It Takes Two

by Jenny Holiday

  But of course her gaze snagged on Noah’s. He was at the back of the crowd, lounging casually against a tree in his jeans and his pristine white T-shirt like he was the star of a Lands’ End advertising campaign.

  “You never told me what your half marathon time was,” she called.

  “Have you made partner at your firm yet?” he parried, his greeny-brown eyes twinkling the same way they had when he used to tease her.

  “What do you mean yet?” Annoyance flared in her chest. She was only thirty-two—no one made partner that young. But then she was annoyed at herself, because clearly he was trying to redirect her—and he’d succeeded. He hadn’t answered her question about his time, and he’d gotten a rise out of her.

  He shrugged, perfectly, irritatingly nonchalant. “How many weekly billable hours are you doing these days?”

  “Seventy, roughly.” She’d like to see him top that. He was a public prosecutor and so he wasn’t under the pressure lawyers at private firms were to bill a million hours a week. “You?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I get my work done in sixty.”

  Wendy rolled her eyes.

  “What?” He pushed himself off the tree and stood up straight. He had dropped the nonchalance. Good. She’d gotten to him. “I live for my job.” Wendy was startled by the vehemence that had crept into his speech. “It’s the most important thing in my life.” His eyes darted around until they rested on Jane. “Present company excluded.”

  She wasn’t surprised, if his devotion to his stupid grocery store job back in the day was anything to judge by. “Yeah, well, all I’m saying is that seventy is nothing. That’s lawyering lite.”

  “Remember when you used to be shy?” Noah asked, the question a curveball that gave Wendy pause. She did remember. Jane had, just now, told the photographer that Wendy wasn’t a shrinking violet, but that had not always been the case. When Wendy and Jane first became friends, Wendy had pretty much been the definition of a wallflower. Her dad had just died, she and her mom had moved, and she was at a new school—her whole world had been turned upside down.

  She also remembered the day she decided to stop being a wallflower. It had been that day on the dance floor. The day she decided to harden herself. The day she’d become un-hurtable.

  It had been his doing. But Noah didn’t know that. So why was he asking this? What possible relevance could it have?

  Except, maybe, to make her feel self-conscious, and though she and Noah had spent years sparring, their banter didn’t usually have a genuinely mean edge to it. Or at least the banter that came from his side of the court didn’t.

  “Shy?” Cameron saved her from having to answer. “I’ve only gotten to know Wendy in the last year or so, but she seems far from shy to me. Curses like a sailor, this one.”

  That’s right. Thank you, Cameron.

  Noah, who had been looking at her really intensely, like he was trying to solve a riddle written on her face, shook his head as if he’d been woken from a dream. His adversarial grin returned. “Is that so?”

  It wasn’t like she went around looking for opportunities to swear, but yes, it was sort of an occupational hazard. In fact, Jane had gone through several phases of trying to curb Wendy of the habit with various swear jar scenarios. If Noah hadn’t known she cursed often, it was because she went out of her way to avoid him now that she was an adult. The first few times Jane had announced Noah was coming home from college to visit, Wendy had conveniently managed to be out of town. Then she’d just kept it up. The travel itself had become a genuine passion, though, as she’d become more adventurous, more confident. As she’d grown up and seen more of the world, she’d continued the de-wallflowering project that she’d begun the night Noah stood her up.

  “You turned into a bit of a potty mouth, did you, counselor?” Noah asked.

  She raised her eyebrows to match his. “I sure as shit did.” Then she put her hands on her hips. “Counselor.”

  “Okay, great job!” The photographer interrupted their little stand-off. “Who’s next?”

  Wait. What? Wendy looked around, confused. She hadn’t even realized the photographer had started shooting again, and now Jane was shoving Elise toward the makeshift outdoor studio. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, there was some great energy flowing there, and I got some nice shots of you.” The photographer was talking to Wendy but already working on arranging Elise.

