by Amy Lane
“Well, Mom says if he’d get off his fat ass and get a real job, he’d have plenty of money,” Holly parroted, and Dane had to breathe through the red that filled his vision.
“Holly,” Jason whispered, “we’re not supposed to say that word.”
“Ass?” Holly asked, suddenly sounding seven again and not thirty-five.
“Fat. Mom says it’s not nice.”
“But why do she and Grandma use it when they’re talking about Uncle Clay?” Holly asked, legitimately confused.
“Because they’re judgy bitches who do not appreciate your uncle for the awesome guy he is,” Dane retorted acidly. He took a deep breath. “And if you tell them I said that, I’ll tell them you’re listening when you shouldn’t be and you’re repeating things like ‘fat’ and ‘ass’ when you’re talking about the man who just took you shopping on his limited budget for stuffed toys and big containers full of jelly beans that he’s not going to get to eat.”
Jason and Holly both nodded, their faces burning with shame.
“Okay, Dane,” Jason said. “We’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” Holly asserted. “I’m the one who said it. You forget,” she said, matter-of-fact.
“Forget what?” Jason asked.
“That grown-ups aren’t always right. Mom told me that once when Dad lost his temper. He doesn’t do it often, but when he does, we all just hide in our rooms, and then it goes away and it’s all good. He just yells, that’s all. Mostly at the dishwasher or the garbage disposal or the toilet backing up. Not at people.”
Dane found himself smiling and wondered if he could forgive Clay’s sister for the “get off his fat ass” remark after all. Maybe.
He would need to meet her first.
Clay finally got to the front of the line and smiled at the salesgirl. Dane watched her expression go from bored exhaustion to pert, “Oh my God, let me help the nice guy with the scruffy chin!” in about two seconds, and he wanted to growl. The really hysterical thing was that Clay thought he wasn’t attractive. He had no idea—none—what being accessible and kind could do for someone having a crap day.
It had certainly become the center of Dane’s world, and Dane hated that, at this moment, he had to play the “Dane’s Flaky” card to spend time with him, and not the “Dane is a responsible adult who can pick his friends and develop a decent relationship” card instead.
The girl practically slobbered over herself, and Clay walked away with the big jigsaw puzzle and two smaller ones for no extra cost on some sort of buying plan that he’d sworn he’d never use, but she’d waved that off, right? Because he was nice and he’d made her laugh, and Dane would eat her spleen if she put her hand on his arm one more damned time.
“She was really nice,” Carpenter said. “Look, guys, you have your own puzzles to work on, and me and Dane can start that one.”
“Why can’t you finish it? You can stay the rest of the weekend, can’t you?”
“Dane has to be home tonight,” Clay said, looking at Dane, who nodded soberly, the dose of meds in his pocket weighing on his soul. Yes. Given what a complete asshole he’d been to his brother that morning—and what he recognized of his mood, now that it had passed—he needed to go to sleep, well medicated, in his own bed, and wake up and take his medicine with breakfast immediately.
And given that Mason was probably engaged in wild animal sex with his squirrely boyfriend, swollen ankle and all, even as they left the Galleria, the odds of Dane wanting to bring Clay home, even to play video games, were less than nil.
Clay’s discomfort the last time had put the kibosh on that, and Dane was just so grateful for him right now. Watching him muddle his way through uncledom with minimum cash and maximum good will was so… so fulfilling. Like beef stew for his hungry soul.
“Can we get food, Uncle Clay?” Holly begged like the little mind reader she was. “You let us get things like In-N-Out, and Mom never does.”
Clay sighed and sent an apologetic look at Dane. Dane took pity on him.
“Yeah,” he said brightly. “I think your uncle Clay has worked really hard on being healthy all week. Maybe we’ll have to skip the cheese and special sauce, but In-N-Out sounds just fine.”
“I really shouldn’t,” Clay said with a sigh as they cruised toward the In-N-Out near Fairway.
“I’m starving,” Dane lied. “And your sister would probably not appreciate it if we brought them home hungry.”
