by J. M. Snyder
“When Kate gets here,” Remy started.
Braden wailed, “Da-aaad! You said I could play!”
Remy glanced over his shoulder at his son and lowered his voice. “I’m keeping count. She gets him for a block number of days all at once to make up for the days we’ve had him. And I’m serious about switching rooms with her if we have to.”
“I think all the rooms on this floor are tricked out.” Lane had checked his parents and sister’s family in earlier under his own name, because he was afraid their rooms might be gone by the time their flight came in. They were on the eleventh floor, too, and on his way back to his own room, he stopped to check out theirs. Both were suites similar to the one he shared with Remy, with glorious vista views overlooking the sea and beach, high-end entertainment systems, and built-in kitchens. Whatever room Kate was given when she finally arrived would probably be the same, so Braden could just plop himself down in front of her TV and take root there for a while instead.
After dinner, Lane headed back to the airport, hopefully for the last time before the wedding. He checked the flight list and saw his family’s plane was delayed a half hour. “Damn it,” he muttered.
A woman beside him laughed. “Waiting for someone on the Dallas flight? That plane’s always late.”
Lane frowned. “What? Why?”
She shrugged as she shifted the toddler in her arms from one shoulder to the other. “Search me. My husband’s grandmother is in the hospital out there and he’s been flying back every other week or so because she’s near the end. And every single time, he’s thirty minutes late coming in. Every single time.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lane said. “About his grandmother, I mean.”
“She’s ninety-nine,” the woman told him, blowing blonde strands of hair out of her face. “I don’t know if I want to live that long! Do you have friends or family on that flight?”
The woman’s son dropped his pacifier, so Lane retrieved it from the floor. “Family,” he said, handing the pacifier over. The woman wiped it on her shirt and popped it into her son’s mouth without a second thought. “My fiancé and I came here to get married, and my sister and parents are coming in from New Jersey tonight.”
She smiled. “Oh! How sweet! When’s the wedding?”
“The Sunday after Christmas.” With a grimace, Lane added, “I hope.”
“Nervous?” she asked. Lane nodded. “First time for you both?”
“My first, his second,” Lane admitted.
She blinked in surprise. “Oh. Well. Pomaika’i, as they say here.”
“What’s that mean?” Lane asked.
“Good luck.”
Lane laughed. “Thanks. I think we’re going to need it.”
* * * *
When Lane saw his sister coming through the arrival gate, she looked exhausted. Her long, sandy hair was pulled back in a sloppy braid and she still wore a heavy coat, much as he had when he first arrived in Honolulu. Now he knew what Chell had probably thought, seeing him arrive overdressed for the tropical weather. In Angie’s arms was her year old daughter Emma, who was fussing a little. Her mother cooed to her, but Emma didn’t want the blanket covering her head or the rattle attached to her wrist, and she kept pushing them away, making little noises that threatened to turn into cries at any moment. Behind Angie came her husband Ed, tall and gangly and laden down with his wife’s purse, the baby’s diaper bag, and the baby carrier. Behind him, Lane saw his parents, William and Bev, dressed in slacks and pullovers and looking completely out of place amid the shorts and sandals everyone else wore.
“Lane!” Angie called out, spotting him. She handed the baby over to Ed and hurried to her brother.
Lane caught her in a tight hug. “Ange, hey! You made it.”
She smelled like Coty Wild Musk perfume, a scent he always associated with cold weather and Christmas and snow. Picking her up off her feet, he spun her around as she laughed. She was fourteen months older than he was, but they had always been close, even after Lane moved to Virginia for college and she stayed in New Jersey to raise a family of her own. Now she took a step back and looked him over at arm’s length. The last time they’d seen each other had been Thanksgiving the year before, when Lane had visited his family alone and Remy had stayed in Richmond to celebrate with Braden and Kate.
“God, you look good!” Angie said with a grin. Glancing around, she added, “Now, where’s this man you keep telling me about? I have to see him to believe him. No one can be as good as you make him out to be.”
