February 2025 #3
“That’s actually your grandmother’s rule, but I like it.”
She grinned at me. “I won’t be coming alone. Where food goes, boys follow.”
“That’s fine. I’ll make a salad and dessert.” Her nodding was adorable, and when I saw her eyes fill, I eased her in close. “What’s wrong, bunny?”
Quick sniffling. “I just sometimes, you know, this is my first place and I pay rent and bills and have to cook on designated days and sometimes I just…and I’m going to graduate next year and be a grown-up and have a real job and…
” She hugged me so tight, and I rubbed her back and made sure, as I always did, that I never let go first. “I know this is weak of me, but sometimes, it’s a lot. ”
Once she was wiping at her eyes, I took her little face in my hands. “The door is always open for you. No matter the reason, no matter the time of night, your father and I are here.”
Sam was there then, and she went from me to him, and I ended up with my son draped over me a moment later. Which I loved. And I understood. Sometimes when the world got crazy, having that safe harbor in the storm was important. For my kids, that was home.
Already, once last week, Finn had an overnight assignment in New York, and when Sam and I were in bed, I heard the back door open, followed by the beep of the alarm.
Soon after, the alarm got deactivated, then reactivated, and finally, there were heavy feet on the stairs.
Dobby didn’t bark, which told me it was one of the kids, and because Hannah had never walked that heavy in her life, it was either Kola or Jake.
The fact that Chilly got up from his new favorite place—the heating pad on the wingback chair in our room—to go check; told me it was Kola.
Chilly liked Jake just fine, but he adored Kola.
When he didn’t come back, I knew he was snuggled up.
When I got up in the night, I found my son in his bed and Chilly’s nose sticking out from under the covers in Kola’s arms.
The next morning, I made him and Sam breakfast, and that’s when I learned that Finn was gone. They both left before me since I was meeting a client up in Parkridge.
I was happy whenever Kola or Hannah came home.
Sam loved it too. It was what you were made for as a parent, taking care of your kids.
And Sam liked the times that his entire family was under one roof, safe and whole.
So now, in this moment, he hugged Hannah so tight she let out a little meep of surrender. It was very cute.
We hugged all the kids on the way out, both of mine and the rest, even Finn, who’d made it clear a while ago that he wanted that from me.
Sam—if Finn got a pat from him, he was lucky.
Same with Wick. But from me he wanted tangible evidence that I wanted him in my life, and that was good because I was more than happy to hug the man my son was in love with.
I enjoyed seeing him and Kola in the kitchen looking through the refrigerator for something to snack on until the tacos were ready for Harper and Hannah to pick up.
When I waved goodbye, Kola said he’d see me on Sunday for dinner, and he was bringing Finn, Hannah, and Jake with him. I couldn’t wait.
Since it was a Friday night, there was a lot of traffic downtown, even more because of Valentine’s Day, and Dane suggested that Sam use his lights and siren.
“That’s not a good use of power,” Sam pointed out.
Dane didn’t care; he just wanted to get there. He was hangry at that point.
Getting into Aaron’s building was never easy.
People needed to be checked in, which, I was guessing, they all understood.
What Sam and I had going for us was Hannah.
The doormen, the security detail, they knew her, so always, someone at the desk would say, oh you’re Hannah’s parents, and that would get us walked directly to the elevator that opened on the second floor of their four-story penthouse.
To me, it was too much space for two people, but it was the one they both decided they liked best, so Aaron’s other homes had been sold.
He’d needed them in the past to lead his billionaire playboy lifestyle with, but once married, had wanted a singular place to call home with his beloved.
The penthouse had made the cut, as it was close to work for both him and Duncan, was close to everything, like restaurants and entertainment, was close to his brother and his brother’s wife, was close to friends, including us, and most importantly, it was Duncan’s favorite place in the world to be.
Really, everything else paled beside that one reason.
People thought Aaron Sutter was so cutthroat and merciless, but anyone who really knew him became quickly aware that he was putty in his husband’s hands.
Whatever Duncan wanted, Aaron would move heaven and earth to give to him.
