5. This Had Progressed Beyond Irritating
This Had Progressed Beyond Irritating
By the time Harris finally appeared, Jay had been at Della’s birthday party long enough to surrender his phone, drink half a beer, and be informed that the surrender was nonnegotiable.
The event barn looked nothing like it had the night before.
The wedding linens were gone, replaced by long wooden tables crowded with mismatched plates, serving dishes, beer bottles, and flowers from Elise’s garden.
Neighbors kept arriving through the open doors carrying food and folding chairs, and ranch hands Jay had spent all week filming in dust-covered work clothes had become briefly difficult to recognize in clean shirts.
Priya had changed into a red dress. Eli had changed into a clean shirt over the same jeans and declared that sufficient observance of a special occasion.
Jay had gone with a linen button-down, sleeves rolled to his elbows, then reminded himself this was a ranch birthday and not the premiere of a film nobody had financed yet.
Della intercepted the three of them near the entrance with a glass of wine in one hand.
“No cameras.”
“Locked away,” Jay said.
“Phones too.”
Eli looked offended. “That feels unconstitutional.”
“Not in my barn.”
They surrendered those too. Della kissed each of them on the cheek.
“Good boys.”
Jay looked at Priya. “Did we just get adopted?”
“She has low standards tonight.”
“I can still take it back,” Della said.
Priya immediately handed over the wine she had brought. “Happy birthday.”
Jay was laughing when movement near the doors caught his attention.
Harris had seemingly decided that arriving late was acceptable as long as he did it looking like that.
Clean jeans. Blue chambray with the sleeves pushed back from his forearms. Hair still damp at the temples. Without the dust and sweat Jay had come to associate with him, the hard line of his jaw stood out more clearly.
Apparently washing the man only clarified the problem.
Harris went straight to Della and hugged her with one arm before handing her a small wrapped box. She opened it immediately, despite having spent the evening telling everyone else that presents could wait, and drew out a narrow silver bracelet.
Her face changed.
She touched Harris’s cheek. He looked predictably uncomfortable with the attention and, less predictably, pleased beneath it.
Jay turned back to his beer before Harris caught him watching.
Dinner stretched well past the point when anyone needed more food. Walt made a speech despite Della’s prohibition against speeches; Evan followed on the grounds that Walt had already destroyed the rule; Elise said considerably less and made Della cry anyway.
Harris sat near the end of the table with a beer in his hand. He spoke when someone addressed him, listened when they didn’t, and leaned down each time one of the twins appeared beside him with information requiring immediate adult attention.
Jay had seen him in enough settings by now to recognize the difference.
Harris wasn’t exactly relaxed—Jay was beginning to suspect the man had been born with his shoulders half-braced for impact—but around his family he stopped guarding every silence.
Nobody tried to coax more out of him. They seemed to know which refusals meant no and which meant ask me again when I’ve finished being difficult.
When Walt began telling a story about fourteen-year-old Harris attempting to ride a yearling bareback and landing in a water trough, Harris laughed before the objection seemed to catch up with him.
Jay smiled into his beer.
Harris looked across the table at exactly the wrong moment.
Caught, Jay lifted his bottle toward him. Harris shook his head, still faintly smiling, before turning back to Walt.
Perfectly normal interaction.
Somehow it stayed with Jay anyway.
After dinner, somebody turned the music louder. The twins spun until gravity won. Walt danced with Della while she laughed into his shoulder, and Evan and Elise were repeatedly separated by their daughters only to find each other again a few minutes later.
Jay stayed near the doors with Priya and Eli.
“You’re not dancing?” Priya asked.
“I’m preserving everyone else’s dignity.”
“You’ve been tapping your foot for ten minutes.”
Jay glanced down to discover that his foot was, in fact, in rhythm. “That’s because I have poor circulation.”
Della appeared in front of him with one hand extended. Priya smiled into her drink.
Jay pointed an accusing finger at Priya. “You arranged this.”
“I didn’t even have to.”
Della kept waiting. “Come on, honey. No cameras, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m beginning to understand that that rule was specifically designed to eliminate my possible excuses.”
“Dance with me.”
It was her birthday. Jay took her hand.
She turned out to possess far more energy than anyone who had spent the previous week managing two weddings should reasonably have retained.
Jay knew how to dance—not formally, but well enough after years of family parties, New York bars, weddings, and production events that he didn’t have to think about his feet.
Della laughed when he spun her, and Jay laughed with her.
For a few minutes, he stopped observing the room as material. There was only the music, warm air through the open barn doors, two beers on too little food, and Della looking delighted with herself.
When the song ended, she patted his cheek. “You’re wasted behind the camera.”
Someone else claimed her before Jay could answer.
He stepped away, pushing his hair back from his face, and felt the unmistakable prickle of being watched.
Harris stood near the open doors with a beer in one hand, partly turned toward Walt. His hat sat low over his eyes, sleeves shoved up his forearms, the last of the evening light catching one side of his face.
Harris Shaw was a goddamn smokeshow.
There. An objective production note.
By the time Jay looked directly at him, Harris’s attention was on his father. Maybe it had been there all along. Or maybe two beers had upgraded ordinary spatial awareness to sexual tension.
Excellent.
The music slowed after dark. Claire arrived with several neighbors, greeted Della with a long hug, kissed Elise’s cheek, and accepted wine from Walt without needing to ask where anything was. She spoke to Harris briefly near the food tables.
Nothing about them looked strained. Nothing looked romantic either. Only the old familiarity Jay had seen in the barn, a shared language neither needed translated.
Jay went to refill his beer. This placed him close enough to hear Walt say, “Still don’t see why you two can’t get over it and sort yourselves out.”