Lane laughed. “Remy’s all that and more, I promise. But he’s back at the hotel with his son. Remember, I told you about Braden?”
“Nine, right?” Angie turned as her husband approached and plucked Emma from his arms. “Say hi Uncle Lane. Say hi!”
Lane kissed his niece on the forehead. “Hey, baby! Remember me?”
Her little face scrunched up, but she seemed startled enough by him not to start bawling. Instead she stuck her finger in her mouth and peered up at him with wide eyes the same pale blue as his own.
“Someone needs a nap.” Ed held out a hand for Lane to shake. “Hey, man. Good to see you again.”
“Ed, hi.” Lane grinned to cover his grimace. Ed Kowalski might have been a scrawny engineer, but he had a death grip, and sometimes Lane wondered if he wasn’t purposefully trying to break some fingers when he shook hands with someone. That or he was testing Lane, making sure Angie’s gay brother was man enough to hold up against him. Either way, Lane had to resist the urge to shake his hand to get the blood flowing through his fingers again when Ed let it go. “How was your trip?”
It was Angie who answered. “Long. Four hours to Dallas, an hour layover, then a half hour delay on the tarmac, for some reason, and nine hours from there to here with a fussy baby and some bitch across the aisle giving me dirty looks the whole time. It’s a baby, people,” she said, raising her voice, speaking to no one in particular and everyone within earshot at the same time. “She’s going to cry, that’s what babies do. Put on your damn headphones and tune it out.”
Lane smirked. “That good, eh?”
A hand touched his back, and he turned to hug his mother as she came up beside him. “Hey, Mom,” he murmured. “How are you?”
“Fine, dear.” She felt fragile in his embrace, like a baby bird, but the contrast between her and Remy’s mother couldn’t have been more different. Remy’s parents looked like old hippies, washed out and faded; Lane’s were crisp and bright, with pressed pleats in their slacks and color covering the gray in their hair. William had retired after years as a partner in a successful design firm, which was where Lane’s love of architecture came from, and Bev had been a real estate agent whose advice had come in handy when Lane and Remy closed on their first home. They still frequented the country club and golf course, and spent weekends during the summer at a lake house in a posh gated community. If Lane had suggested they rent a camper, like Remy’s parents had, his mother would’ve thought he’d gone crazy. Her idea of roughing it was staying at a three-star hotel without room service.
Lane shook his father’s hand, too, but carefully, mindful of the fact that this time last year, William Anders had been recuperating from a bad fall that left his elbow shattered. Months of rehab allowed him full range of motion again, but twin rods in his right arm set off metal detectors and he couldn’t write much more than his name without his muscles aching. “How are you doing, Dad?” Lane asked, giving his father a one-armed hug.
“Can’t complain, son, can’t complain.” His father patted him on the back, then laughed. “If I did, who’d listen?”
Lane laughed as well, not so much because it was funny but because his father expected him to. Looking at everyone huddled around him, he didn’t think they’d all fit in the car Remy had rented. He jingled the keys in his pocket. “Remy’s back at the hotel with some food, if you’re hungry—”
“Damn straight,” Angie growled.
“B
ut I can’t take everyone in the car,” Lane said. “Do you want to get a cab, or maybe rent another vehicle…?”
Angie and Ed exchanged a look. “We should get a car,” she said. “Something we can put the baby seat in. Can we still get something tonight?”
Lane started, “I don’t know…”
But Angie wasn’t talking to him. “Go get us a car,” she told her husband. “An SUV, at least, but if they have a minivan, then I want that. Mom and Dad will go with you. I’ll ride with Lane. Where’s the rental place at?”
It took Lane a moment to realize Angie was looking at him. “Oh, I’ll show you. The hotel isn’t far. Follow me.”
His sister had a tendency to step in and take charge, and get things done the way she wanted them. Too bad they hadn’t hired her instead of Chell to coordinate their wedding.