  “So you can put away your claws, both of you.” Jane shook her head and looked between them, her smile fond despite her admonishment. “Honestly, I forget how exhausting you two can be sometimes.” She made a shooing motion at Wendy and began fussing over Elise.

  Fine.

  Wendy would put away her claws—for now. Because, honestly, she was exhausted, too.

  Chapter Three

  Noah, can I have a word after you get your drink?”

  Noah turned from the bar at Finnegan’s Wake when Cameron asked his question. “Sure.” After he collected his Guinness, he hoisted it in a toasting gesture and said, “Lead the way.” The pub was full of little alcoves, and he followed Cameron to one around the corner from Jane and her girlfriends.

  “I spoke to your mother before I asked Jane to marry me.” Cameron fiddled with a cardboard coaster on the table. “But now I’m thinking I probably should have asked for your blessing, too. I know Jane asked you to be in the wedding party, but I should have spoken to you myself.”

  That hadn’t even occurred to Noah. He would freely admit that he was a little…intense when it came to his sister’s well-being. It was just that taking care of her had become a habit. So when Jane had called ten months ago, all hemming and hawing and embarrassed, and told him that she had a boyfriend, and that he was a big beefy former-military dude, Noah had practically done a dance of joy in his Manhattan living room. Jane had only ever had one boyfriend—a loser she met in college who, like a persistent infection, stuck around for a while after graduation.

  After that, she’d been single for years. So when she’d brought Cameron along on a visit to New York a few months later and the guy had lived up to—no, surpassed expectations—on the whole “capable of taking care of Jane” front, Noah had practically gone out and bought a ring himself, in order to speed things along.

  “No worries, man. You have my blessing.”

  “I’m not going to be working construction forever.” Cameron picked up the pace on his coaster-fiddling. He was clearly uncomfortable having this conversation with his future brother-in-law. “You know I’m working on an engineering degree.” Noah nodded. That Cameron had gone back to school later in life was admirable, but it didn’t elementally change Noah’s stance on the guy. “Jane is always on me to quit my job and go full-time, because at the rate I’m going, it’s going to take me a while to get through, but I don’t feel comfortable taking her money.”

  That was a great sentence. Noah loved that sentence. Jane was always assuring Noah that she had plenty of money. She’d even taken to mailing him copies of her royalty statements to prove it, which she attached to the uncashed checks he persisted in sending her. He understood with his mind that his sister was more than capable of taking care of herself. But sending money to her and to their mom was a habit so ingrained in him that he couldn’t stop.

  It had started with him sending money home when he’d left Toronto for college in New York. It was the only way he felt comfortable taking the full ride that NYU had offered him. He’d been determined to keep sending them as much as he’d made working at the grocery store in Toronto, so his absence wouldn’t be a burden. Then when Jane had gone to university, he’d tried to help with her tuition as much as possible, and he just…hadn’t stopped.

  Because he couldn’t.

  The fact that her novels had been successful didn’t reassure him the way, say, her taking up a stable corporate job with benefits would have.

  And, really, why shouldn’t he want a secure, comfortable life for his family? They certainly
hadn’t had that in the old days. He had that now—a predictable life he was in control of. It had been hard won. Was it so wrong to want the same for Jane?

  “I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t always been an angel,” Cameron said, drawing Noah back to the present. “Especially as a kid. But one thing I’ve always done is worked hard and pulled my own weight.”

  Damn, this guy was too good to be true. Grinning, Noah clapped his sister’s fiancé on the back before he could do something stupid like engulf him in a bear hug. “You’re a stand-up guy, Cameron. I’m glad Jane has you.” He lifted his beer.

  Cameron heaved a big sigh, like he’d been in confession and received absolution, and reached for his own drink to clink against Noah’s. “Thanks, man. But I don’t want you getting a false impression of me. Jane has her shit way more together than I do. If anyone is getting the long end of the straw in this relationship, it’s me.”

  “Let me ask you a question. Is my sister going to go hungry while she’s with you?”

