Chapter Thirty-Seven
thirty-seven
Ridley
■ 25-DEC ■ Trans-Continental Airways ■ Flight: 28 ■
JFK-John F. Kennedy Int’l Airport ? DEN-Denver Int’l Airport
Seat Assignment: 3A
“Dad! Granddad is going on the intermediate run, can we go?” Bea ran into the room like a pack of ravenous dogs nipped at her heels. In reality, it was only her two girlfriends pulling up the rear.
Ridley sat at the oversized kitchen island-cum-breakfast bar in Gavin’s palatial kitchen, checking his phone. After his text from the rental car counter telling Lanie he’d arrived safely at Denver International, other than a quick emoji-laden reply, he hadn’t heard from her. He wanted to believe she was being mindful of his time here with Bea. Fair enough . He smiled to himself. Bea frowned a little at his dreamy expression.
He straightened. “It’s been a few years since you skied. You think you’re ready?”
Bea huffed indignantly as if he’d asked her if she needed her diaper changed. “Well, Dad,” she said slowly, so his addled old man brain could fully grasp what she was saying. “I don’t ski, I snowboard.”
Ridley heard a stifled snort. He glanced to his side at the sound of barely concealed snickering, only to see Gavin and his personal chef, Dorothea, trying valiantly to keep straight faces as they huddled over the evening’s menu behind him.
“Bea, watch that tone.”
Bea hazarded a quick glance at her girlfriends then slid the hand that had snuck suspiciously close to her hip back down to her side. When she opened her mouth next, she sounded a lot closer to her fourteen-year-old self and a lot less like a twenty-year-old. “We’ve been practicing on the bunny slope since we arrived. And I can do it. Ask Gavin.”
Gavin perked up at his name as if he hadn’t already been following the progress of the conversation. “They’re ready for the intermediate. I vouch for them all.”
Ridley didn’t really need to consider it. Thyra had said as much years ago when she and Bea used to go with friends to Glenshee in Scotland. But the whole snowboarding thing had been an interest Bea shared with her mother.
He nodded. “Okay. Have fun, ladies. Ask your nan to take pictures.”
The girls let out squeals of delight and ran out of the room.
“Sorry for butting in.” Gavin broke the silence after Dorothea left the room too.
Ridley placed his phone face down on the countertop and turned to Gavin. Gavin seemed to be working up to something and Ridley realized he could use the distraction. Despite his rationalizations, right now he felt like a spurned lover waiting on a call back from the one he’d given it up to.
Because that’s what I am, right? The thought disturbed him.
Had he hurt Lanie? He could tell she was surprised by how amorous he’d been. He cringed inwardly now thinking of how much he’d wanted her. How obvious he’d made that. He’d probably scared her off being so forceful, and she was too sweet to tell him so. Or maybe asking to be her plus-one was too forward and he’d made her uncomfortable.
Am I being ghosted?
“Aronsen?”
Ridley perked up, his attention having wandered away again. “Hmm?”
“I said, I’m trying to, as my therapist called it, ‘find the balance between parental figure and friend.’”
Ridley tried not to so immediately bristle at any reference to Gavin being Bea’s parent. If he was ever going to leave her in Gavin’s custody for any length of time, for any reason, the man would need to learn some “parenting” skills.
Ridley sighed. “As she gets older, it becomes harder for me to strike that balance too.”
Gavin’s eyes widened at the admission.
“You’re surprised?” Ridley chuckled. “Why?”
“You mean to say King Shit Ridley doesn’t always know exactly how to parent at every moment?”
Even curses sounded absurdly pompous coming out of Gavin’s mouth. So much so that instead of getting angry, Ridley laughed. Really laughed . Like, thigh-slapping, gut-busting, falling-out-of-your-seat laughing. It was almost unhinged and definitely more than the comment deserved, but Ridley couldn’t stop, as if relieving a pressure valve. Gavin stared at him astonished. Soon, it became contagious, infecting Gavin as well. They both howled.
When minutes later their laughter had finally subsided, Ridley could barely breathe. “Is that how you see me?”
“Aronsen, you’re joking, surely? You’re the perfect man. Perfect husband, perfect father, perfect doctor.” Gavin reached into a mini-fridge built into the underside of the gigantic island-slash-chef’s station and retrieved two bottles of beer.
Ridley took the one proffered and automatically popped off the cap using his palm and the edge of the countertop, right as Gavin extended a bottle opener to him.
“What the fuck?” Gavin snapped.
“Sorry,” Ridley said sheepishly, smoothing a hand along the stone counter, checking for chipping. “I think it’s fine.”
“Not that,” Gavin said, rolling his eyes. “I mean I just finish saying that you’re like some prototypical Marlboro Man and then you go and do that?”
It was Ridley’s turn to be dumbfounded.
“Can’t you stop being a slab of American beefcake for one moment to open your beer bottle like a normal person?”
He’d never thought of himself like that before. He took care of himself, but apart from Lanie openly ogling him for the past two days, it had been years since he’d even thought about his physique. He shouldn’t be flattered, he knew, yet he was. “I learned how to do that from an Irishman,” he offered. “If that helps at all?”