* * * *
Lane helped Ed program the hotel’s address into the minivan’s GPS, but also gave him verbal directions and promised to drive slow enough to allow him to follow close behind. Then Lane and Angie left in the rental car, and for the first time in hours, Angie seemed to relax. “God,” she sighed, melting into the passenger seat and rubbing her eyes. “I want two Tylenol and a hot shower and half a bottle of wine, and six to eight unadulterated hours of zonked out sleep with no baby duties. Is that too much to ask?”
“Ah, you love motherhood and you know it,” Lane said with a laugh as he navigated the airport parking lot towards the exit, Ed’s minivan right behind him.
Angie grinned. “Motherhood as a concept, yes. As a way of life? Not so much.”
“But you’re so good at it,” Lane countered.
Opening one eye, Angie rolled her head to look at him. “Keep talking, mister. We’ll see how much you like having two kids sleeping in your room.”
With a smirk, Lane reminded her, “I’m gay. I don’t know the first thing about taking care of babies.”
“And you think I was born knowing because I’m a woman?” Angie scoffed. “I took classes to learn, and I taught Ed, so I can teach you. If you don’t watch it, I’ll have you changing diapers and warming bottles in no time.”
Lane wisely kept quiet. If Remy was a little put out by Braden’s constant presence—and the boy was his own flesh and blood—Lane could only imagine what he’d have to say if Angie made good on her threat and left Emma in their room overnight, too.
After a few minutes of silence, Angie sighed and pulled down the visor above her seat. A little light came on above the mirror on the other side, and she winced at her reflection. “Ugh, I look a mess,” she muttered. “I can’t be seen like this.”
“You look fine,” Lane told her. The response came automatically; he didn’t even look her way.
But she shook her blowsy bangs out of her face and sighed. “Says you. But you’re my brother—I always look the same to you anyway. Remy’s going to take one look at me and go eww.”
“He will not.” Lane snickered. “He’s my guy, remember. You don’t have to try to impress him or anything. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.”
Angie elbowed him across the seat. “I’m not going to steal him away or anything, don’t worry. But I’d at least like him to be able to look at me without flinching.” Opening her purse, she began to root around in it, then cursed softly. “Damn, my makeup’s in the diaper bag.”
“You don’t need makeup,” Lane said.
But the look she gave him said otherwise. “Laney, honey, all women need makeup.”
He glanced over at her, then turned back to the road ahead. “You look fine without it.”
“Shows what you know.” She zipped her purse shut and set it on the floor by her feet. “I’m already wearing it. Good makeup enhances a woman’s beauty and doesn’t mask it. But Lord, I could use a touch-up. A bit more liner under my eyes, maybe, a touch of powder to take the shine off my nose, and some lipstick…”
“Well, you can freshen up in your room before you come down to ours,” Lane told her. “I checked you guys in already. I’ll just tell Remy you’ll be along after you put on your face.”
That earned him another elbow in the arm. “Don’t you dare!” Angie warned.
Lane laughed. “Ange, he has an ex-wife. I may not know squat about makeup, but he knows first-hand how long women take to get ready. I just hope he didn’t order any hot apps that we’ll have to try to keep warm waiting for you to show up.”
“Hey!” Angie cried. “I’ll have you know Emma takes longer than me, thank you very much. I have to change her, and clean her up, and get her bottle ready—”
“Yeah, right,” Lane said. “Blame it on the baby. But you always showed up late to everything well before she came along.”
Angie flipped her braid over her shoulder. “It’s called being fashionable.”
It’s called always needing to have the last word, Lane thought, but wisely kept that to himself, or they would be bickering all night.
* * * *
Lane was nervous about his family meeting Remy. Not because of anything specific—Remy was a wonderful man whom Lane loved completely, so there was no reason why his family shouldn’t, either. Still, he’d been talking Remy up to Angie and his folks for years, and he wondered if he hadn’t built his lover up to be someone unrealistic in their eyes. Someone unattainable Remy couldn’t hope to compete with.
To make matters worse, Braden’s attitude was back in full force. Remy didn’t want him playing video games while Lane’s family was visiting, so Braden sat on the couch, angry and pouting. He kicked the leg of the coffee table, as if deliberately trying to knock over the wine glasses waiting alongside the plates of appetizers Remy had set out. More than once, Remy walked past and touched Braden’s knee. “Stop it right now,” he warned. But the moment he went away, Braden started up again.