  Cameron’s eyes widened in surprise, and Noah held up his hand to forestall what he assumed was going to be the same argument Jane always made, that Jane made plenty of money. Yeah, yeah, he’d read the royalty statements, so he understood that, or at least the rational part of his brain did. The part that had brought home old veggies from the grocery store that had been destined for the dumpster before stir frying the hell out of them in order to put dinner on the table? That part did not. Neither did the part that went through undergrad on scholarship and took out loans and worked full time in order to keep the money flowing homeward.

  “Hypothetically,” Noah added, “say my sister’s publisher goes out of business. She can’t sell a new book. Is she going to go hungry on your watch?”

  “Are you kidding me? Hell, no.”

  Ding, ding, ding. “And what will you do if someone hurts her?”

  Cameron didn’t hesitate. “I will find that person, and I will end them.”

  Noah chuckled in satisfaction. This guy was batting a thousand. “Then I think we’re done here.” He started to push back his chair, thinking they would go back and join the others.

  “Not quite.” Cameron leaned in closer. “I also read all your sister’s books and tell her how amazing they are—because they are. And when she’s stiff from sitting in front of the computer all day, I rub her shoulders. And when she’s on a book tour, I move mountains to arrange my schedule so we can Skype every night.”

  “That’s, ah, great,” Noah said, because it was what he was supposed to say. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about that emotional shit. He wasn’t a caveman—he wanted his sister to be happy. But he’d spent more than half his life worrying about her physical well-being, about whether she was going to bed hungry and if she had enough money for the clothes she wanted to buy so she wouldn’t be embarrassed at school. You couldn’t just turn that off like a water faucet. Worrying about Jane wasn’t a burden he could simply set aside. But, hey, he’d gladly share some of it with Cameron.

  He did the back-clapping thing again, not, this time, because he was afraid he’d spontaneously hug Cameron, but because Noah was done with this little moment of bro-sharing. Cameron had passed with flying colors.

  * * *

  Wendy saw her opening and seized it. As unobtrusively as possible after she’d slipped the server her credit card, she started gathering her stuff. Jane had insisted that the wedding party go out for drinks that evening, and there had been no way to get out of it. But Jane had just left to go to the bathroom, and Noah had also disappeared somewhere.

  Noah’s presence had been making her jumpy all evening. She’d purposely sat far from him. Tried not to look at him, even, but it turned out that actively not looking at someone was more work than you might think. The night was winding down and now that both siblings were gone, this was the perfect opportunity for a stealth getaway.

  “Oof.”

  If by “stealth,” she meant crashing into the very man she’d been trying to escape, causing him to spill his beer all over her white-but-not-the-right-kind-of-white shirt.

  “Oh, shit, Wendy! I’m sorry.” His hands shot out to steady her. He probably thought she was stumbling, when in fact she was quite consciously stepping away from him. The collision had taken place in a small hallway that would take her to the pub’s main room and exit. She had been so close to freedom!

  “It’s okay.” She tried to use the force of her mind to get him to take his hand off her forearm.

  His large, warm hand, which was now doing some kind of rubbing thing on her arm that felt way too good.

  “I was just on my way out anyway, so it’s not a big deal,” she said.

  “What?” It was Jane, who had sneaked up on them while Wendy’s attention was on her little arm massage. Wendy quickly snatched her arm from Noah.

  “You can’t leave!” Jane whined. “It’s not even ten!”

  “And you can’t leave until you let me pay you back for this evening.” Noah dug into his back pocket and produced his wallet. He turned to Jane. “I tried to give the server my card, and she told me a Ms. Liu had already left her card info to pay for the entire tab when we close out.”

  Jane, who rarely drank, had had two glasses of wine. She turned to Wendy, her eyes all moony. “Aww. That was so nice.”

  “Nice, but not happening.” Noah tried to hand Wendy a wad of cash, but Wendy held up her hands. It was a reverse robbery, the suspect trying to give her money instead of take it.

