“No!” Pete said.
“No!” Charlie seconded.
“
Do
you have a new job?” Pete asked.
“I think so. I haven’t seen the contract yet.”
“A contract,” Pete said, sounding excited. “Can I read it before you sign?”
Her slightly older younger brother was at least half lawyer. “I’ll read it first,” she said. “Then I’ll consider letting you.”
This was good enough for Pete. He rubbed his lean hands together. “We should celebrate.”
“We should finish tearing out the drop ceiling first,” Charlie corrected. “The permit guy said Becca’s new between-unit insulation has to be sound and fire-rated.”
As much as a brother could be, Charlie was her soul mate. If an activity counteracted worries, he was all for it.
“Why don’t we do both?” she said. “I expect your friend Jesse will like celebrating too.”
~
They spent a few hours on demo, getting disgustingly sweaty. After that, Rebecca showered and cooked a nice lunch for everyone. She expected the twins knew this would calm her, because they didn’t volunteer to chop. Their friend Jesse ate more than he talked but seemed knowledgeable about construction. He was a class ahead of Pete and Charlie, and they obviously looked up to him. Just as obviously, he looked up to his father—whose firm Rebecca planned to Google the second the boys left.
She didn’t bring up the obvious: that Pete and Charlie could save her money by moving home again. They paid for their housing with part-time jobs because their independence was important. No matter how much she missed them, she had to let them practice leaving the nest.
That, however, wouldn’t come to pass today. Relaxed now and happy to have them near, she lingered with the three of them at the kitchen table, sipping coffee while Pete and Jesse teased Charlie about a girl he liked. Given their circumstances growing up, having a guest in the house was a relatively new pleasure.
It made them almost seem normal.
“You can’t take a girl to the library on a date,” Pete was instructing.
“That wasn’t supposed to be the date,” Charlie protested. “That was just where we arranged to meet. I can’t help it if the stacks turn her on.”
“Do you date much?” Jesse turned to ask her quietly.
Rebecca’s mouth fell open. The faint flush on Jesse’s sturdy face said he asked this out of more than idle curiosity. She supposed he was a good-looking kid. Compared to Trey, though, he seemed awfully unformed.
“Hardly ever,” Charlie said as she searched for a safe answer. “Becca barely owns a dress.”
“I do too,” she said, thinking twice in one day was too often to be accused of this.
“It’s a
beige
dress,” Pete informed Jesse. “Buttons up to her neck like a nun’s habit. I think she bought it back in ’06.”
“I did not. It’s only, like, three years old. And it’s a perfectly nice shirtwaist. Anyway, why do I have to wear a dress on a date?”
“You don’t have to wear anything,” Jesse assured her earnestly, which sent her brothers into fresh fits of snickering.
The boys proved they all were too young to date by throwing balled-up napkins at each other. Maybe sensing he wasn’t coming off as mature, Jesse volunteered to help clean up. Rebecca’s kitchen was old and didn’t have a dishwasher. Not quite by the by, Jesse mentioned he could get her a deal on a kitchen reno . . . once her income suite was finished.
Rebecca avoided grinning by a hair. Jesse might be young, but he certainly was working out the paths to a woman’s heart.
Pete seemed to think his friend had made too much progress. As the others went down the front walk later, he hung back in the entry. “Watch out for him,” he said, cocking his head toward Jesse’s departing back. “He’s a nice guy, but he’s got a string of older women he dangles after him.”
“Ah, the lure of a hunky young handyman,” she mused.
“I’m serious,” Pete said. “Not that you shouldn’t date. You should. Maybe someone fun your own age. It isn’t right for you to give up having a life for me and Charlie.”
Rebecca absolutely wasn’t going to mention the
fun
she had that morning. She hugged Pete instead, loving the easy way his arms came around her. Neither of her brothers had outgrown showing affection.
“I shall ruminate on your advice,” she promised him humorously.
Pete pushed her back to arm’s length, his almost-adult face concerned. “You don’t have to be alone so much, Sis. The time when the three of us had to hide things is over.”
Before she could speak, he trotted down the front steps after the other two, leaving her with her eyes stinging. Sometimes Rebecca wished the twins weren’t so awesome. If they hadn’t been, maybe she wouldn’t dread the day when they
would
be grown up.
