Chapter 3 #2
“No.” She smiled at Travis this time. Not just Dane. That was nice. Even if the word coming from her lips was no. “Thank you for the invite. But, no. That’s Gavin’s family time.”
“But we like you better,” Travis said, clearly still under the spell of the Rachel attention, since the vortex of Gavin’s mention hadn’t sucked the happiness from the room.
“You should tell him that. He’ll be back for the party on Saturday.” Rachel grinned at Travis, but this wasn’t a cheery grin like Dane usually got. This was calculated. Purposeful. It was…Travis stepped back because, man, it felt like an invitation.
Rachel never gave him any looks that were inviting.
Maybe he was coming down with something, because nothing felt right.
Thus another step back.
“Travis?” Rachel asked, the question drawing his gaze to hers. “You okay?”
“Fine. I’m fine,” he replied. The sweat he felt forming in his hands had everything to do with Brady’s persistent grip, and nothing to do with Brady’s mother.
If he took another step back, he’d bump right into the Shut the Front Door sign.
She arched an eyebrow and pressed her lips into a line. She didn’t believe he was fine. Rachel was intuitive like that. He’d say it was a mom thing, but, really, it was a Rachel thing.
When Gavin and Rachel had first gotten together and Rachel was pregnant with the boys, Travis wasn’t around much. Gavin spent way too much time back then arguing about Travis’s choice of work hours, the women he dated, the cars he bought.
And whatever Gavin had said to Rachel about Travis, it had stuck, since she also wanted the bare minimum to do with him.
And, yeah, it’d taken a little longer for him to figure himself out than other adults, but his choices hadn’t hurt anyone.
Well…anyone but him. He’d broken the shit out of his ankle in a Tijuana dune buggy.
In the meantime, Rachel hadn’t just erected a wall between herself and Travis, she’d dug a trench the size of the Grand Canyon around all sides.
The distance worked, because Rachel put the “string” in high strung.
“Uncle Trav?” Brady asked, startling him and stunting his self-imposed escape.
The kid pulled on their linked hands, so Travis turned his gaze from Rachel to his nephew as his back hit the sign.
“Why are we going backward?” Brady asked, lifting an eyebrow in what, on any other day, would’ve been a comical parody of his mother’s expression.
Travis licked his lips. What was he supposed to say? I’m running away from your mother.
“Your mom scares me,” he whispered, like that was so much better.
“Me too,” Brady whispered back, all serious eight-year-old.
Now that? That was fuckin’ funny.
“That’s enough, Brady.” She said the words with her certified mom tone, but the look she gave her kid had the soft love that wrapped around a person and didn’t let go.
Rachel dropped her arms from under her breasts. Travis did not look at them.
“Rach, Travis and I would like to discuss this further,” Dane said, totally breaking up the moment like he was a bouncer in a rowdy night club.
Rachel shook her head. “That’s unnecessary.”
“It’s about Gavin,” Dane said, for once getting to the point and not taking the back roads.
“Can I talk too?” Brady asked.
Travis looked to where Brady held his hand. He couldn’t be sure anymore if he was clinging to Brady’s hand or if Brady was clinging to his.
Travis shook his head. “Not until you can grow your own mustache.”
Dane laid his hands against Rachel’s shoulders, turning her toward him. He could do that. She let him. Because he was the good brother. The one who went to the office during the day, every day, and probably fixed her sink.
She liked Gavin well enough, but it was clear the two had never been in love. Whatever they’d had, she never looked at him with that soft love she gave her kids.
Sometimes, if the lighting was just right, she seemed to look at Dane that way. Probably because she adored Dane. Adored him.
Travis hadn’t asked, but he was pretty certain Dane got invitations to dinner with the boys and Rachel that didn’t include the rest of the family. He probably even brought over margaritas because the sign on the door suggested it.
“That’s unnecessary. They asked me the grown-up things, and I said no,” Rachel volleyed back.
“We have some more Gavin things we need to discuss,” Dane said.
Now that got Rachel’s attention.
“Head upstairs, Brady.” Rachel gestured up the stairs and winked as though both uncles showing up at the same time was standard operating procedure for their family. “Grown-up talk is about to start.”
