by Trina Solet
Behind the wild rosebush was a mysterious little space just big enough for the three of them to stand in. Treasure was all around. Some of it was stuck in the branches of the rosebush. It wasn't years worth of stuff, maybe a month or two. Nate guessed since their other nanny had been gone. Unfortunately a lot of the books had swelled up from getting wet. Only one or two still kept their shape. Those were probably the ones Georgie threw down here more recently.
"Georgie!" Ricky said, upset to see the state of his books.
"They look funny," Georgie said as she jumped to try to catch the ones in the rosebush.
"It's not funny," Ricky scolded her while Nate took over getting the books down.
"You can still read them," Nate said, leafing through a few. Seeing that some of the books were old and had really nice illustrations, Nate was sorry to see them damaged.
Georgie was more interested in the other things she found. There was a small plastic clock with feet and insect antlers that would probably never work now. Gasping in surprise, Ricky took it from Georgie, who was ready to fight him for it.
"It's from Mommy!" Ricky told her.
All she said was, "Give it!"
Nate distracted her with a small, mother-of-pearl kaleidoscope that had somehow survived intact. It held her attention for two seconds. She grabbed a wooden biplane that could only be called weather-beaten now. Nate had rescued it from the rosebush. Georgie held it high in the air.
"That's mine," Ricky said, but he let her keep it.
Ricky's backpack was full now, but he insisted on carrying it as well as holding on to some of his more precious books for safekeeping. As they went back to the house for a snack and to drop off their loot, Nate lectured Georgie.
"Georgie, you are not to throw any more things out the window. Are you listening?"
She heard him, but Nate could tell that she was going to have trouble obeying.
"If you are good, we'll all throw some stuff out the window, better stuff, stuff that goes kablewey. But no throwing anything out the window by yourself." Nate was thinking they might make some paper airplanes but he knew that wouldn't hold Georgie's attention for long. Maybe water balloons would.
They arrived at the front steps just in time to catch Brent walking John to the door.
"Good work," John said and kissed him on the cheek.
"That's all I get?" Brent said as John left with a backwards wave.
Georgie ran ahead to herald their arrival.
"Look, Daddy! We have treasure," she announced as she ran to him. She had stuffed a few things in her hat and held it out for her dad to see.
"You are my treasure. You are my little treasure, and Ricky is my big treasure," Brent said just as Ricky came up the steps, his arms loaded down with his misshapen books. Seeing the books fanned out from getting wet, Brent asked, "Is this your handiwork, Georgie?" "Aha," she said with pride.
"Don't be proud of yourself. You're a menace," Brent said and tickled her.
"That will teach her," Nate said while Georgie giggled.
As the kids ran inside to fight over the treasure, Brent looked at Nate accusingly.
"You didn't save me from John. Again."
"John is not the enemy. And the kids need snacks."
"Do kids need to be fed all the time or something?" Brent asked.
"No, you just water them once a week."
"I want a snack too," Brent said as he followed him to the kitchen.
Since the maids were still busy inside, Nate decided that they should take their food outdoors. Ricky knew where the picnic blanket was and got it. Georgie had emptied her pink, floppy hat and put it back on her head. As they walked to the kids' favorite picnic spot, Ricky held one of his swollen books protectively while Georgie tried to steal it away from him. To keep her out of trouble, Brent picked her up and put her on his shoulders. That made her happy. She grabbed at the tree branches as they passed under them and threw down clumps of leaves, some of which got stuck in Brent's hair.
The picnic spot was on the edge of a clearing under one of the largest trees. Ricky tried to read while Georgie tried to wrestle with him. He had to climb up a tree to escape her.
"I didn't realize he climbed trees in self defense," Nate said. It did seem to neutralize Georgie.
"She isn't allowed to climb, but she will still try. Ricky knows which trees are out of her league," Brent explained.