The love was tangible, which was nice to see.
But back to where the elevator always took us.
It would whoosh up like a rocket and stop on the second floor.
The door would slowly open, and there was first a foyer of black and white marble tile, and then, farther in, if you looked straight up, you could see the clouds above you during the day and the stars at night.
The atrium had a glass roof, like a giant solarium, and if you kept walking straight, you would hit a wide white marble staircase leading up to the third floor, where the library went around on four sides, like you were in a really fancy bookstore.
Up again would put you on the top floor, the fourth, where there were double glass doors that opened to an outdoor area where there was a pool and a pool house, a garden, a tennis court, and a breathtaking view of the Bean and Millennium Park.
Was it jaw-dropping? Yes, it was. But like anything, after you’d been there a few times, the wow factor went away and it was simply Aaron and Duncan’s home. And of course, there was Dane.
Always, as soon as we walked off the elevator, Dane’s right eye would twitch like he was having an aneurysm.
My brother was a fan of clean lines. All the commercial buildings he designed, as well as the residential homes, had that in common.
There were no flights of whimsy. The Baroque, classical style of the architecture in Aaron’s home gave him hives.
He didn’t like all the double doors on the second floor.
Aaron’s office, the reading room, their bedroom, or the guest suites.
What was with the stupid frou-frou doors?
And why did every room need a gas fireplace?
Why weren’t there more windows? Floor-to-ceiling ones, especially on the second floor?
These things made Dane murderous, as did the enormous crystal chandelier downstairs that looked like it belonged in Phantom of the Opera, and the narrow marble staircase with a wall on the left and a thick balustrade on the right that you had to take to descend to the first floor from the second.
Why wasn’t there a single staircase that connected every level?
“Because you don’t want people going up and down through your whole house,” I told him the first time we were there years ago. “You want them to stay on the first floor, and you can put one security guard on that single set of stairs and dissuade gawkers.”
Dane found that a waste of space. Aja tried to get him to see the beauty in the architecture from the gilded age, but he was not moved. He much preferred his own two-story penthouse, their ski lodge in Vail, or our house, Sam’s and mine, for its efficient use of space.
That meant small. “He means our house is small,” I told Sam.
“It’s better than living in this museum,” Sam assured me.
“Well said,” Dane agreed wholeheartedly. And it always had to be remembered that our house had been Dane’s first, so clearly there was something about it he’d liked.
I did suspect that the fact that it was a Queen Anne had, after a very short period, started to grate on his psyche. The house was a bit too quirky for him.
But back to Aaron’s home…
The first floor, where everyone else got off, opened outside the penthouse, in an opulent vestibule where there was white marble tile with veins of gold running through it, a lovely seating area that was done all in oxblood leather, with gorgeous million-dollar pieces of artwork on every wall.
The only time I saw the vestibule was when I dropped by unannounced, which wasn’t often.
Now, Sam took off his blue blazer and left it draped over a Chesterfield leather couch in the reading room. Dane, in a not-at-all-Dane move, took off both his tie and suit jacket and left both with Sam’s.
“What’s happening right now?” Aja asked me.
Dane then jogged out of the room.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
She shook her head as Sam darted out of the room to catch up.
Aja put her purse inside the hidden compartment in the end table, keeping only her phone, just like me, and we headed for the balcony that overlooked the first floor leading to the staircase Dane hated.
People always looked up to see who was coming down, which was funny because it was just us.
We weren’t remotely interesting. There were various politicians in attendance, socialites, captains of industry, some local celebrities, and other people who I had never laid eyes on in my life.
The only thing I could say for certain was that all the men were wearing suits, and my husband and brother stood out like sore thumbs.
Aja and I still looked pretty good. I noticed almost immediately that Duncan did have a tie on, but it was thrown over his shoulder, which looked ridiculous, he wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his sleeves were rolled up.
He was also drinking a beer from a bottle.
“Good Lord,” I said when I reached them.
Dane had cashews in his right hand, the same Corona that Duncan had in his left, and he was throwing the nuts up in the air and catching them in his mouth.