“They have the weekend maid there,” Clay said absently. “She usually does snacks and lunch for the kids.”
Dane squeezed his eyes shut. “The weekend maid?”
Clay pulled into the parking lot and took the end of a seriously long line. “You can’t be weird about the house,” he said. “Or the money. Skipper almost didn’t come in. I had to talk him off the ledge to get him to even get out of the car. The house is big. The folks are rich. It’s embarrassing, okay? Especially after you’ve seen my dinky apartment.”
“What does your dinky apartment have to do with your parents’ money?” Dane asked, feeling as confused as Holly had been.
Clay just rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“And your apartment will look much better with the prints we just bought. That store had some great stuff.”
Dane had taken the kids to get cookies while Clay had schlepped the posters and frames out to his SUV. That print store had been fun too. Clay had allowed the kids to pick out one each, and they’d gone for Disney/Pixar for the living room. Dane had picked a Japanese-style print of the ocean for the bathroom, and Clay had picked one garden print for the kitchen and a couple of ocean life for his bedroom.
“Still small,” he said. “Still working a nowhere job. But I like the job. I have friends through there. I just… I’m plenty happy with my life until I see it through their eyes, you know?”
“How about through my eyes?” Dane demanded, hating the dejection. “I like your life too.”
Clay gave him a grin as he pulled up to order. “Yeah, but you and Skip and your big dorky brother are some of the things I like about my life, so I’m not sure if it’s fair you get a say.”
Dane grinned back and let him order, then asked for his to go without sauce too, just so Clay didn’t feel bad. He was fed, watered, pleasantly tired from a busy morning, and in a decent mood when Clay got him to his ginormous fucking castle of a house, and that was probably a wise move.
Because Dane wanted to kill Clay’s sister in about two and a half minutes.
THE MAID seemed nice. Sixtyish, as colorless as water, with eyes as bored as the salesgirl’s had been, she brightened up a little when she spotted Clay and the kids on the doorstep.
“Come on in,” she said, ushering them in. “Kids, have you eaten? I just baked some apple pastries.”
“Yes!” Jason pumped his arms. “I mean, no, Bridget, we just ate, and apple pastry would be much appreciated.” He smiled winningly, and Holly did the same thing at his side. Bridget laughed.
“Clay? Would you and your friend like some apple pastry?”
“I’d love some,” Dane said quickly, knowing Clay would eat to keep him company.
“But first we should go check on Sabrina,” Clay said. “We’ll be down in a minute.”
“Of course. She and your mother are in the upstairs sitting room.”
“Watching old TV?” Clay said, his mouth twitching.
“Frasier, of course.”
“Of course.”
Clay led Dane through a daunting downstairs foyer. Nothing so ostentatious as crystal chandeliers, but there were long, elegant hanging light fixtures that illuminated the entrance to the house. To the right sat a staircase that led up to a balcony, so anyone emerging from the bedrooms on the second floor could look over to the front entrance. And there was a fresco of swans painted on the wall behind the railing, in silver, gray, pale pink, and sage green.
“Damn, boy,” Dane muttered.
In response, he could hear Clay’s act
ual swallow. “The painting is a new thing,” he murmured. “And we really did have chandeliers when I was a kid. Mom said they were showy.”
Dane snickered. “This is still some flash. You grew up with this?” Clay had grown up with all of this…and still had to pay student loans? Dane wondered about that. He and Mason had college funds. It was true that his had long since dried up and blown away, but it was funny how Clay could feel so bad about going to college and getting a mysterious degree, when his parents could afford a small fiefdom on the hill.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But why is it a bad thing?”
Clay grunted. “What was your house like?”
Dane had to laugh. “Small. Housing costs on the Bay Area peninsula are pretty high, so a teeny post-WWII house is worth nearly a million dollars. Mason and I had to share a bed—he snores like a band saw. But Mom kept it comfortable, a little cluttered. There wasn’t much to clean, but she liked to be able to walk through it easily. They have this little postage stamp garden in the backyard—they both go out on the weekends and do things like crumple newspaper in pots to catch earwigs and individually mulch every chrysanthemum. Every two years they repaint the front—super-bright colors—and then wait for the neighborhood association to complain. It’s one of their favorite games.”
