Six #3
I always enjoyed watching them in any social situation.
They would check on each other across rooms; Dane would smile and give her a head tip, and she would blow him a kiss or crook her finger at him.
When they stood together, normally, she held his hand, and if not, his arm was around her.
They sat together always unless there were place cards, and even then, they would be up and down because one of them thought of something to tell the other.
People stopped seating them apart because it was simply too distracting.
They finished one another’s sentences; she laughed at his jokes, which were horrible; and he was always on time because, as he said, her time was precious to him, so why would he make her wait?
“Jory.”
“Sorry. What?”
“When I had Pedro pick up your cat from Dylan, I took the liberty of having him speak to her about babysitting your kids for you on Tuesday night, and she agreed.”
Pedro Blue was Dane’s assistant—had been for going on five years at this point.
I was proud of myself because I was the one who had chosen him and he was still there and had become invaluable to my brother.
Pedro had recently gotten married in Boston, and the honeymoon to Paris that Dane had sent them on probably cemented his and Dane’s relationship for life.
Pedro had gushed over the phone to me the last time we talked.
“And how was their honeymoon?”
“I didn’t ask.” He squinted at me.
“You didn’t have to ask him how many times a day he got laid, but you could have inquired if he liked the Louvre.”
He grunted.
“Why wouldn’t Aja have this party for her friend on Labor Day when everyone already has a day off?”
“Because first, it’s a dinner party, not a party, party, so that’s different, and it won’t go past ten, if that. Second, much like you, many people go out of town for long weekends.”
“I came home early.”
“That is hardly the point.”
I couldn’t fault his logic. “I’ll be at the dinner party. Go away now so I can get my kids settled.”
“Fine.” He smiled at me. “Drinks are at six, yes?”
“Yes.”
I got a shoulder squeeze, and that was it. Dane didn’t do demonstrations of affection other than with his wife, his kids, my kids, or Aja’s mother, who hugged and kissed him a lot.
By all accounts, Dane’s parents had been very kind, warm people, but they were not the sort that he saw every night or even every week.
His father was a real estate developer, his mother a socialite, and though they cared for him deeply, they were not hands-on.
When his parents had been alive, the three of them laughed and got along wonderfully, but Dane could turn that devotion off and on like a faucet.
Because his parents had wanted him to learn that relationships between employer and employee were transient and not to be counted on, his early life had been filled with rotating staff.
No one was allowed to become permanent. Butlers, maids, gardeners, chauffeurs, and a never-ending stream of nannies had filled his formative years.
I was certain the way he used to change out women was a direct reflection of the nurturing, caregiving women in his life having been swapped out so frequently. Dane did not maintain long-term relationships with anyone but people he had chosen himself—his friends, then me, and finally Aja.
I had been Dane’s assistant for five years before being fired and then told that he was basically adopting me as the little brother he never had.
I changed my last name—Keyes—to Harcourt, and then there were two of us.
Dane had been adopted as an infant; he then turned around and adopted me.
It had always made great sense to me and, I knew, to him.
And everyone who met us for the first time always noted that we looked nothing alike—he was tall and godlike and I was short and not.
But … they never mentioned it to Dane. Me, yes.
Him, absolutely not. Something about the furrow of his brows, the darkness in his eyes, and the solid, unwavering gaze didn’t allow for questions.
Especially not about his family. Better to simply smile and nod.
As I held the door open for him and he reminded me, again, about the alarm, I was going to give him some smart-ass remark about the size of my brain being bigger than a poodle’s so that I could actually retain information when he reached out and put a hand on my cheek.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said softly before he turned and walked away.
“You could just say you love me and you worry about me!” I called after him, chuckling.
He didn’t even glance over his shoulder, and that was endearing for reasons that most people wouldn’t get.
But I understood him so well. Dane demonstrated how he felt about you; he was not big on declarations of devotion.
Anyone could say they loved you, but Dane showed it, and I had always been an action-over-words kind of guy—except where Sam was concerned. From him, I needed both.
