by Julia Kent
Dec crouches, rights the tire on its end, and shoves as hard as possible at me while I'm turned toward Vince. The damn thing barrels at me and if I move the wrong way, I cross the line. As I leap into the narrow space I have left as an option, it grazes my bare shoulder, leaving behind a mark and the scent of rubber burning through me.
I grab the thing and send it right back. Dec's prepared, though, so it just hits the ropes and rebounds, halting next to him like a good, loyal pet.
“Douchebags,” old Jorg mutters. “You're ruining the floor!” Our eyes meet and his widen. I know exactly what he's thinking.
I'm the one who owns the place. This is on my dime.
“Do it right!” Gerald shouts, his voice holding enough command in it to make Declan and I give him twin looks. Dec sends the tire into the center again, the beast circling over and over like a kid's slowly spinning top until it flumps down.
And we begin again.
This time, I grab from the top, but Dec grabs from the bottom and the bastard outmaneuvers me, flipping the thing like I did, using my own trick against me.
And he ups the ante, flipping it so the thing ends up on its side, rolling right at me, my legs split, thighs engaged in a squat.
I get a face full of rubber and a sac massage all at once.
Have you ever wanted to kill someone? Really kill them? Watch the light drain out of their eyes, their flesh going limp, all the parts of their humanity draining out of them like water in a bathtub?
Me, neither.
But I'm so damn close right now.
“You are so dead!” I scream, standing and using a roundhouse kick to send the tire back to him, then running after it. I rip my lats and triceps to shreds as he dodges, but I change the course of the massive tire.
Running him over from behind.
“Anyone recording this? Because YouTube'll make this go viral,” one of the teens asks, looking around as Declan's head gets run over by the now-slow tire bounding off the ropes. He sputters and rolls, looking up at me.
“Man, you can really tell you guys are brothers. Look at that hate,” says Vince, who is laughing.
The phone in the office rings, the sound hard to discern from the ringing in my head, but it's clear. Old Jorg answers it, then holds up the receiver.
“Declan!” he shouts.
“WHAT?” Dec screams back.
“Yer wife. Says yer ignoring yer phone. Something about dinner plans and how you and Andrew need to get yer asses to yer house or she's gonna cut off sex.”
“WHAT?” Declan's voice goes up an octave. “She SAID that?”
“Nah.” Old Jorg lets out a phlegmy laugh. “Just the part about dinner plans. You two need to go.”
“Damn,” I mutter. “We're babysitting for you guys. Remember? Shannon and the Hamilton tickets.”
Dec says a curse under his breath. “I forgot. What time is it?”
We look at the wall clock.
“You idiots. Finish this by running all the way to Declan's apartment. Then think about how weak you both are until our next workout,” Vince says as Dec and I run into the locker room, grab our gym bags, and start the run to his place. I slip my arms through the two handles and wear the bag like a backpack, running easily. Dec’s right next to me, huffing harder.
Years of swimming give me the lung advantage. Dec's a better soccer player, but short-distance running doesn't help after that kind of workout.
You need stamina.
By the time I reach the main door to the building where he and Shannon live, I have to wait a good minute for him to catch up and let me in. The doorman, Barry, gives me a wave but doesn't offer.
Smart guy.
Dec uses his card key to take us to the elevator, both of us simmering. It isn't until we're at his floor that I take a look at his body.
And mine.
And realize we're up shit creek with our wives.
“Dec?”
“Huh?”
“Look at us.”
His eyes take me in first, going over my arms, then my legs, bouncing to his own body. He stretches out the arm not carrying his gym bag, chest huffing from exertion.
“Oh, hell,” he says. “We need to go downstairs to the building gym and shower before Shannon–”
Opens the door. Which she does.
Right then, on cue.
“Declan!” she hisses, their toddler daughter, Ellie, on her hip. Dec's wife is furious, and why wouldn't she be? We're nearly an hour late.
Dec's eyes drop as he passes her. “I'll be in and out of the shower in three minutes and we'll be fine, Shannon,” he says.