  “I’m the maid of honor,” she said.

  “And I’m the brother.”

  “She’s my best friend.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “You guys, stop.” Jane showed each of them a palm. “Were you always this bad? I can’t remember.”

  “I just want you to have the best wedding—and wedding-related events—possible. I’m just trying to do my job.” Wendy was lying through her teeth. There was no rule about maids of honor paying for random wedding party drinks three months before the wedding. Maids of honor were supposed to, like, go dress shopping and plan showers. Neither of which she had done. She should probably get on that.

  “All right. Listen.” Jane turned to her brother. “What’s the tab at now?”

  “Roughly two hundred.”

  “Okay, it’ll probably get to three hundred before everyone leaves. So you guys split it.” She pointed at Noah. “Give her a hundred and fifty bucks.”

  Wendy and Noah both started protesting, but Jane held up a single finger and said, “Do what I say, or I’m paying for the whole thing.”

  “But I’m leaving, and what if the tab gets up past three hundred?” Wendy said. If they were splitting the bill, they were splitting the bill.

  “Oh my God, you guys.” Jane sounded annoyed, her happy buzziness from before no longer in evidence. “I promise that at the end of the night, I’ll make sure you each pay half. Down to the penny if you want, you freaks.” She turned to Noah. “Give her a hundred and fifty dollars.”

  He grumbled, but he did it. Wendy made sure their fingers didn’t touch as they made the transfer.

  “Thank you.” Jane put her hands on her hips and swiveled to face Wendy. “More importantly, you are not leaving yet.”

  “I have a trial starting next week. I have to go home and work.”

  “You are not leaving.”

  Wendy moved on to plan B. “I mean, I wish I could stay, but…” She gestured to herself. Most of what had been a full pint of very dark beer she suspected was Guinness—her favorite, ironically—had spilled on her. She had surpassed damp. She was full-on wet.

  In a white, paper-thin silk shirt. Oh, shit. She crossed her arms over her nipples, which were standing at attention, almost like they knew Noah was in the vicinity.

  He cleared his throat. “Don’t leave because I’m a klutz. Tell you what. I have a T-shirt on under this hoodie.” He unzipped said hoodie. “I’ll give it to you and put the hoodie back on,
and we’ll be good.”

  We will not be “good”! Wendy wanted to protest. But she was struck dumb by the sight of Noah taking off his shirt for the second time today. He went fast this time, though, and the moment she’d adjusted to the eyeful of—she hated to say it—hunky manflesh, he was slipping his arms back into the hoodie.

  Damn. Wendy realized with a start that it had been months since she’d gotten laid. Her most recent friend-with-benefits had broken things off six months ago, when he’d met another woman he was serious about.

  “Noah!” Jane laughingly scolded. “Did it not occur to you to go to the bathroom to change?”

  “Nah. We’re in this back hallway. No one saw—it’s just you and Wendy Lou Who.”

  Wendy Lou Who. Jane called Wendy “Wendy Defendy,” but that was a nickname that had taken root in adulthood, after Wendy had graduated from law school. Noah’s nickname for her was much older. It had flattered her back in the day. Now it just annoyed her. She wasn’t that girl anymore.

  He held out a heather-gray T-shirt. “Your turn.”

  Was she mistaken, or did something flare in his eyes when he said that?

  “Public nudity aside”—Jane punched Noah’s upper arm—“this is the perfect solution.” She beamed as Noah pulled her into a side hug.

  When Noah transformed the half hug into a full-on one, lifting his sister off her feet and banding his arms tightly around her, Wendy’s heart did a funny little flop. Jane and Wendy had bonded, as kids, over the fact that they both had dead dads. They were the founding—and only—members of the Dead Dads Club.

  They called themselves the Lost Girls, a là Peter Pan. Wendy was, of course, the name of one of the protagonists of the books, but the girls had discovered that in the Disney movie universe, Wendy had gone on to have a daughter called Jane, who spent time with Peter in Neverland, too.