I called Kola and Hannah out of the bedroom, and they were excited about the Wii in their room and the PlayStation and the ginormous television set.
“Ginormous?” I repeated.
Kola nodded.
“When’s Daddy coming?” Hannah wanted to know because she was so Sam’s girl, his champion, his cheerleader, and his biggest fan.
“Probably not until next week, B.”
She began the blinking that normally happened before she started to cry, so I grabbed her and pulled her onto my lap for a cuddle.
“Pa, I wanna play hide-and-seek.”
“Okay, and after, should we order pizza and watch a movie?”
“Pizza!” Kola chanted.
“I wanna watch The Wizard of Oz!”
“Not again.” He changed instantly to whining. “You just wanna see the melting part anyway.”
Hannah looked thoughtful. “I should take my water gun in my backpack to shoot at Ms. Brady and check if she’s a witch.”
Kola’s face lit up. “That’s a really good idea,” he said as though he was surprised his sister had come up with it. “You could just shoot anyone who was mean to you.”
Her eyes got huge.
“No,” I told her, then looked at him. “And no. We don’t go around hosing people down with water guns. It’s rude.”
“But what if a person is a witch?” Kola wanted to know.
“Some witches are good,” Hannah chimed in. “Glinda wouldn’t have melted.”
“How do you know?” my son asked her.
“She flew in a bubble, and bubbles are wet when they pop.”
“You float in a bubble,” he corrected her.
“She floated in a bubble,” Hannah amended. “But they are wet.”
He nodded. “Okay. So, then only bad witches melt with water.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, then you should shoot everyone you think is a bad witch with your water gun,” he told his sister.
“No.” I was adamant. “None of that.”
“I think you’re missing the point,” Kola told me, which was one of his uncle Dane’s overused expressions. “We could figure things out much quicker if you just let Hannah use her water gun one time.”
I turned to Hannah. “Do you even have your water gun here?”
Hannah nodded. “Yeah, Uncle Dane brought it for me.”
Of course he had, but for what reason? Why in the world would my brother have taken the time to pack her Super Soaker? The man was so odd sometimes.
“What did you say about the zombies?” Hannah said to her brother as she cuddled with me.
They had obviously been engaged in some sort of discussion while I was talking with Dane earlier, and it was now being revisited.
“When?”
“I asked you if they could push buttons.”
He shook his head. “Oh yeah, and, no, they can’t, only on accident.”
She nodded. “What about climbing ladders?”
“No, they have stiff legs. You hafta bend your knees.”
She nodded, clearly accepting his expert testimony on this subject.
“Pa?”
“Yes, my son,” I said seriously.
“If dinosaurs turned into birds and apes turned into humans, what did fish turn into?”
I really needed Sam home; he could do this for hours, speculation and hypothesis. I was no good at it. “I dunno. What do you think?”
Kola looked at his sister to make sure her voice was heard and included. He never answered one of his own questions without her getting to chime in.
“Big fish?” Hannah offered.
He shook his head, pensive. “Sharks?”
“You said there were sharks already,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, so …” He looked at me. “Pa?”
“Some fish came on land and turned into dinosaurs,” I told him. “I think. Or something like that. You should have asked Milton while we were in Arizona.”
“Oh yeah, huh.”
“You could email him.”
He nodded. “I think you’re right though ’cause in my book, Dimetrodon was a fish and then a lizard and then a dinosaur but they’re in the same family as mammals.”
My kid with the memorizing of the dinosaur names. “There, you see?” I felt validated because my nearly six-year-old kid had agreed with me.
“Okay, so then fish don’t count.”
“Meaning?”
“They just stayed fish,” he concluded.
“Some stayed fish,” I corrected, hoping I was right.
“That’s correct.” Hannah nodded, putting that part of the discussion to bed.
“Then what about bugs?”
“Like, what did bugs turn into?”
“Yeah.”
“Robots?” I offered after a second. “Transformers?”
He started giggling. “I don’t think you get evolution, Pa.”
No, probably not, but he hugged me so tight and kissed my cheek, so really, I didn’t care.