Nate confirmed that none of the lowest branches were within Georgie's reach. She tried but couldn't find any handholds. She gave up and started throwing stuff up at Ricky. Luckily she couldn't throw anything high enough to reach him. As they watched the kids, Brent leaned against Nate and pulled Nate's arm to rest over his chest.
"You know how to make yourself comfortable," Nate told him. It wasn't an objection.
"I do." Brent looked up at him, and Nate had to force himself to look away. He could still feel Brent's warm, muscular body against him. That was more than enough. Brent was holding on to his arm like he was afraid Nate would pull it away. Nate decided the arm could stay where it was. As he reclined with Brent in this idyllic setting, Nate wondered if this was really his job. He got to play with children and lie around with their gorgeous father. Nice work if you can get it.
That afternoon, Nate searched the upstairs unsuccessfully. After he continued his search downstairs, he spotted Brent.
"OK. Where did you hide the TV's?" Nate asked him.
"There is a big screen in there." Brent pointed to the dark, double doors that led to an oval room with elegant but comfortable seats arranged for watching a giant TV screen.
"I found that one," Nate told him. "You can see it from orbit."
"I have one in my bedroom. It's mainly for porn. You are welcome to come and watch it any time you like."
Nate decided to ignore all the implications of that offer.
"And the rest of them?"
"There is only one more. It's behind a panel in the office. I'll show you."
"Three TV's in a house this big?" Nate asked in disbelief.
"Greta wasn't a fan of TV watching. That's why the kids have grown up mostly without it. We do watch movies in the TV room. But Greta didn't want 'their little, unformed minds stifled on a daily basis with the extended advertisements that pass for children's entertainment,'" Brent quoted.
"I guess she never got to see Adventure Time. But what's keeping the kids from watching now, other than the scarcity of TV's in this house?" Nate asked.
Brent smiled sadly.
"I don't like to reverse Greta's rules. It would be like I was trying to erase her from their lives."
"Not really," Nate disagreed offhandedly. "Depriving them of TV won't do them any harm, I guess. But you let them watch on your phone." Nate had seen him give it to Ricky to use.
"I indulge them a little. If you want to do things differently, I'm not opposed to it. Pam was happy to follow Greta's rules. I was too. You don't have to. I trust you to make the right decisions."
"Thank you," Nate told him. He had actually opened his mouth to say something else. He was going to point out to Brent that he made it sound like he trusted Nate more than he trusted himself. In the end, Nate decided there might be too much truth to that. Instead he decided that Adventure Time was tailor made for Ricky and maybe Georgie too. He would load up on some episodes and start corrupting the kids as soon as possible.
After the kids went to bed that night, Brent issued his invitation again.
"Come hang out with me," he said to Nate.
Since he didn't make it sound dirty, Nate took him up on it.
Though it was dimly lit, Nate could tell that Brent's room wasn't really a bedroom. It was a master suite. French doors with unusually placed slats led to a large balcony. Another set of French doors separated the huge bedroom from an adjoining sitting room, which went through to the balcony as well. The bed was luxurious, and the headboard was a work of art. It went up halfway to the ceiling. Sections of wood in varying fini
shes had been layered and fitted into an intricate, sweeping pattern. Nate had to run his hand over it. Its design seemed to have inspired the rest of the decor. None of the pieces matched, but they all suited each other perfectly. After the headboard, Nate's eye was drawn to a large tapestry hanging on one wall. It depicted a hunter and a stag captured at the moment just before the arrow leaves the hunter's bow.
"Ricky and Georgie found that for me. It was stashed in the attic," Brent said of the tapestry. "Greta wouldn't have liked it. Maybe it was an unwanted gift."
Nate went closer to examine it. He wondered if it was an antique.
"Which one are you?" he asked Nate.
"What?" Brent's mind had wandered.
"The hunter or the stag?" Nate turned to watch Brent as he answered.
Brent opened his mouth. Nate was sure he was about to say that he was the hunter of course, but then changed his mind.