Brady looked at the adults, searching for something. The kid might’ve been a kid, but he was one of the most perceptive people Travis knew.
“Now,” Rachel said to him when he didn’t move, her tone kind and firm and undeniably in charge.
“See, she’s scary,” Brady said out of the side of his mouth before he ran up the stairs.
“As I mentioned before, we’re issuing your formal invitation.” Dane mimicked their mother’s voice, tone, and inflection, as he delivered the message.
“We covered this. I am, regretfully, declining your invitation,” Rachel replied, her impression of their mom not nearly as good as Dane’s. Then again, she hadn’t had decades of practice with it.
“Gavin isn’t coming this year.” Travis peeled off that bandage. Yanked it clear free. “Did he tell you?”
Judging by the shocked expression crossing her face—the way her eyes got bigger, her mouth dropped open, and her eyebrows fell together, Gavin hadn’t told her. Because of course he hadn’t.
Before Travis could count to three, Rachel slapped on that expression she used to appear totally impassive before dishing out punishment for her boys. He’d seen her brandish this weapon and, frankly, thought it was sexy as hell.
Except this time she directed the look straight at Travis, hitting him directly in the solar plexus.
“That can’t be right.” She glanced at Dane for confirmation.
Dane, whose jaw was ticking with apparent irritation. He nodded. “It’s true. He should’ve mentioned it to you, so we could invite you up, and you might say yes.”
Travis shook his head to knock out whatever jar of moths had taken up residence in his brain and made himself speak.
“Trav?” Dane asked, yanking Travis back to the present. “Thought we agreed I’d do the talking.”
They had. That was before. This was now.
“You were taking too long.” Travis took three steps forward. Yeah, Travis had gone off script. Somebody needed to get things moving.
“Why don’t you go check in with the twins?” Dane asked, tilting his head toward the stairwell. Offering an out that Travis hated he wanted to take.
Travis followed his gaze to the staircase.
“Or go fix some grub in the kitchen,” Dane continued.
This tactic was their mother’s. When she wanted to send someone away, Mom sent them to bake or do a chore. Food fixed anything, in his mother’s estimation.
Especially sugar.
“The boys can’t go without a parent.” Rachel leaned against the stairwell bannister. “I’m not okay with that.”
“Yeah. We figured that’s what you’d say.” Dane held his hands up, palms facing her. “That’s why we’re here to convince you to come.”
In truth, they always invited Rachel on the annual family trip. They invited her to the family everything. His mother was on a mission to see Rachel and Gavin happily married again with more grandbabies. She didn’t care that Gavin had moved on with Dakota and that Rachel seemed happy with her life.
“You know, Rach—” Travis shoved his hands in his pockets. “We can take the boys with us.”
“Without Gavin or me?” She looked at him like he’d suggested they dance naked in the driveway. “No.”
“Rach.”
“Drop it, Travis,” Dane said quietly.
“The boys will just have to miss this year.” Rachel’s head was already shaking, subtle like. “I’ll call Gavin…”
“Heads up that if you say no, Mom will probably visit soon.” Travis knew she may not have enjoyed him visiting, but she’d absolutely hate a visit from his mother. “She wanted to come with us and make it a whole thing.”
“There’s no way I can take two months off to come play at the lake.”
“Is there anything we can do to lighten your load?” Problem-solving Dane was in the house, ready to take on the weight of Rachel’s world.
“Work doesn’t take a holiday,” she said.
“Still, Trav and I can help you out.” Dane was practically giddy with his willingness to sniff out a solution. It’s what he did because it’s what he was good at.
Gavin told everyone what to do. Dane figured out solutions. And Travis? Well, he had the gift of ensuring everyone had a good time.
“I can’t even manage today.” Rachel threw her hands up as though their surroundings were proof of that.
The house looked like the boys had fought a war in the living room and the other side won.
“I’m still getting through today. I’m not thinking about the summer yet,” she continued.
“What can we do to help?” Dane asked. “Today. To make things easier for you. We can talk about summer later. Let’s deal with today first.”
Travis might as well hop up on the bannister and watch Denver’s king of solutions at work.