Chapter 3
Three
Sitting on the couch in the living room, Eric shoved his phone in his pocket after checking the time.
Laci had been getting ready for about thirty minutes.
He pictured her in the enormous master bathroom with its white marble sink and butter-colored walls.
With her new look she wouldn’t match the sweet and serene decor.
He’d been thinking that the four-thousand-square-foot house seemed massive now that Colin was gone, but it had seemed enormous for just Colin and Laci even when he had been alive.
Laci was around five-foot-three, and she’d been constantly dressed in little girl outfits.
Colin had been about five-seven and trim.
There had been a boyish quality to him. Peter Pan was the name that had come to mind the day Eric had met him.
So the massive house with its antiques and frills had seemed like a stolen castle where any minute a Lost Boy would come tumbling from a closet.
Except Colin wasn’t into Lost Boys. He was into a certain little lost girl that he’d claimed for himself.
Eric thought about the last time Colin had come to Eric’s place.
Eric had a back deck that faced the lake and he’d been reading the Wall Street Journal when Colin had appeared on the path, using a cane with polished silver handle.
By then, Colin had been weak from his illness and chemotherapy and had resorted to using various dapper walking sticks.
Eric had thought the canes, which were occasionally accompanied by a top hat, said a lot about Colin.
When anyone else would have been angry or bitter or just worn out by life’s unfairness, Colin had made a game of not letting the prospect of death dampen his spirits.
The last morning he’d walked over, Eric had stood, ready to give his friend a hand up the steps, but Colin had shaken his head.
“I bought a whole collection of these, and I plan to get my money’s worth,” Colin had joked, slightly breathlessly.
“Very plebeian of me I know, but there you have it. The walking sticks are all quite grand. Wait until you see the one with the wolf’s head.
It reminded me of you,” Colin had said with a small smirk.
Eric had sat back down, smiling. “There are so many pretty sheep in the world. There have to be a few wolves around to eat them up.” It hadn’t been a metaphor that Eric would normally have used, but Colin chuckled deeply as Eric had thought he would. Colin loved fairytales and fantasies.
“So what happened with the little sheep from Portland? Did you gobble her up?”
Eric nodded. “Yes, in all the ways that count. She enjoyed it, then got scared and ran away.”
Colin ambled over to an Adirondack chair and dropped into it, working to catch his breath. “Your problem is you’re too reserved. Which of us is half British again?”
Eric had smirked. He and Colin had both come from old money, but the formality and manners drummed into them by respective nannies and boarding schools had rolled off Colin like rainwater. Eric, on the other hand, could never have pulled off Colin’s impishness even when he’d been a boy.
“I take good care of them, but I don’t treat them like baby dolls. That’s not what I’m into,” Eric had said.
“You don’t need to treat them like baby dolls, but I don’t think it would compromise your iron will to bring a girl a bouquet of flowers or a little piece of jewelry after you’ve spent the weekend chaining her up and whipping her.”
Eric shrugged. “Her reward was to come harder than she’d ever come in her life.”
“And yet she didn’t sign on for endless weekends of the same,” Colin pointed out.
Eric folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t fake emotions I don’t have.”
Colin sighed. “You have emotions, my friend. Since the night I told you about my diagnosis, a day never passes without a call or a text from you. Even while you were in Tokyo. You care for people a great deal, Eric, even if you are abysmal at expressing it.” Colin had run a hand through his light brown hair and leaned forward. “I need a favor.”
“Is this an exercise to prove that I have human emotions?” Eric asked mildly, the corners of his mouth curving up.
“No, it’s a real request. A somewhat serious one.”
Eric’s smile had faded, and he’d leaned forward. “Then yes, of course. What favor?”
“The kind that keeps on giving. An ongoing responsibility.”
Eric hadn’t been daunted. He’d wanted more than anything to do a favor for the man who’d always treated him with the kind of affection usually reserved for a younger brother.
The worst thing in the world had been knowing that his good friend was dying, and there was nothing Eric could do to help him.
“The answer is yes,” Eric said firmly. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
“Committing to a favor before you’ve even heard it? That’s reckless. Very unlike you, Mr. Control.”
Eric waited, knowing that Colin was stalling. If Colin needed to work up his courage to explain what he needed, it must be a very big favor indeed.
“It’s about my precious little girl.”
Eric waited. Since Colin had gotten sick, Eric had kept even more distance than usual between himself and Laci because she interested him in ways that weren’t innocent. The last thing Eric had wanted was for Colin to wonder whether he would try to take up with his wife after his death.
“You know the estate is pretty large and complicated. I’ve mentioned I don’t think she’ll be able to handle it, especially right after she inherits it. She doesn’t have the patience for overly complicated things even during the best of times.”
“I thought you’d decided to put it into a trust for her with Elena Ochoa as the trustee?”
“Elena is a CFO. She also has a dominant husband to serve and children to raise. She’s on the Hills council.
I think overseeing my estate is too much to ask of her.
I’d like you to do it. You have more time.
Also, my little darling can get surly when she’s overtired or pushed too far.
Elena’s kind and intelligent, but I don’t know that she’ll be able to handle Laci in a temper.
You, on the other hand, could squash an uprising led by Attila the Hun. ”
Eric had sat very still, wondering what Colin had in mind for him and Laci. Was it just about controlling the money? Or did Colin assume the arrangement would turn into more?
Eric had experienced cognitive dissonance at the thought of taking on oversight of the estate.
On the one hand, it was the greatest compliment in the world that Colin would put any aspect of Laci’s future into Eric’s hands.
On the other, it was like taking a blade to the heart to recognize that the price of greater access to Laci would be the loss of his closest friend.
“I will do anything you need done,” Eric had said, his voice so thick with emotion that he had to clear his throat to overcome it. “But this new therapy they’re trying is working. You walked all the way over from your place. You couldn’t have done that two weeks ago.”
“It’s working,” Colin had said with a quick nod of reassurance.
“I’m going to survive for a long time. But being ill has been a reminder that a man of means needs to keep his affairs in order.
What if I’d been in a car accident and died suddenly and the will I’d written ten years ago hadn’t been updated?
” Colin had shuddered. “All those cousins tearing at the estate like jackals? Refusing to give Laci a share? They might have tried it. They’re a cold-hearted bunch.
No, no. I have to make sure she’s taken care of forever.
I want everything in order, whether I live for six months or sixty years.
” Colin’s raised hand had shaken slightly just from the exertion of gesturing with it.
Eric had wished again that he could loan his friend some strength.
Colin had leaned back, resting his arms on the armrests. “How long have I been here?” he’d asked.
Eric had glanced at his watch. “About ten minutes.”
“Are you even going to offer me a cup of tea? It really is like you were raised by wolves,” Colin had said dryly.
Eric had laughed. “If you send a note to my mother to that effect, I’ll never hear the end of it.” He’d stood to go in and brew the Darjeeling.
“Thank you, Eric,” Colin had said, and Eric had known Colin was talking about much more than tea.