"The stag. See how he's just waiting there." Brent stared at the animal. Just as he said, it did seem to be waiting.
"Maybe he's about to run," Nate suggested.
"That's me too. Though not lately." Brent looked at Nate meaningfully.
To neutralize that meaningful look before he was forced to throw himself into Brent's waiting arms, Nate looked at some of the things that were displayed around the room. Two porcelain masks were sitting side by side on top of a dresser.
"We took our honeymoon during the carnival," Brent said to explain the masks.
"Rio?"
"Venice."
"That's not the good one," Nate told him.
Next to the masks was a sepia photo of two people in period costumes. At first Nate couldn't tell that it was Brent and his wife. Greta was dressed in a flapper costume while Brent looked like a gangster. He was holding a Tommy gun. His hair was dyed black and he had a mustache. Smirking evilly, he looked damn sexy. Greta wore a short, blond wig. Even in those matching costumes, they seemed mismatched. Nate wondered what the photo meant to Brent. It was the only one of the two of them in the room. Was their marriage a complete masquerade? When Nate wondered aloud what kind of marriage the two of them had, Brent didn't mind telling him.
"We made it work. You may not believe this, but I was a hundred percent faithful though Greta never said I had to be. I felt it was only fair. She made things pretty easy on me. And she gave me Georgie and Ricky."
"So you married for money?" Nate said. By the look on Brent's face, he could tell that it bothered him. He had grown serious.
"I didn't know how to live without it. Whenever I went after a job, I felt like everyone could see right through me. They knew I was useless, that I wasn't fit for honest work. A friend got me this job at a café he co-owned. The manager didn't want me there, and I had trouble getting the hang of things. The manager said if I didn't quit, he would find a reason to fire me. He said I was just dead weight. I was afraid he might accuse me of stealing, and I would end up in jail so I quit. Later, a friend of my dad's offered to set me up with my own place, away from his wife and kids. He let me know that in addition to keeping him happy, I might need to entertain a few of his friends. I said no way. But I got scared. I didn't know what my answer might be when I ran out of things to pawn and ended up homeless. Then Greta came along and made me a nice offer so I said yes."
As he spoke, Brent looked to Nate for understanding. Nate could see how young he was even now. And in Brent's eyes, Nate could see the desperation that had consumed him. It was difficult for Nate to imagine having no one to turn to. Hearing about Brent's troubles, Nate felt grateful for his friends and every member of his family who would be there for him if he needed them. Thinking about how alone Brent must have felt, Nate wanted to reassure him, to take away his shame and guilt and any remaining fear. He put his arm around Brent's shoulders. Standing side by side, they turned to look at each other. Brent must have seen at least some understanding in Nate's eyes because he smiled.
Now that he had a clearer picture of what had driven Brent into a marriage of convenience, he wondered about Greta.
"But why did she want a marriage like that?" Nate asked.
"Why not? I'm a great guy to be married to," Brent said, but then he got more thoughtful as he explained. "I think she got burned pretty bad by Ricky's father. He was always off somewhere. Half the time they weren't even on the same continent. He was gone all the time, and then he got himself killed. The next time around, she wanted a more stay at home kind of guy. And I was happy to oblige."
"She wanted someone who wouldn't break her heart," Nate realized.
"And I never did," Brent said.
"Do you regret marrying her?" Nate asked and sat on the bed. Brent came to sit next to him.
"Not for myself," Brent said. He leaned back and put his arms under his head. Nate tried to ignore the bulge of his muscular arms. Brent was staring at the ceiling and didn't notice Nate ogling him as he spoke. "I think she cheated herself out of finding someone to love so that she could spend the time she had left with that person."
"But that wasn't up to you. It was her choice," Nate pointed out though he thought it was sweet of him to want more for her than she was willing to settle for.
"At the end, she did tell me that she didn't regret marrying me," Brent said and turned toward Nate, who was leaning on one elbow next to him.
"You said it yourself. You're a great guy to be married to."