Clay chuckled and bit his lip. “Sounds perfect,” he said softly.
“What’s this one like?” Dane asked, feeling for the thing that Clay wouldn’t say.
“Perfect.” He pulled his lips in and looked around, and Dane noticed there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. Yeah, the tiny house on the peninsula was cluttered, but it was friendly clutter. Sure, Dane and Mason had needed to share a bedroom, but they’d also talked almost every night until Mason went away to school. Mason had gotten in trouble a lot in school, not because he was a bad person, but because his mouth tended to say the one thing that would freak teachers and authority figures out the most. Dane had heard every detail about every teacher conference since he was old enough to pat Mason on the back and say, “It’s okay. I don’t think you’re a freak,” and Mason had been preciously grateful. They’d both known those were the days their mom spiked her Kool-Aid with a little bit of vodka, and maybe forgot the greens with dinner.
Not perfect.
But lovely.
“Perfect is hard,” Dane said, realizing it for the first time. It was a lesson he should probably take to heart because he got locked in his head so often obsessing about the small shit. Maybe he needed to remember that being a good person was better than being perfect.
Clay shrugged. “You just gotta try harder,” he said, and from the tone of his voice, Dane couldn’t tell if he understood that was a lie—and a painful one—or not.
At that point, Clay led him to a partially opened door, where he knocked softly. “Everyone dressed?” he asked. “I’m bringing a friend.”
“What’s she—oh, Clay! A man?”
Clay’s sister, Sabrina, was a midsized woman in her early thirties, pretty with an elegant oval for a face and Clay’s big brown eyes. She looked as though she’d been sick—her chestnut hair was back in a ponytail, she was pale, and she was wearing a comfortably fitting sweat suit in navy, but she wasn’t lounging in exhaustion, as Dane would have been. Instead, she was sitting upright in an overstuffed chair, her shoulders back in perfect posture as she used a laptop on a portable desk.
“He’s my friend,” Clay said, keeping his voice mild.
Sabrina grabbed the remote control and hit Pause. “Does Mom know you brought your friend home?”
“I thought she was in here where I was going to tell her,” Clay said, stepping fully into the room. “Weren’t you guys bonding over old television?”
“We did for an hour, but we both have jobs, Clay. We can’t all take a whole sick day off, you know?”
“I took it off to watch your children, Brina. Give me a break.”
She closed her eyes, probably to keep from rolling them, and nodded. “You’re right. I’m… I wish I could just curl up and die, honestly.” She gave a small, almost humanizing smile. “Mom is in her study, finishing some work for Monday. Apparently, she’s meeting with an environmental committee and she wants to be ready.”
“Okay. Well, we’ll be downstairs with the kids if you need us.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your buddy?”
Buddy? On impulse, Dane reached down and grabbed Carpenter’s hand.
Clay looked at their twined fingers in mild surprise, and then rolled his eyes.
But he didn’t let go.
“Brina, this is my friend Dane. He’s a gamer with a science degree, going to vet school. You guys should talk sometime about the difference between dogs and people.”
“So should you,” she snapped. “You’ve got the same—”
“I’m gonna go find Mom.” He tugged on Dane’s hand and started toward the door, but Brina shook her head to stop him.
“How are the kids?”
“Well, they might need some help scrubbing the glue from the duct tape off their mouths,” Clay said, mouth quirking at the sides. “And they both have bruises on their knees from being locked up in the trunk of Terry Jefferson’s Toyota. Oh, and Jason’s eyes were rolling back in his head—I think it was a sugar coma. He’ll be okay as long as he doesn’t foam at the mouth and seize.”
“That’s not funny,” Sabrina said, and she sounded legitimately angry.
“That’s hilarious!” Dane contradicted. “He spoiled those kids rotten! Do you know we’re committed to doing jigsaw puzzles with your charming little… rug rats on Clay’s dime?” God. Not even a thank-you?