~
Zane and Trey had come a long way from their student digs in Cambridge. Their place in Lexington was a 1930’s era mansion set on sixteen acres of walled-in greenery. Their needs were seen to by a small and loyal staff, perhaps the only people in the world who knew Zane and Trey rarely used the second of their two bedrooms. The house itself had twenty, plus a library, an indoor pool, an outdoor lagoon, and a huge garage with room for fifteen cars.
They sometimes threw weekend parties, which could get racy. Then the rule was what happened at Buck House—as the estate was known locally—stayed at Buck House. Thus far, they hadn’t had problems. The friends who came to play also valued privacy.
Most of the time, they enjoyed the place on their own. It was too big for two people, but it was peaceful. Zane loved coming home to it, whether from a day in Boston or a longer business trip. Few residences could have reminded him less of the 1960’s rambler he’d grown up in. He could be a different person here entirely—not abused, not boiling so helplessly with anger he feared he’d turn patricide. Here he was free and calm. Here he and Trey ruled what they surveyed.
Owens, their relatively new driver, dropped Zane off at the tall columned portico. Owens would park the limo, pass Zane’s luggage to Mrs. Penworth for laundering, after which he’d retire to his apartment over the big garage. The man was settling in. As a nephew to Mrs. Penworth, their house manager, he’d known what to expect of the job.
With no suitcases to haul in, Zane let himself in the wide front entrance. The hour was past ten. The house was quiet, nothing brighter than wall sconces burning in the main hall. To Zane’s left, the paneled door to the library was ajar.
“Trey?” he called, his heart beating faster at the thought of greeting his closest friend. Per usual, his eagerness to see Trey made him slightly uneasy. Pushing that aside, he swung the library door open. A single black-shaded sconce near the door illuminated the long book-lined space. Naturally, the A/C was blasting. Trey liked the house chilly.
“You in here, Trey?” he asked.
“Here,” he said from the other end of the room. He’d been hidden within a wing chair in the half-circle of French windows that overlooked the back lawn. Tonight, a bright half moon cast squares of light through the panes. Trey seemed to have been daydreaming. A magazine lay open on the carpet at his feet. On the table beside him a bottle of Bordeaux—half empty—and a glass—half full—showed how he’d spent the time.
Zane wondered if he were drunk, not a common state for him. Trey turned his head to watch him approach without rising. “How was Hawaii?”
“Unproductive. The resort wasn’t up to TBBC standards.”
“Mm,” Trey said vaguely. He picked up his wine and sipped. “Meet any interesting women while you were there?”
Trey never asked him that. Zane couldn’t imagine why he was asking now. “No. Wasting my time put me in a bad mood. I didn’t feel like chasing skirts.”
“Sorry,” Trey said absently.
“You okay?” Zane dropped his hand onto Trey’s shoulder. “You don’t usually sit in the dark drinking wine.”
“The moon was nice.” Trey let out a laugh Zane couldn’t interpret.
Because he hadn’t gotten up yet, Zane bent down to kiss him. Trey touched his face and returned the slow lip lock. The kiss was nice. Trey didn’t kiss any other way. Despite this, when Zane drew back, his uneasiness had returned. Something was off with his friend and, because of that, something was off with Zane.
“Did something happen while I was gone?” He stiffened as a possibility occurred to him. “You didn’t get another letter from your aunt, did you?”
Trey’s father had killed himself six months earlier. According to the police, he’d left no note and no warning signs besides a general depression. Mr. Hayworth had simply parked in his closed garage and let the engine run. This, as it happened, was the same method his wife had used to commit suicide. Trey hadn’t gone to the funeral. His father hadn’t contacted Trey after he went to college, nor had his son called him. His aunt, on the other hand, had been writing to her nephew ever since her brother’s death. Her persistence was one of few things Zane ever saw upset Trey.
“No,” Trey said, squeezing Zane’s hand in reassurance. “And it wouldn’t matter if I had. I know all she has to say: that her father didn’t abuse my dad when he was a kid, and if my dad ever told me differently, it was a pack of lies. I don’t think she realizes she confirmed what I’d only suspected until she wrote me that first time.”
Zane sat on Trey’s chair arm, letting their sides rest companionably together. “Why do you suppose she keeps at it?”
“God knows.” Trey wiped his hands down his face, dragging the muscles with his palms. “After all these years, I think she’s having trouble believing her own story. If she can convince me, the lie will be shored up. She was older than my dad. Maybe part of her thinks she should have protected him.”
“Maybe she wants forgiveness.”