"Want to see what all the fuss is about?" Brent said. He spread out his arms and looked up at Nate like he was offering himself on a silver platter.
"You owe me two dates," Nate reminded him.
"I took you on a picnic."
"The kids took us on a picnic," Nate told him. He did lie down next to him.
"OK. I'll wait. Just tell me when," Brent said.
As if to prove he could be a gentleman, Brent only reached over to take his hand and brought it to his chest, not lower as Nate thought he was going to. Nate could feel the powerful beating of his heart. It turned out that's what Brent wanted.
"Feel that? That's for you," he said. "My heart is beating for you now."
Nate turned toward him, but Brent wouldn't meet his gaze. He stared at the ceiling as his beautiful eyes gleamed in the dim light. Nate indulged himself and watched him until his eyes closed.
Chapter 6
In the middle of the night, Nate had woken up in Brent's bedroom and sneaked away to his own. Strangely, it was more disorienting to wake up in his own bed the next morning, maybe because it was still new. Mainly he was unsettled because his head was still full of Brent. The way Brent had talked to him seemed so intimate. Nate had noticed that about him before, how he seemed to give himself freely. He wondered if Brent was that way with everybody. It was a jealous thought. Nate wanted Brent's openness to be only for him. "It's too soon for that, idiot," he told himself.
It was Sunday morning. After he got up, Nate went in search of the kids. He found Georgie on the floor of her room, playing with her dolls. She was making them dance and scolding them if they did it wrong. As soon as she noticed Nate watching her, she wanted to make him play with her. She was willing to let him have some of her lesser dolls.
While she decided which dolls she would let him take charge of, Nate looked around her room. Just as Nate had noticed in Ricky's room, the furniture wasn't little kid stuff. There were expensive looking inlays and veneers in a lighter finish than in the rest of the house. There were also crayon marks and scratches, evidence of spills. Seeing him looking at her marked up desk, she pointed with her little forefinger at a corner.
"It's Ariel," she said.
Nate saw that her desk was inlaid with a figure of a mermaid on all four corners. There was also a mermaid lamp on her nightstand and two vintage ads featuring mermaids on her walls.
"Do you know how hard it is to find mermaid art that isn't indecent?" Brent asked from behind him.
"That's what Disney is for," Nate told him though Ariel was well represented. There was more than one Ari
el doll as well as a bobblehead.
Georgie went up to her father and jumped in place until he picked her up.
"Are you ready for breakfast?" Brent asked her as she hung around his neck.
They collected Ricky and went down. From the top of the stairs Nate had been able to smell something good. It turned out that Quin and John were making Sunday breakfast together in the kitchen. Their first words of greeting were to tell Brent and the kids to stay out of their way. The four of them sat at the table and drank orange juice and coffee. At the stove, John and Quin were wrapped up in what they were doing and each other. Nate noticed how the two of them worked together and argued over little things. Sometimes they sent a reprimand their way when Brent or the kids pestered them, but mainly they were just spending time together. When Nate turned away from them, he saw Brent watching him.
"You think it's as good as it looks?" Brent asked him.
"The bacon and waffles or the two of them?" Nate said. He knew it had to be something wonderful to be with someone like that, to make your own little world together.
Once they got the go-ahead, Brent and the kids practically sprinted to the stack of waffles by the stove. Nate followed with more decorum though his mouth was watering. Quin and John had already loaded up their plates and had gone to eat in the small dining room since the breakfast table wouldn't seat all of them. There was also a big dining room that seated twenty. Soon they were all sitting together and watching Georgie massacre bacon. She bit every piece of bacon on Brent's plate and her own but didn't finish any of them.
"Show that bacon some respect," Quin told her.
After breakfast, John and Quin had disappeared. Brent was chasing Georgie through the halls while she squealed. Before Ricky could join the fun, Nate decided to conscript him.
"Give me a tour of this place," Nate told Ricky. He had seen most of it but not everything.