“It's our first date in months!” She's in the I Can't Believe You Did This to Me zone. My brother is making a huge mistake.
“Let me fix this for you, Dec.”
Dec's back is to me, hunched in anger.
“What?”
“First, tell your wife you're sorry.”
Shannon beams at me.
Ellie's pudgy little fingers reach for me, eyes wide with delight as she catches my eye and shouts:
“Uncadoo!”
Declan falls over, laughing so hard, he starts wheezing. Talk about a mood change.
“There's your nickname for the rest of your life,” Shannon tells me. “Uncadoo.” Whatever pissed off self-righteous anger she was holding dissolves on the spot, too.
“I… can't wait… to tell Vince and… Gerald,” Declan gasps, holding his sides.
“You do that, I'll tell them your nickname from the lacrosse team at Milton.”
Declan freezes. Shannon gives me an extraordinary look, the kind I only thought I gave people when they threatened to spill the secret on an opponent.
“What was it?” she gasps as Declan lunges for me, hand over my mouth before I can react.
He may have the element of surprise, but I have superior muscle strength.
Thanks, Vince.
“Don't. You. Dare,” Dec says, grabbing my arm, which makes Shannon look at us.
Really look.
“Declan, you're a mess!” Shannon says reproachfully, reaching for Dec's hands, mouth turning down as she eyes the black all over them. “What on Earth? You look like you bathed in grease!” She sniffs. “And you smell like tar.”
“Close,” I mutter, wondering if I can grab a quick shower before my wife arrives and I get the same lecture.
Ding! The doorbell snatches my defeat from the jaws of victory.
Damn.
Amanda appears in the doorway, the seconds before she hugs Shannon a moment for me to take her in. The maternity clothes have finally taken over her wardrobe, belly swelling with a grace that mirrors my heart as I watch her. That belly grows my children. That body sacrifices so our sons can be born.
That body gives so much for me.
But it's not her body I have to watch out for.
It's her mouth.
“Andrew!” She looks me over, eyes going to my face, my hands, my arms, then centering on my knee. She points. “What is that? A TIRE TRACK? Did you get run over by something?”
“More like someone,” Declan crows as he ducks into the master suite. His laughter booms until a door closes, then a shower begins. Good thing they have three bathrooms, because I'm taking over the guest one.
“What is Declan talking about?” Amanda asks, coming to me, walking a little slower than usual. Is she… waddling?
No. Can't be. She's only at twenty-six weeks.
“Dec and I got into a fight with a monster-truck tire. Dec lost.”
“I HEARD THAT!” a muffled voice comes from down the hall. “YOU LOST!”
“We tied,” I explain to her and Shannon.
“DID NOT!”
“Declan!” Shannon calls out. “Take your shower. We're going to be late for dinner reservations if you don't hurry up.”
The bathroom door opens and steam pours out. Dec's soaking wet head appears, and he yells, “Uncadoo is lying!”
“TAKE THE DAM
N SHOWER!” Shannon shouts in a voice that makes me see how similar she really is to her mother, Marie.
Ellie looks at her mother, fascinated and a little nervous at the change in her demeanor. Shannon's definitely not a yeller, so even I'm a little nervous, too.
“Mama loud,” Ellie says, pointing.
“Yes, sweetie.” Shannon scoops her up and balances her on one hip. “Sorry.”
“Too loud!” she admonishes in a voice you'd expect from a librarian, not a small toddler.
“Yes,” Shannon says in a calming voice.
Ellie's little fingers cover Shannon's lips. “Shhhhhh.”
Something in my chest melts. We're about to have this.
In duplicate.
“Uncadoo shhhh,” Ellie says, reaching for my mouth. Shannon's eyes flash with horror, making me wonder what I actually look like.
“Let Uncadoo take a shower first. And brush your teeth. You have black streaks on the two top ones,” she says, making me reach up.
Huh. Slightly swollen lip, too.
“Did you two get into a brawl at a tire factory?” Amanda asks, giving Shannon so many covert looks they might as well give up on trying to be subtle.
