‘Not really.’
‘But you love the little one.’
Lachlan scrubs his face.‘I do.’
‘And the boy?’
‘Jules?He hates me.’
‘You train him hard.’
‘He can take it.’
‘You must love him to train him like that,’ Danya says knowingly, once again he just gets it, though this time it’s annoying.‘It is well known, you know.No secret.You love them both.’
Lachlan rolls his eyes.‘Uh huh.’
‘Boy has big fucking crush, though.’
‘Danya?’
‘Hm?’
‘Shut the fuck up, please,’ Lachlan says, no heat, no anger.
Danya chuckles and throws a sponge at Lachlan.‘Messy.’
‘It’s not.’
‘Is messy how he looks at you when you are looking elsewhere.’
‘He’s a child.’
Danya grabs a towel.‘They are all children to us because we never were.’
Lachlan thinks about that all fucking night.
?
Lachlan Tanner turns twenty-six on May ninth.
The rainy season is ebbing, and the grounds are once again Mimi’s favourite place to be, even if it’s not quite warm enough to use the pools yet.
The day is pleasant, unexpectedly lovely, in fact.Lachlan was dreading it.
He hasn’t had a nice birthday since he was younger than Mimi.Blaire kept it a small affair as he asked, made it mostly about Mimi and Vasily, or “Silly” as Mimi calls him, who made the cake himself.Vasily’s talent for baking is becoming well known in the East Wing, and it buys a lot of goodwill with Mimi.When cookies are the best currency and you can make them better than anyone, that really goes a long way.
No gifts, only games which are the best way to spend time, everyone knows that, and when Lachlan blew out his candles, he didn’t make a wish, he let Mimi have it instead.You don’t need wishes when you have a plan.
Jules was typically distant throughout.
Lachlan notices that sometimes his gaze drops to the knife he gifted Lachlan for Christmas, so Lachlan takes care to show he uses it.
Otherwise, things between them are fairly static.Tolerable dislike on Jules’ end countered with respect and measured freedom on Lachlan’s.Compared to how things were in the first year, he’ll take it and run.
Lachlan eats cake, plays hide-and-seek in the grounds, hugs Blaire who whispers to him that she was happy he was born, and then he’s back on shift.The endless job that is securing the Estate requires non-stop adaptive attention, mind-numbing repetitive checks and constant refreshing of focus so no dust may ever settle where sharp watchfulness is required.
It’s a Saturday, which is typically the night he lets Jules slip out for a few hours and tonight starts out no different.Always around eleven at night, Jules sneaks away and is picked up a mile or so down the road by the friends he made from the frat party, the ones he stayed in touch with via the phone Lachlan gave him.
