4. Good Hands
4
GOOD HANDS
“ W hat are you doing with your family today?” Coy asked Spencer the next morning.
His best friend came in around nine last night while he’d been watching TV, walked into his kitchen, snagged a beer, and joined him on the couch.
They didn’t talk, just watched the baseball game, and then both went to bed.
That’s what he loved about Spencer. There was no need for them to entertain the other. They were as comfortable together as they were apart.
Spencer grabbed the coffee that had just been brewed under Coy’s coffee station. One of his splurges. His brothers said he was bougie. He said he liked the finer things in life.
“No clue,” Spencer said. “It’s nice to see my parents, but I don’t need to run around and be entertained on the island I’ve visited enough for years. I know where everything is and what to do.”
Coy laughed. “I doubt they are going to want to spend any time in the casino.”
Where he and Spencer normally ended up on those visits for a few hours.
“No,” Spencer said. “At least not during the day. They were talking about going to Cape Cod. The last thing I want to do is fly here and then run around and sightsee. I’d rather chill out and relax, but it’s not as if Angel’s apartment is big enough or has a nice spot for it.”
“Come here,” he said.
“What?” Spencer asked.
“I said come here. Hang out here. I’m going to my parents for the day. Call everyone and tell them to have a cookout here. I won’t intrude.”
“My parents won’t feel right about that,” Spencer said. “They will think they are kicking you out of your house.”
He laughed. “Seriously. I don’t give a shit. You know that.”
“I know,” Spencer said. “Let me give them a call. If you’re really okay with it?”
“Do I ever joke about this shit?”
“No,” Spencer said.
Coy got up and went to the kitchen to make another coffee while Spencer went out on the deck to call his parents. No reason for him to listen in. He didn’t care all that much.
When he was back in the living room with his coffee and ESPN on watching sports highlights, Spencer returned.
“What did they say?”
“They loved the idea and hoped they’d at least get to see you.”
“Sure,” he said. “Whatever works. I’m going to my parents’ house around noon. They can come over at any point. Make yourself at home. You know where everything is. Use what you want too. You do anyway, so pass that on.”
“My mother said she and Angel would run to the store and get food for a cookout. I told her to just get the basics, that you had everything else needed here.”
“Good,” he said. “Now that that is settled, come sit and tell me what is on your mind that you didn’t want to say last night.”
Spencer laughed and sat in the chair opposite where Coy was on his sectional with his feet up.
“I hate how you know that,” Spencer said.
“You know when I’ve got stuff on my mind too.”
“True,” Spencer said. “You’re going to watch out for Angel, right?”
“Of course,” he said, frowning. “You know that.”
“You’re not going to let any dude mess her up or give her a hard time? Maybe not even get too close without scoping them out?”
He paused for a second. That was asking a lot.
Especially since he realized what a beautiful woman Angel turned out to be.
Jesus, he was going to have a hard enough time not looking at her, and now he’d have to try to keep other men away?
“I’ll try,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going to be trailing after her all the time. I’ll see her at work and I don’t take too kindly to patients hitting on my staff.”
Nor him. He’d had it happen for years and it drove him insane.
He could be friendly and was. He wasn’t out to find his forever mate while he was working in someone’s mouth.
“No one better be hitting on my sister while she’s working,” Spencer said seriously. “Don’t you have security or something for that?”
He started to laugh. “Yeah, me,” he said. “I’m the security. No one messes with me and they know it. I’ve got no problem kicking patients out of my practice if they are rude or inconsiderate to my staff. Don’t worry about that.”
He’d done it a few times and had no qualms about doing it again.
“Good to know,” Spencer said.
“What else is on your mind?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I just hate that she’s grown up now.”
“Angel?” he asked.
“Yes,” Spencer said. “That’s who we are talking about.”
“She’s been grown up for years,” he said, laughing. “She’s twenty-six, right?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said. “Her birthday was over the summer, you know that.”
He knew that Spencer had flown home to celebrate. He’d been shocked that Angel hadn’t had a job yet when she graduated. Most had things lined up.
But she’d said she was going to take a few weeks to decompress and look around. He understood that too.
His last year of college, his father was already getting Coy’s practice ready to open the doors. The building part of it based on what Coy had designed.
Once he was home, he was interviewing and hiring staff, then lining up patients.
He didn’t actually start working on patients right away either, as there was too much to get ready.
“I did,” he said. “The last time you were home. Or the first time all year.”
“No reason to go home,” Spencer said. “I like where I am. Now that Angel is close, I can fly in on the weekends and check on her. Get reports from you too. As much as I hate that she’s grown up, she’ll be in good hands with you. It’s almost the same as if I was here.”
No way, Coy thought. But he’d never say that.
If his buddy knew that Coy had a fleeting moment of noticing how sexy and attractive Angel was, Spencer would pack his baby sister up in the bubble wrap he always said he wanted to keep her in, and fly her to some remote Alaskan town.
“If you say so,” he said, smirking. It was the best answer he could come up with.
“I do,” Spencer said. “You know why I am the way I am with her.”
He sighed. “I get it. If I had a younger sister I’d be the same way. You know I almost did.”
Spencer was one of the few people that he’d told his mother lost her fourth child. It was a little girl. There’d been no more after that. It’d been too painful.
Coy was four years younger than Drew and it’d taken longer for his mother to get pregnant then. Even longer for her to conceive what would have been his little sister.
“I know,” Spencer said. “And you would have treated her the same if you were in my situation.”
“I would have,” he agreed, “but remember Bode and Drew would have been worse than me. I would have ended up being her best friend. Have you ever given your sister a chance to see you as her friend and not the protective older brother?”
Spencer frowned. “She’s got friends, she doesn’t need another one.”
“I’m not saying she doesn’t. I’m saying that maybe as adults you two can have a different relationship than what you’ve had prior.”
Spencer shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Depends on the first dickhead guy she tries to introduce me to. But I expect you to give me the lowdown on them first.”
Coy laughed. “You know she’s had boyfriends. You’ve complained about it for years.”
“I don’t think they were anything serious. I mean, I know they existed. I heard their names, but no one who came home for the holidays or that she went to their places for holidays. My parents or I only met them when we visited her in college if she even had a boyfriend at that time.”
“And were they all dickheads?” he asked, grinning. Spencer was always laid back and funny. But when it came to Angel, he was just a different person.
He supposed knowing how Angel looked now and that she’d caught his eye, it might be harder.
“No,” Spencer said. “Just not for her either.”
“How do you know what your sister needs or wants or is a good match?” he asked. “It’s not as if you’ve gotten to know her as a friend.”
“Asshole,” Spencer said, laughing. “Good point. But I still expect you to watch out for her. I want to know of any guy she dates and your thoughts on him.”
He snorted. “First, I’m not liable to even know if she goes on a date. And second of all, how the hell am I going to meet them? Ask them to come into the practice so I can give them the honorary big brother once over?”
“Exactly,” Spencer said. “You’re a Bond. On this island, they will be intimidated by you.”
Not what he wanted to hear.
He wasn’t one for throwing his weight around. He hated that his name did that without him even trying half the time.
“Whatever works,” he said.
No reason to keep up this conversation right now. He’d do what his best friend asked of him because they’d always had each other’s back. But he wasn’t going to be a jerk about it either.
Angel was his employee first. His best friend’s baby sister second.
She wouldn’t want to be treated any differently for their history than he wanted to be for his name.
End of story.
Or so he was telling himself.