“Something like that.” I hold up my gym bag. “I'll just shower in the guest bathroom.”
“Uncadoo owie,” Ellie says as I walk away. In the bathroom, I stare at my reflection.
Yeeesh.
Dec got me good.
But I got him better.
The bottom of the bathtub has a small pile of black residue around the drain by the time I'm done showering, body still pumped from the competition that–to be entirely, utterly objective–was a tie, whether Dec will admit it or not.
My shoulder screams as I reach into the armholes of my clean polo shirt, and I know my thighs will join the pain chorus later, too, but once I'm done, I'm presentable enough. The swollen lip isn't that bad, and my jeans and shirt cover the red marks left from rubber being dragged across my skin.
But at least I wasn't dragged across the tug of war line.
I call that victory.
Dec and I emerge from our separate bathrooms at the same time. I’m dressed in my casual clothes, he’s in a nice suit and a tie I personally would donate to a homeless shelter, but if he likes it, whatever.
“You two are incorrigible,” Shannon pronounces, her mouth tight with annoyance, her gaze taller.
Taller?
I finally shake myself out of my gym state and look at her. My sister-in-law is a hot, full-figured honey blonde who any man would be lucky to pin down, but she chose Declan.
Which means she has weird taste in men.
She's dressed in deep, dark blue–a dress that hugs her curves. It’s cut low in front but with long sleeves and skirt, and tied at the waist. Diamonds sparkle in her ears, sapphires on her wrist. And she smells great.
Dec's fastening his cufflinks.
One wrist shows a black streak he couldn't get off in the shower.
SCORE!
“You two are positively medieval,” Amanda says to me as she examines my face like a mother, one hand clenching my chin, turning me from side to side. She sure does have the maternal seething expression nailed down already, huh?
“That's right,” I agree. “Because I'm the king.”
“More like the court jester,” Declan says calmly, pulling at one cuff. Shannon whaps him.
He kisses her cheek.
He grins.
And then his eyes widen as he really takes in his wife.
“You look hot.” He pulls her in for a deeper kiss, one that makes me wrap my arm around Amanda's waist.
Her growing waist.
“I tried,” Shannon says breathlessly as they break the kiss. “I waxed and everything.”
“You waxed... everything?”
Another whap.
Laughter pours out of both of them as Ellie toddles over and wraps her little arms around Declan's leg, clinging to the fine cloth of his pants. She sits on the top of his foot, legs wrapping around his ankle.
“Horsey!” she says.
Dec obliges, looking down and laughing as he moves her, inch by inch, across the floor. A sudden flash of our childhood, Dad in a tux and Mom in an evening gown, hits me. Dad never goofed around like this. He was always too busy, impatient, showering attention on Mom but treating us like soldiers in the McCormick Men army he controlled.
Dec's got it right.
We don't have to be like our dad.
Emotion chokes me, and my grip on Amanda tightens. She frowns.
“What's wrong?”
How does she know?
“I'm just...” I shrug, the words thick in my throat. Her eyes track mine and she softens.
“He's a good father, isn't he?” Giggles float up like bubbles from little Ellie, her face turned up in a full smile at her daddy.
Who is my brother.
Who is nailing this father thing.
“He is. I hope to be as good at being a dad as Declan is,” I say.
He freezes. Damn. He heard that.
Then he turns to me with an expression I have never seen on his face before, and trust me, I know my brother pretty damn well. I've seen it all.
“Thank you,” he says in a voice as strangled as mine. “That means, well...” He clears his throat. “That means a lot to me.”
Amanda nudges me. “This is the part where you hug him.”
“What? No.”
“You're having a moment.”
“I paid him a compliment.”
“You did it without being competitive, Andrew. In your family, that's the very definition of a moment.”
“DADDEEEEEEE!” Ellie screams as Shannon bends down and peels her off Declan's shoe.
She catches my eye and says, “We're late. Help? This is the part where she becomes an octopus.”
“Huh?”