Fifteen minutes after Lane had returned from the airport, alone, Remy checked the time on his phone and asked, “They are stopping by sometime tonight, aren’t they?”
Lane laughed anxiously. “Yeah, right? Angie said she had to freshen up, so you know what that means.”
With a groan, Remy pulled out a stool at the kitchen bar and sat down. “It means if we’re lucky, we’ll see them sometime before midnight. If not…”
Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and Lane almost stumbled in his haste to answer it. As he passed the living room area, he leaned down and ruffled Braden’s hair. “Be nice, for me, will you?” he asked.
“I’m always nice,” Braden grumbled, but Lane saw him uncross his arms, so at least there was that.
When Lane opened the door, Angie stood in front of the others, as usual. Behind her, Ed carried Emma, and their parents stood together. Holding the door wide, Lane said, “Come in, come in! Remy—”
“Hey,” his lover said, immediately beside him.
Lane jumped at Remy’s closeness. When had he crossed the room so fast?
“Welcome.” Remy held out a hand to Angie. “Or, wait, what’s everyone say around here? Aloha. I’m Remy.”
Angie looked at his offered hand for a moment, then brushed it aside. “Screw it, you’re going to be family. I’m Angie.” With that, she stepped up to give him a hug.
Over her shoulder, Remy looked at Lane, surprised. “I’d hug her back, if I were you,” Lane advised. “It doesn’t take much to get on her bad side.”
“I don’t have a bad side,” Angie started, but Ed and Lane both laughed. “What?”
Ed shook Remy’s hand and winked. “Keep telling yourself that, hon. Hey man, I’m Ed. This is Emma.” He turned sideways to show off the baby, and waved her hand at Remy. “Say hi. She doesn’t talk yet.”
Remy laughed. “No, I wouldn’t think so.”
Lane felt his heart swell as the two halves of his family came together—his biological one and his chosen one. “Mom, Dad, this is the man I’ve been talking your ear off about forever now. Remy, my parents. William and Bev Anders.”
“An honor,” Remy said, shaking thei
r hands. Like Angie, though, they also gave him hugs.
As Lane shut the door, Remy directed everyone towards the living room area. “There’s some food and wine, if you’re hungry after your long trip.” Everyone made sounds of approval, and moved towards the recessed sofa and table laden with refreshments. Remy joked, “No baby formula, though. I asked but apparently that’s one thing the hotel restaurant doesn’t carry.”
With a grin, Angie admitted, “I gave her a bottle before we came over. That’s what took so long. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no worries,” Lane assured her.
“Yeah, right,” she quipped. “I’m sure you were all, where’s my damn sis—oh, hello! Who is this?”
Braden still sat on the sofa, looking peeved no one had noticed him earlier or bothered to introduce him before now. Remy came up behind the couch to stand behind him and said, “This is Braden, my son. I apologize in advance if he’s a bit of a pill, but apparently we’re encroaching on his video game time.”
“Da-aad,” Braden cried.
Angie smiled down at the boy. “Hey, Braden. I’m Angie. Can I sit beside you?”
Braden shrugged as if it didn’t concern him one way or the other. Angie sat down, and almost immediately, Ed handed Emma over to her and began fixing both of them little plates of appetizers. Lane came up behind Remy and placed a hand on the small of his lover’s back. “What do you think?” he whispered.
Remy leaned into Lane’s touch. “I like them. I think they like me.”
“I think so, too,” Lane said, kissing the nape of Remy’s neck.
Remy laughed softly. “Now if we can just make sure Braden doesn’t scare them off…”
“So, Braden,” Angie said, fussing over Emma, “how old are you again?”
“Nine.” Braden glanced at her, then at the baby, then stared at the blank television screen.
“What grade is that?” Angie wanted to know.
Braden shrugged. When it looked like he wasn’t going to answer, Remy bent his knee, gently nudging the back of his son’s head. “Did you hear her question?”