“I can’t forgive her for something she won’t admit happened. Hell, I don’t even know her. Dad kept me away from his relatives.”
“Bet you didn’t guess the fucked-up way he raised you was kind of a favor.”
Trey laughed, the streak of black humor about their childhoods a trait they shared. He pushed out of the wingchair, maybe not drunk, because he didn’t sway.
“Come.” He reached for Zane’s hand. “Walk in the moonlight with me.”
“Romantic,” Zane accused, not minding that at all.
“You bring it out in me. Always have and always will.”
Zane’s body stirred for his lover, waking as it hadn’t for the beaches or the beauties of Hawaii. Aware this was liable to turn into more than a walk, he opened one of the French doors. Perversely, Trey resisted his tug toward it. Grinning, he pulled out the drawer in the little table his wine sat on. Digging through the clutter, he retrieved a pair of wrapped condoms.
“In case I get lucky,” he explained, flashing his dimples.
“In case
you
do.” Amused and finally feeling he was home, Zane bumped his shoulder. Hand-in-hand, they strolled onto the lush green lawn. Crickets creaked and ivy rustled on the back wall. The night was sultry compared to the over-cranked A/C, the warmth as soft as velvet against his skin.
“Welcome home,” Trey murmured, fingers rubbing his gently.
Zane ignored his worry that Trey was the only person in the world who made him this happy.
~
The email with Rebecca’s proposed employment contract arrived later that evening. It was long, but if she understood the legalese correctly, it was weighted more in her favor than TBBC’s. The salary seemed astronomical, the signing bonus overkill. She supposed Trey’s company paid the most to get the best, but could this be normal? She read the thing three times at the kitchen table to make sure she wasn’t overlooking a hidden catch. Maybe he’d lied about not sleeping with her again. Maybe she was secretly agreeing to be his sex slave.
You’re neurotic
, she reminded herself.
Can’t too good to be true really be true sometimes?
Constitutionally unable to bring herself to sign so quickly, she went down the steps to the cellar to mull over her alternate concern. Funnily enough, the gloomy old cellar looked better torn back to studs. Being her, she couldn’t resist carrying a flashlight to the crack in the foundation. Now uncovered, it ran in jags from the wall’s top to its bottom. Though it was dry at the moment, she saw signs water had seeped in. According to Jesse, her outside wall might need excavating—which could cost additional thousands.
She touched the crack and gnawed at her lip. How long had the break been here? Since their mother’s death? Since their father’s abandonment? Maybe it was a blessing she hadn’t known. If she had, she wouldn’t have slept a wink in years.
She shivered, suddenly aware how alone she was down here—no one in the house above her, no close ties to her neighbors. Her mind flashed back to the feel of Trey’s arms around her. She wished someone were there to hold her now, to tell her:
I understand why you’re upset the twins’ clothes and toys are gone.
Yes, maybe other kids could use them, but she’d liked knowing they were here.
Sighing, she plunked her butt on the cellar steps.
What had Trey been like as a boy? And how did boys grow up to be tycoons? He seemed the type for whom business would be an interesting challenge, but not an obsession. His partner, Zane Alexander, was usually the one the press interviewed. Was he more ambitious or just better at talking? They looked as if they liked each other when they were photographed, as if they were good friends. What would it be like to have a friend that long? Raoul was her friend, but they didn’t hang out and drink beers. He invited her to his house sometimes, and she ate barbecue with his family. Though they cared about each other, she couldn’t imagine telling him anything truly personal.
She couldn’t imagine telling him she’d had wild monkey sex with her brand new boss on a kitchen floor.
She hoped the wild monkey sex wasn’t the reason for the generosity of her contract.
“You have to sign it,” she said, admitting it. If she didn’t, how would she pay for this maybe-not-crazy project the boys had roped her into?
To her surprise, the decision eased the semi permanent knots of worry in her shoulders.
She continued to feel better when she woke up the next morning, though she did wish she were going in to work. She’d faxed the signed contract back last night. When she checked her email, she had a response from the as-yet-unmet assistant Elaine. She asked if Rebecca was free to meet Mr. Hayworth on Wednesday, to discuss her ideas concerning hiring and menus. While Rebecca appreciated the implication that her opinions were valuable, it seemed to her Trey could have sent his own answer. Was he that busy? Or did he intend this distance to cool things between them? She couldn’t forget him saying he pictured them having fun together at the restaurant.