Harris’s gaze moved briefly toward Claire. “There’s nothing to sort out.”
“Twelve years is a hell of a thing to throw away.”
“We didn’t throw it away.”
“No? Could’ve fooled me.”
“Dad,” Elise said quietly.
Walt looked at her. “What? Everybody liked her. They were good together.”
Harris’s jaw shifted. “Claire wanted a different life.”
“And you let her walk because talkin’ about it would’ve been harder.”
Jay looked down at his bottle. He had come close enough to hear by accident. Remaining there had become a choice, though leaving now might draw more attention than staying still.
“You don’t know what happened between us,” Harris said.
“I know neither one of you looks happier.”
“That doesn’t mean we belong married.”
Walt appeared to consider the distinction without accepting it. “Fine. Then find somebody else. Two years is long enough to get used to livin’ alone.”
Elise touched Walt’s arm. “Come help Mom with the wine.”
“I’m not choosin’ the damn woman for him.”
“No. You’re only setting a deadline.”
Walt gave her a look but allowed himself to be redirected.
Elise delivered him to Della near the far end of the table.
Della listened, touched two fingers to his sleeve, and answered too quietly for Jay to hear.
She did not raise her voice or glance toward an audience; she simply held Walt’s attention until his shoulders lost some of their argument.
After a moment, he gave one reluctant nod.
Whatever correction Della offered remained between them. The fact that Walt accepted it did not.
Harris stayed beside the table, looking toward the dancers with the same closed expression he had worn beneath the interview lights.
Walt wanted his son happy. He also appeared to possess a specific idea of what happiness should look like and little patience for Harris’s failure to arrange it on schedule.
Then a dark-haired woman approached Harris.
Seriously. Were they waiting in a line somewhere?
Jay had noticed her earlier with a group from town. Tall, attractive, probably somewhere around his age. She touched Harris’s arm, said something that made him answer, then took the beer from his hand and pulled him toward the dancers.
Priya appeared beside Jay. “This evening has become educational.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve looked over there several times.”
“Don’t start.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You’re about to.”
Priya considered that. “Fair.”
On the dance floor, Harris had stopped resisting.
Of course the man could dance.
Nothing elaborate or performed for an audience.
One hand rested at the woman’s waist while he moved with an easy physical confidence Jay had somehow failed to anticipate.
The camera would have agreed that his body looked good doing it, had cameras not been constitutionally prohibited from Della’s barn.
The woman looked up at Harris, smiling. Jay disliked her immediately.
Not personally. She might have been delightful, generous, excellent in an emergency.
Her only documented offense was touching Harris Shaw in a manner entirely appropriate to dancing with him.
Still, the same unreasonable possessiveness Jay had felt watching Harris leave for town returned with considerably less ambiguity.
The woman said something that made Harris bend closer to hear, his hand remaining easy at her waist.
Jay looked away. No need to keep collecting evidence. Harris Shaw was a straight man dancing with an attractive woman, and Jay had decided to treat the ordinary event as a personal betrayal committed by two people who had made him no promises whatsoever.
Wonderful.
Priya said nothing. For once, Jay appreciated her deeply.
The party stretched past midnight. The pies disappeared. Eli became involved in an argument with Noah about whether fantasy football constituted gambling, and Jay declined to join only because he was conserving ammunition for another day.
The woman Harris danced with eventually disappeared into a group near the far end of the barn.
Harris spent most of the remaining evening with his family, carrying one exhausted niece when she demanded it, letting Della pull him into a dance, and listening to Walt tell a story everyone present had probably heard before.
Jay stopped monitoring him.
Mostly.
By one, the neighbors began leaving. The twins had fallen asleep beneath one of the tables, and Walt carried them out one at a time while Della announced that it was still technically her birthday and therefore she was legally prohibited from cleaning.
Jay gathered bottles with Eli while Harris stacked folding chairs along the wall. They crossed paths near the open doors.
“Good party,” Jay said.
“Yup.”
“Your mother is terrifying.”
“Yup.”
“You got another word in there somewhere?”
Harris aligned two chairs with the others. “Ma likes you.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Said you dance pretty good.”
The pleasure arrived before Jay could prevent it. “Pretty good, huh?”
“Don’t get too excited.”
“I’ll try to remain humble.”
Harris bent for another pair of chairs. “Be a first.”
Jay barked out a laugh. “Wow, Shaw.”
Harris straightened, already looking elsewhere as though he had not just made an actual joke. Tiny, dry, delivered in the same flat voice he used for weather and livestock instructions, as though humor had escaped without authorization.
Jay liked Harris’s little jokes far too much. Worse, he liked that Harris appeared to be giving him more of them—not enough for anyone else to notice, just an occasional line slipped into ordinary conversation as though Harris had briefly forgotten he was supposed to find Jay irritating.
Jay was beginning to collect them, which was unwise at best.
“For the record, your mother is an excellent dancer,” he said. “She nearly killed me.”
“Wouldn’t be the first.”
“I’m going to need considerably more information than that.”
One corner of Harris’s mouth shifted. For one hopeful second, Jay thought he might actually get into it.
“Harrison!” Elise called from across the barn. “Do you know where the extra trash bags are?”
Harris glanced toward her. “Shop. I’ll get ’em.”
Waste management had impeccable timing and no respect for narrative momentum. Harris set down the chairs and started across the barn. After several steps, he looked back.
“Night, Navarro.”
“Night.”
Harris disappeared through the doors toward the shop.
A few jokes. A conversation interrupted. Harris saying good night like a normal person.
Jay reached for another bottle.
This had progressed beyond irritating.
It was time to call Romy.