7. Transparent as Saran Wrap
TRANSPARENT AS SARAN WRAP
Dean
It had been a while since one of my brothers had called a family meeting, which usually meant someone was either in jail, in the hospital, or about to do something monumentally stupid.
The last time was four years ago when Dylan thought it would be a good idea to invest his entire life savings in designer water for dogs.
Premium bottled water specifically formulated for dogs—different varieties for puppies, seniors, and active breeds.
The year before, he lost ten thousand investing in emotional support plants. Plants shipped with names, personalities, and little motivational notes. If the plant dies, you receive a sympathy card.
Dylan was easily excited by ideas, he was a big-picture visionary. He took after our mom in that way. He was also easily influenced. Growing up, his Christmas list was always filled with As Seen on TV products.
I was the first to arrive at the meeting, because being the only punctual person in my family was my cross to bear.
Dawson had been the one to send out the Bat signal so we were meeting on his turf: the stables, which any reasonable human being would call a barn, smelled like hay, horse, and impending dread.
But my mom would rather swallow her pearl earrings whole than retire the word “stables,” which was the term Grandad used.
This is the same woman who once appraised a warped plastic folding table as a family “heirloom” without so much as blinking. I come by my dysfunction honestly.
Five minutes after the time we were supposed to meet, Damon strolled in like he owned the place, hair dripping like he’d stepped straight out of a shower and directly into my patience.
Dylan took another five, shedding peanut shells like a golden retriever sheds fur, eyeing us suspiciously like we’d been summoned as suspects in a murder mystery.
“Do you know what this is about?” he questioned Damon, who shrugged.
Dawson stood waiting for us by the tack room, arms crossed, his face set in the same grim “let’s get this over with” expression he wore at every family meeting, even the ones he called.
But I noticed a tell: the corners of his mouth threatening to twitch upward, like he’d swallowed a balloon and was trying not to float.
“I asked Sadie to marry me last night. She said yes,” he announced.
I held out a hand, and he shook it, hard. That was our version of a hug—silent, fast, and familiar enough to pass for affection.
Dylan, who oozed affection, bear-hugged him from behind, nearly cracking his ribs, then made a big show of pretending not to cry.
Damon said, “About fucking time,” and then immediately pivoted to the only part of a wedding that interested him, the bachelor party.
“Dibs on planning the bachelor party.” Damon lifted his right hand, then pulled out his phone and began scrolling. “No offense, Dean, but I fear you would put me in a boredom coma with an ‘escape room’ and ‘axe throwing’ combo.”
No offense taken, that actually sounded like a great bachelor’s party to me.
“It’s not about you,” Dylan challenged, and then the two of them started bickering about who was more qualified to take the reins, even going as far as to argue over a theme, as if we were planning a seven-year-old’s birthday party instead of our brother’s last night as a single man.
I did my best to follow along, but as I looked at my brother, my brain kept short-circuiting back to the crime scenes of Damon flirting with Felicity.
Incident number one occurred on Thursday morning in her office, I’d caught Damon leaning against Felicity’s desk, spinning her paperweight in lazy circles with his pointer finger and grinning that slouchy, practiced grin.
I’d hovered in the hallway, undetected, sipping my coffee and pretending not to eavesdrop.
He told her a story about a “legendary” prank back in high school where he filled the principal’s car with his Tinder profile printed out, then watched the poor bastard chase the papers downwind across the parking lot.
Felicity cracked up, not a polite giggle but the kind of unguarded, full-throated laugh that made her tilt her head back so her hair spilled like a waterfall over the bright pink of her sweater.
Damon watched her like he’d just invented the concept of joy.
They didn’t notice me when I slipped past, dropped the new payroll forms on her desk, and muttered something about deadlines.
Damon winked at me. Felicity smiled, softer, sweeter, but the trace of laughter hovered at the edges of her mouth the whole day.
The second incident was three days later, I walked out of my office just in time to witness Damon appear in the entryway while Felicity wrestled a heavy box off the floor.
She’d designed glossy new pamphlets to leave at vendors downtown.
Damon didn’t ask if she needed help, he just took the box from her arms as if that was his job, and then made some remark about the “ingenious use of Comic Sans” that ended with him dodging a gentle swat to the shoulder and then peacocking like he’d survived a harrowing ordeal.