“It doesn’t.” Gavin sipped his beer, leaning against the counter. “But do have some respect, this is Van Gogh granite.”
Ridley reexamined the turquoise-and-cream countertop, running a finger along the rust-colored veining and shrugged. “Nice?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Gavin said superciliously, sounding much more like the guy Ridley knew.
“And that’s your problem right there. Can you stop being such an overweening prat all the time?”
“Ouch,” Gavin said, touching his chest but not looking offended in the least. “The gloves have come off, have they?”
“I don’t see why not? Bea’s out.”
Ridley wanted an outlet for his general annoyance. Since he’d arrived, Gavin had gone out of his way to be a frustratingly gracious host. He said nothing when Ridley turned up on his doorstep unannounced and had seemed almost happy to see him. The fuckin’ dick.
“Fine. Maybe now you can finally remove that stick from your arse.”
Ridley snorted. The gloves were well and truly off.
“Do you know what it’s like to exist in the shadow of Ridley the Great?”
“First I’m ‘King Shit,’ now I’m ‘Ridley the Great.’ Forget a chip, you’ve got a boulder on your shoulder, Gavin.”
Gavin took a swig of his beer as if working up some courage. “Ever since Harvard, I’ve had to deal with being compared to you. Do you know what that was like?”
“For a proud, blue-blooded white man such as yourself, it must have really burned.” Ridley arched an eyebrow.
Gavin paused with the beer to his lips and smirked. “I don’t see color. I wasn’t raised that way.”
Ridley only rolled his eyes but hearing white people say things like that always made him want to throw up. “I think that fantasy has always been a part of your problem. And all this ‘living in the shadow’ nonsense could only be about losing Thyra because we weren’t ever classmates, and you were born white, male and goddamn rich.” He rubbed his thumb and index fingers together. “This is me playing the world’s smallest violin for you.”
Gavin glowered from behind the brown bottle in his hands.
Ridley heaved an exasperated sigh. “You cheated on her, man! What did you expect her to do? Stay?”
“I loved her!”
“Not enough to keep it in your pants, apparently.” Ridley shook his head. “Imagine having a woman so dedicated that she would follow you across an ocean, reorder her entire life, apply for new fellowships and alter her entire specialization to go to the same school as you, and all you can think to do is chase every skirt in the place? I’d have left your ass too.”
“And that certainly worked out for you, didn’t it?”
Ridley scoffed, though he knew exactly what Gavin meant.
“You were younger than us, and a med student to boot, but you got incredibly lucky and stole her away from me. Admit it, you were lying in wait.”
He had been. Thyra was magnetizing: older, foreign and more captivating than any woman he’d ever met. Ridley couldn’t fathom how a man could treat her like gum on the bottom of his shoe, trying to shake her off as soon as they hit Cambridge. He would have been an idiot to let any opportunity with her pass him by.
“We were friends first,” Ridley insisted. “You and I were friendly too, in case you forgot.”
Gavin rolled his eyes. “But I saw through you pretty quickly.”
“The only thing you saw was the next pretty undergrad you could charm with that accent of yours.”
“You make me sound like a predator.” Gavin’s pride was wounded.
“Technically I guess you weren’t, but you were damn unethical. I hope you’ve had the sense to change since then.”
“I am happy to report that I’m currently only dating age-appropriate women,” Gavin stated proudly. “I’m trying to be like you, Aronsen. Stable, secure, sensible.”
The irony of that statement was like a kick in the gut. But Ridley wouldn’t embarrass himself by revealing that to Gavin. How for so many years he’d compared himself unfavorably to Gavin, measuring all his successes against Gavin’s. Forever trying to make sure he provided Thyra and Bea some semblance of the lifestyle they might have had if Thyra had chosen Gavin instead. How every achievement and accolade was held up to scrutiny by the light of Gavin’s most recent accomplishment at the time. It was beyond laughable to learn now that he thought Ridley was a better husband, father or doctor. He was all of that precisely because he’d convinced himself that Thyra would realize she’d made a mistake in choosing him. It was a burden he’d borne for years—only finally throwing off some of that crushing weight after she died.
Particularly because he refused to give up his parental rights, for so many years Ridley lived in fear of Gavin. Always worried Gavin would swoop in and take back the life Ridley had convinced himself he’d stolen. That’s why it felt especially scary, Ridley realized in this very moment, when Gavin returned after Thyra died. And why it worried Ridley to see Gavin and Bea and her grandparents getting along so well on this trip. It was Ridley’s darkest fears come to life.
“Truly, Aronsen, I’m taking my cues from you. Not only in parenting but in how to be a better partner this time around.” Gavin held up his half-empty bottle in salute. “Here’s to fawning, flattery and faithful devotion.”
“Whatever.” Ridley brushed Gavin’s faux compliment off with a smirk, shaking his head. Then he begrudgingly gave Gavin’s bottle a little clink against his own. And the impostor syndrome Ridley always seemed to suffer from in Gavin’s presence vanished for once. “Oh, and fuck you.”