sound made him cringe, making him know exactly what he was talking about. His ears, of their own accord, focused only on that sound, and it gave him his answer.
“When he was eighteen, I finally just said, 'Enough is enough, Titus!' and yanked that disgusting rabbit away from him. I swear, that thing hadn't been washed in years!” his mother said and then laughed as if this wasn't her oldest living son's sanity she was messing with. “I mean, I was surprised that him, of all my little boys, was the one to have held onto the thing for so long. Anna, dear, make sure your baby doesn't end up like-”
“Me,” he completed from the top of the stairs.
It was always about him. Always about setting a good example for his little brothers. About working hard, maintaining good grades, and being the best player on the football team so they could be the perfect family – so that they could influence Napolm like they always had in the past.
“You see, Ma” he said, not caring that the entire room had gone silent. “I sorta get where you're comin' from. Hell, when I have a kid, I'll probably work my hardest to embarrass them, too. But at least I won't do it in front of their spouse. So, please, if we could just stop talking about me like I'm never here, that would be great.”
Thrane stood up, using his body as a shield from the words Titus had just spit out. “Would you calm down for once in your-”
“Me?” Titus couldn't believe he was the one being told to calm down when Thrane was the one who couldn't keep his trap shut to save his life. “I'm the one who needs to calm down? You're the freakin' idiot who can't even hold a-”
“You promised you wouldn't say anything!” Thrane screamed.
Titus sneered, sick and tired of always being the brother who everybody unloaded their feelings and problems onto. Even Thrane – the one who constantly told him to just go fuck himself – told him his worst problems. The very worst one being that he had been fired from his job as a college Chemistry professor shortly after the school year had ended because he had slept with a student.
To this very day and like the good, trustworthy, big brother he always was, he hadn't told a soul. But, he figured, people should know, and now was a good a time as any. He'd go to hell before he was left being the only brother whose reputation had taken a good hit.
“Yeah. You all didn't know?” Titus laughed, looking at all of the occupants in the living room. “Thrane lost his job last-”
“You asshole!” his younger brother shouted before sprinting up the stairs and throwing his slightly shorter, muscled frame at him.
Titus fell to the hardwood floor with a grunt, all of the air leaving his lungs in a whoosh that had him gasping on the floor. Rage was on Thrane's face as the man raised his fist. Titus just reacted. Bringing his knee forward, he reached Thrane's hard stomach just as bare knuckle connected with the most sensitive part of his nose.
Warm liquid rushed out, wetting his face and coating his lips with a coppery taste that made his stomach churn. A groan escaped from both of them, screams and shouts from downstairs as heavy footsteps came clomping up the stairs.
More hands were on them, trying to pull Thrane off him, but Titus didn't let them. Using his larger size, he pinned his younger brother underneath him and was about to make Thrane's face look as pretty as he did. The contact didn't come. Instead, a heavy body tackled him onto the ground once again, making his head slam against the wall.
“Titus!” Trace wrestled him to the very end of the hallway.
“I'll kill you!” Thrane screeched before ramming his elbow into Tobias's stomach.
He laughed. “Ha! How many times have you said that before!? Well, look at this, Thrane! I'm still alive and kickin'!” He saw as man struggled in Tobias's and Taivon's holds, kicking his feet with a face so red and so seething with fury that Titus thought the man was going to explode.
Tobias keeled over, holding onto his stomach and dry heaving as Taivon tried restraining the angry man once again. He was equally as angry, but Trace would have none of it. Pinning his face down against the ground, Trace rammed his knee right into his spine and twisted until Titus saw stars.
“Let go!” He struggled as hard as he could.
With Thrane hitting Taivon, Titus battling Trace, and Tobias almost crying on the floor, it continued like this until he finally managed to get out of Trace's grasp and sprinted over to Thrane. Blood still poured down his face, and his noose hurt like a motherfucker, but he didn't stop until Thrane was within arm's reach.
The younger man avoided his blow, kicking his leg underneath Titus's to send him flying against the wall. Drywall scattered in the air and coated his body until it was all cleared up, and he saw Thrane opening the front door and running outside. He followed, ignoring all of the shouts to stop and running as hard as he could in nothing but bare feet as his brother hopped over the cattle fence.