She noticed me, showed me one of the pamphlets, and asked my opinion on the new design. “It’s fine,” I said. Damon made some crack about me being a robot with no feelings and told her that was high praise coming from me. She beamed at my brother, as if he’d just solved the Da Vinci code.
The final incident took place at the staff meeting on Friday.
Damon sat directly across from her and spent the entire half hour spinning his pen like a drumstick and working “Foster” into every other sentence.
“Maybe we should all take a page from Miss Foster over there,” or, “Hey, Foster, think you can organize a staff softball team?” At one point he wrote “Foster” in block letters on his hand and flexed his biceps at her.
She rolled her eyes so hard I thought she’d pass out, but she didn’t miss a beat with the agenda.
The only time she addressed his behavior was to say, “I hope you’re this committed to your actual job. ”
If Damon was aware that she wasn’t buying what he was selling, he didn’t let on. If anything, it only encouraged him. I don’t know what his angle was, or if he even needed one. Damon’s never met a boundary he didn’t want to cross.
The truly infuriating part—the part I couldn’t admit out loud—was that every time he tried, Felicity handled it like she’d been through a thousand bad pickup lines and lived to tell the tale.
She was always polite, sometimes funny, never mean.
She gave the attempts zero oxygen, but she didn’t make him feel like an idiot either.
The way she handled the unprovoked attention only made me like her more.
It made me even more frustrated at myself for noticing.
“Are we getting plus-ones for this shindig?” Damon asked, tossing the phrase like a grenade into the middle of the group.
Dawson, still basking in the afterglow of his own engagement announcement, barely glanced up from the battered clipboard he was using to track chores, which he’d turned his attention to when our younger brothers began bickering over his bachelor party. “Why? Got someone lined up already?”
Damon spread his arms, grinning. “Oh, I dunno, just figured it might be a good chance to show a lucky lady how we Lockharts party.”
Dylan, never one to let a joke pass unheckled, snorted so hard he about choked on the last inch of his energy bar. “You mean scare them off permanently?”
Damon threw a balled-up napkin at Dylan, easy as breathing. “Only if they’re scared of charm and charisma.”
“Charisma?” Dylan repeated, dubious. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
I didn’t say anything. As usual, it just wasn’t worth the effort.
But the conversation refused to drift away. If anything, Damon was winding up for a show. “If you must know, I’m thinking of inviting a very beautiful new addition to the payroll,” he continued, glancing at me sidelong to see if I’d bite. “You know, show her the ropes, make her feel welcome.”
Dawson, who had been extra oblivious since he’d gotten back together with his childhood sweetheart, lifted his head. “Who?”
Damon’s eyes sparkled. “I’ll give you three guesses, but you’ll only need one.”
Dawson’s brow furrowed, and it was clear he had no clue for several seconds before he remembered we’d recently hired someone. “Felicity?”
Damon’s grin doubled, wolfish. “Ding ding ding! You win a prize.”
My jaw tensed, and the spike of my irritation surprised even me. “She’s here for the job. Not your entertainment.”
Damon looked delighted as he turned my way, and I knew that I’d just walked right into his goading trap. “Someone’s being very protective! Dean, it seems you have a soft spot.”
Everything inside me was screaming to defend myself, and deny, deny, deny but I knew that’s exactly what he wanted, so I remained quiet.
Damon put his hands on both Dylan and Dawson’s shoulders and leaned in conspiratorially. “What do we think, gentlemen, does our uptight CFO have an office crush?”
I could feel my hands curling into fists at my sides. It was an involuntary reflex, one that had cost me hundreds of poker games growing up and at least one ill-advised punch to a drywall panel in my teens. I flexed my fingers, trying to play it casual, but Dawson’s eyes sharpened with interest.
“You like her,” Dawson declared, and it wasn’t a question.
There was a moment of hush as the barn digested his accusation, the horses shifting in their stalls, the dust motes on a gentle descent.
“No, I don’t,” I replied instantly, like a guilty man who’d been accused of murder.
Damon let out a single, barked laugh loud enough to spook the pigeons in the loft. “Damn, bro, your poker face is a war crime. You are more transparent than Saran wrap. It’s like watching a turtle try to hide inside a glass shell.”
I ignored him, but the conversation kept circling like a vulture.