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“Dude! No!” Amanda says, her gaze briefly meeting Elodie’s as if to say is this for real?
“Dude! Yes,” Eliza confirms. The kid is practically strutting her way to the room where she’s spent many a night convincing Uncle Zane and Maddox to let her watch just one more. “And the seats go all the way back. It’s pretty much the best.”
“We should watch something tonight,” Amanda declares. Not can we but we should. It’s a school night—Wednesday now—and we’ve all brought our suitcases to the palatial three-story in Pacific Heights. Zane bought this place a few years ago when he renewed his contract with the San Francisco Dragons.
Elodie and I hang back in the hall as my daughter shows Amanda into the state-of-the-art home theater, complete with four chairs you can swim in, surround sound, and the aforementioned popcorn maker.
The hallway is adorned with artsy, moody black-and-white photos of London, Tokyo, Prague, and other cosmopolitan cities around the world. Elodie gestures to the framed prints. “No baseball photos? Awards? Trophies?”
I squint, picturing Zane’s home gym, which we haven’t checked out yet since the girls aren’t that interested in bench presses. “Pretty sure those are in the gym. But Eliza would know. She spends a lot of time here,” I say.
“I can tell.”
“Dad! Can I make popcorn?” Eliza pokes her head out the door, fastening on her please, pretty please grin that I know so well. “Amanda says she knows how to make cinnamon popcorn, and I think I might die if I don’t have some right now.”
“That sounds dramatic,” I say dryly.
“It’s a need,” Eliza insists.
Amanda presses her palms together, batting her big blue eyes. “It’s so good. You can have some too, Mr. Archer.”
I laugh at the name, but then I stop laughing. What the hell is she supposed to call me? Stepdad? I cringe at the last one. Before I can spiral down that rabbit hole, I say, “Sounds great.”
The girls rush past us in a blur of ripped jeans, friendship bracelets, and long hair, racing up the stairs to the gleaming new kitchen, leaving Elodie and me alone.
I turn to the photos again, answering her in more depth. “They like to travel a lot. My brother and Maddox. They take pics of all the places they go. They’re in London right now, which is kind of like their second home. They have some friends who spend time there too.”
Elodie gazes at the images one by one, softness in her eyes as she slowly checks them all out. The River Thames at night. A tea garden in the afternoon. A castle in Prague, enrobed in fog. “It’s like a wall of memories. All their favorite places,” she says, and why the hell is my heart beating faster from that?
She’s talking about my brother and his dude, and their lives.
But really, it’s the simple and real understanding of what matters to someone. It’s the easy way she sees people and knows their minds. She’s a woman who can get along with anyone, even people she’s never even met—like my brother.
“I want you to meet him,” I say immediately.
“You do?”
“Of course I do,” I say, and the idea takes hold of me. I can picture a dinner, a night out, a mini golf game with the four of us. This has to happen. “You already met my grandma. Many times. You need to meet my brother.”
“Well, I am playing house in his house,” she says, then furrows her brow. “He really didn’t mind us converging on his place?”
I’ve already reassured her a few times, but I’ll do it again. I tuck a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “It was his idea,” I say, reminding her. When I called him Sunday evening to tell him about the wedding and to ask if we could hang out in his empty home while he was traveling, he beat me to it. “He offered it up before I could ask.”
“That’s family for you,” she says.
“He’s great,” I say, looking around at his gorgeous home. There are five bedrooms, a couple living rooms, a private gym, and a pool. Sure, sometimes I’ve been jealous of him, especially because we started our adult lives the same way—on the baseball field. But the funny thing is I haven’t felt that way lately. Haven’t experienced those pangs of envy over the last few years. “Maybe when he returns we can all go out? Have dinner?”
“Isn’t that in the new year?”
Translation: we won’t be together then. Like we discussed on the way to Vegas a few days ago, our marriage will end when the lease ends. When the year ends. That’s in less than two months. For now, we’ve neutralized the threat to her business and our business.
“Yes,” I say darkly, but then I try to shake off that cloud. I drop a kiss to her nose. I don’t want to linger on the end. Some topics are best avoided. “Let me show you the rest of the house.”
The herd of elephants known as teenage girls race back downstairs on their way to the popcorn machine, with a bowl of, presumably, cinnamon and sugar in hand, and Amanda shouting, “Want some, Mr. Archer?”
Before I answer, I lift a brow Elodie’s way. “What should she call me?”
With a you’re so cute smile, she pats me on the arm. “Your name, Gage. Your name.”
