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“Yeah, I do.”
“Me too.”
“Come here.” I hug him tight.
“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“We have to, pal. How about we go to Disneyland after that?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We can take a walk around, have some hotdogs and ride the easy rides.”
Another parent would probably tell me I shouldn’t reward Matty for his behavior earlier. But today, I’d sayscrew it. Otherwise a bigger disaster might rear its ugly head—a lot bigger than just temporary bad parenting. Or in my case, brothering.
“You serious?” he asks. I affirm my offer with a nod. “Yuss!” Matty punches the air. “Bjork will stay home, I guess.”
“Definitely,” I say. “You don’t want to lose him at the park.”
“You’re the best!” Matty puts his arm around me.
As I help Matty get dressed, I call my other brother.
“Clay, I can’t go.” I don’t think he’s surprised at all. The original plan was for me to drop Matty off with Wyatt after the hospital visit. Matty loves spending time with the man. My pilot has an extensive collection of toy airplanes and trains. When they’re together, it’s like they’ve been swallowed into another world. They can spend hours playing. “Look, apologize to our guests for me, please. Take them fishing, or whatever, just… you know what to do.”
“Well, I do. But who the hell is going to cook lunch?”
Unlike me, Clay isn’t much of a cook. And with my reputation as a secret chef, I’d heard the guests were looking forward to experiencing my culinary prowess. “Well, hire someone. Call Guilleaume. He’ll come.”
“Fine, fine, I’ve got it,” Clay says. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“It’s been rough, but we’re off to Disneyland later. I think we’re gonna be alright.”
“Sorry, your highness, ladies and gents, Rob can’t be here. He’s busy trying to break the airspeed record aboard Dumbo the Elephant.” Clay practices his mock apologies.
I laugh. “Alright, I’d better go.”
“You take good care of me,” Matty says when I button up his shirt.
“Thanks, pal. I love you, you know that?”
He nods. “That’s why Amber thought you were my dad.”
My heart warms. That’s the nicest thing he’s said to me since the accident.
* * *
The visitto Disneyland lifted Matty’s spirits. And the boy realized that living without the cast was a lot better, and the hospital wasn’t that scary. With him feeling unstoppable, two days later I manage to get into the office while my baby brother is spending time at Wyatt’s.
I hold my mouse as if it’s a foreign object. After holding Amber-Rose’s hand on the flight to the hospital that night, nothing else feels right. Although I’m still curious why she looked at my hands like they were evil.
“So, what do you say, boss?” Clay asks on behalf of himself and Rocky, my engineer.
Rocky, the man I usually rely on to keep me entertained (and sane) with numbers and theories of hydrodynamics, has been arguing why we need to rethink the material for our upcoming Terra collection.The biggest and boldest Marine Hartley has ever conceived—that’s how we’ve been promoting Terra. Weirdly, what Rocky has been saying is hurting my head. Not that it’s a bad idea. It’s a damn great one, but I simply can’t get my brain to work.
“This lightweight, extra-compressed fibro means she can travel twenty-four percent faster and thirty percent further with the same amount of fuel. Open the attachment I just emailed you, Rob.”
Going back to work is proving to be a lot harder than I thought. My head keeps pulsing. Rocky’s and Clay’s faces look like Picasso paintings.