Sabrina stopped short, and her eyes narrowed on their twined hands. “New phase, Clay? Is this like the pizza parlor job?”
Clay used his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, and Dane had the wistful thought that if he could hold Clay’s hand all the time, he might be a little better about letting go of it. “Sabrina, please be kind to my friend, who sat with your kids while I played soccer today. He did both of us a solid.”
She took a deep breath. “You’re right. I just… you know, wish you’d take my parental guidelines seriously—”
“Clay, could you do me a favor,” Dane said, using his best “I will blow you in the future” voice, even though Clay could not possibly know what delights that tone usually promised.
“Sure,” Clay said, obviously excited to get out of this room. It wasn’t a bad room—cream Berber carpeting, off-white comfortable furniture, a big-screen television, and some lavender-colored art—it was a very… tranquil place to chill. Not exciting, though, not to Clay with his love of bright colors and Disney prints and bold purple sunsets.
The room was perfect. When nothing about Clay was perfect… except everything.
“Could you go downstairs and see if Bridget has some chocolate milk or something similar?” He had the extra pink pill for the really bad days, and he had a feeling he was going to need that.
“Will almond milk do?” Clay asked. “Mom doesn’t like keeping dairy in the house.”
Dane nodded. Not his favorite, but not a bad choice. “Yeah. Could you go get me a glass of that? I’ll be down in a sec.”
“Sure.” Clay smiled willingly, because he was that guy. The guy who would let Dane grab his hand and not yank it away, the guy who would go fetch him chocolate milk on a dime. “I’ll find Mom on the way down. I wanted you guys to meet.”
Of course he did. Well, they were both sort of mama’s boys, even if Clay’s relationship was a tad more problematic. “Sure. I won’t be long.”
Clay left, closing the door behind him, and Dane turned to Clay’s sister and decided to make an enemy.
“Are you aware that your daughter heard you talk to your mother about Clay—and I quote—‘getting off his fat ass and doing something’?”
Sabrina’s eyes got big, and she swallowed abruptly. “Oh God, did he hear—”
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“No, I did. I just wanted you to know that whatever… contempt you think you’re hiding? You’re not. And your brother’s a good guy. The best. He called in sick to a job he likes, and he almost didn’t play soccer just so he could watch your kids because he feels some sort of… I don’t know, misplaced loyalty because you didn’t flush his head down the toilet and give him wedgies in junior high. But I don’t have any of that. And I need you to know that if you don’t appreciate your brother, I do. His friends and coworkers sure as hell do, and you should maybe stop fretting about how Clay is dealing with your kids and start worrying about how you are.”
He took a deep breath. Wow. He needed that pink pill more than he thought. Except he didn’t feel manic or depressed or on any sort of mood swing. He just felt legitimately hurt and angry for the guy currently trying to figure out if there was chocolate almond milk somewhere in this palace.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking altogether wretched. “I’ll—that’s terrible. My children shouldn’t have heard that. That wasn’t appropriate—”
“It was bitchy as hell,” Dane snarled. “And speaking of? Tell your kids to lay off the nutrition lectures. The next time they bitch at him for eating a protein bar, he’s going to go for the donut box. And it’s not that I give a crap if he eats a dozen donuts in your honor, but he’ll feel awful about it when he’s done, and that’s not fair to him.”
She gasped. “Who are you to come here and tell me how to treat my family—”
“Lady, I’m the guy who’s spent two days helping your brother watch your kids. And they’re great. They’re great kids. But they’re not going to be, with you as an example.”
He saw her huff a breath in outrage, and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah I know. I’m a terrible mean man and you’re a frickin’ saint—”
“I never said that.” She crossed her arms defensively.
“No, but your brother thinks so—and your kids are judgy as hell, which is the kind of kids that saints raise. All I’m saying is that your brother’s a good guy. The best. And he deserves better than to have a family look down on him because he had a passing fling with pizza and he’s still repairing the damage.”