“Separation anxiety is in full force. She'll scream for twenty minutes after we leave, but then she'll be fine.”
“Twenty minutes?”
“It'll pass in no time,” Shannon says cheerily.
“Plenty of beer in the fridge if you need it,” Dec says. “Limit yourself to two, though. That's my daughter you're watching.”
“EEEEEEEEEE!” Ellie's reaching for Shannon as she tries to hand her off to Amanda, who is doing her best, but no match for frantic octopi.
“Let me hold her.” I step in when Ellie starts kicking and firmly grab her torso. Dec reaches over and pries her limbs off Shannon like a professional poison ivy puller following a root to the end. Finally disengaged from her mother, Ellie's in my arms.
It's like holding a twenty-pound bag of cats.
With tentacles.
“Have fun!” Dec shouts over the fray as Shannon blows kisses and runs out the door.
Click.
“EEEEEE DADDEEEEE MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA!!!!”
And here we go.
Our first night babysitting.
“WHAT DO WE DO?” I shout to Amanda as I pat Ellie's back. I think it's her back. I'm patting whatever part of her is under my hand as she squirms.
“Put her down.”
I start to crouch. Ellie clings harder, still wailing.
“No, no, hold her.”
“But you said to put her down.”
“She needs to be held.”
“But–”
“AAAAEEEEEEEEEE!!! MAMA!!”
I'm starting to understand Declan's smirk when I told him it couldn't be that hard to babysit, when he asked.
Amanda's eyes catch mine and she's tearing up.
“What's wrong?” I ask in a louder voice than I want to use because of Ellie's screams.
“Look at her! She's terrified!” Amanda's hand goes to her belly. “It's just–I guess it's primal? I feel, I feel...”
And then my wife starts sobbing, too.
Great. Two women bawling their eyes out and I can't make either of them feel better.
Where wa
s that beer again?
Suddenly, Ellie stops crying, watching Amanda with fascination. She tucks her index and middle finger in her mouth and starts sucking.
With her other hand, she points to Amanda's face and says, “Owie?”
“Are you hurt?” I ask her, looking over her hands, arms, legs.
“Manna owie.”
“Manna?”
Amanda smiles through her tears. “She started calling me Manna a few weeks ago, Uncadoo.”
I give her a sour look as Ellie giggles and points to me. “UNCADOO!” she screams, shredding my right eardrum.
Amanda starts laughing and crying at the same time, hand rubbing her belly.
“Ellie, say uncle,” I instruct. This shouldn’t be hard.
“Unca.”
“Say an.”
“An.”
“Say Drew.”
“Doo.”
“Now, say Uncle Andrew.”
“UNCADOO!”
If nothing else, the exercise in futility amuses my wife, which makes my humiliation worth it. Sort of. With a long sigh, I look at my niece and say, “Fine. Uncadoo it is.”
“Dow.”
I carefully set her down. She toddles to the front door and points. “Mama?”
“Mama will be back tonight.”
“Daddy?”
“Daddy will be back tonight, too. We're here to play with you,” I explain, crouching down to her height.
“I'll get a snack,” Amanda whispers, wiping her eyes. “Shannon said she'll do anything for a yogurt treat.”
“Yogurt treat?”
“I'll show you.”
Ellie walks up to me, eyes shining, the tears drying on her cheeks. Long, thick eyelashes frame eyes just like my brother's. She has Declan's coloring and eye shape, but the contours of her face are like Shannon’s. It's so weird to see Dec's features superimposed on a toddler.
What'll it be like to see me in my own boys?
“OHGURT!” Ellie screams, right in my ear, like a laser blaster to the trigeminal nerve. The kid can be harnessed and weaponized if this whole toddlerhood thing doesn't work out. Damn.
Ellie walks over to the high chair and lifts her arms to Amanda. “Uppie, Manna!”
Amanda bends to pick her up. I rush over. “I've got her.”
Amanda frowns. “I can pick her up.”
“You shouldn't. Not in your condition.”
“I'm not that out of shape!”
