Caroselli's Baby Chase. Michelle Celmer

get between these two when we were kids. It’s that middle-child curse, I guess.” He stepped strategically between his brothers and gave each of them a slap on the back. “Come on, gentlemen, let’s go in my office and settle this.” He turned to Rob and his cousins. “You boys can head on out. I’ve got this.”

      Reluctantly the three cousins walked to the elevator.

      “So what do you think that was about?” Tony asked him.

      “I don’t know,” Rob said. “But it’s been building for a while now. Things have been tense for a couple of months.”

      “Don’t forget, Tony’s mom was arguing with your dad at Thanksgiving,” Nick told Rob. Sarah, Tony’s mom, used to date Rob’s dad before he joined the army. The fact that Tony Sr. married her shortly after he left had been a minor source of friction among the three of them over the years. Certainly, it was nothing they would come to blows over now, unless the dynamics of those relationships had changed… .

      “Tony, you don’t think that your mom and my dad…”

      “Honestly, Rob, I don’t know what to think anymore. But things have seemed off with my parents, as well. I went to a New Year’s party with them and they seemed…I don’t know, out of sync, if that makes sense. They’re typically very physically affectionate with each other, and I barely saw them touch.”

      “Maybe my dad can help them figure it out,” Nick said.

      “Is your dad still sleeping with your mom?” Rob asked him.

      Nick made a face. “Yeah. It’s bad enough knowing about it, but to actually see them…you know…” He shuddered involuntarily. “Talk about scarring a person for life.”

      “That’ll teach you to barge into your mom’s house without knocking,” Tony told him.

      “I think it’s pretty cool that after being divorced for so long, they reconnected,” Rob said.

      “They do seem happy,” Tony told Nick. “Maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but they were at the New Year’s party, too. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and they disappeared long before the ball dropped.”

      “Regardless,” Nick said, “I’ll never get how two people who despised each other, and had a messy and uncivilized divorce that scarred all three of their children, could suddenly change their minds and hop in the sack.”

      “I’m sure that if they’d had a choice, they would have preferred to be happy the first time around,” Tony said.

      Nick shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. So long as I don’t have to see my dad’s bare ass again, they can be ‘happy’ all they want.”

      “So, breakfast?” Tony said.

      They said goodbye to Sheila as they passed the reception desk, then rode the elevator down to the lobby. Dennis, the security guard, nodded as they walked past.

      “Who are you betting on in the playoffs?” Nick asked him, walking backward to the door.

      “Steelers-Lions,” Dennis said. “And the Lions will take it.”

      “No way! The Lions haven’t won a championship since what, the fifties?”

      “Fifty-seven,” Dennis said. “But this is the year.”

      Nick laughed. “Dream on. I say Steelers-Chargers, and the Steelers will take the championship.”

      Dennis grinned and shook his head. “Keep dreaming, boss.”

      Nick laughed as they walked out the door into the bitter wind. Parking was a bitch downtown, so they pulled up their collars and walked the three blocks to the restaurant. The pavement was slick, so it was slow-going, and by the time they got to the diner it was already filling up with the lunch crowd. Every seat was taken and there was a line of people ahead of them.

      “Feel like waiting?” Tony asked.

      Rob shrugged. “Could be a while.”

      “I say we wait,” Nick said. “It’s too damn cold to go back out there.”

      “Hey, Caroselli!” someone called. Rob followed the voice, cursing under his breath when he realized whom it belonged to.