They had asked me to take pictures at the birth of their child, and I hadn’t decided yet if that was something I could handle. Lady parts were already things I didn’t want to be familiar with, much less those of one of my best friends.
“Hatchings I could handle,” I said, teasingly, walking over to give her a hug. “I just don’t know if I could manage the radiance this child will bring into the world. Any spawn you bear will have to be an angel.”
She laughed.
“Don’t tell my parents that. They would probably decide it was a fallen one and send a priest to exorcise it!” She exclaimed.
I smiled at her joke, but the undertone of bitterness caught my attention.
“Ouch. That bad of a visit, huh?” I asked in concern.
Bran looked up at me from the floor where Gracie lay with her head in his lap.
“I think they would have been okay if it had just been Anna. With me there, they couldn’t pretend it was a virgin birth,” he snarked.
I snickered. Anna’s parentreallydidn’t like Bran, but that was okay, they didn’t have to. Anna’s Dad wasn’t that bad, but her mother would try the patience of a saint. Anna adored Bran and didn’t give two fucks what her fundamentalist mother thought.
Anna sighed and said, “Mom was pretty much at her worst. She actually had the gall to tell me that if I ever wanted a divorce, they’d pay for my lawyer!”
“Shit. That’s harsh,” I said, sitting in a chair opposite the couch.
Bran got to his feet and moved to the couch next to Anna, his hand placed protectively on her belly.
“I asked if you can divorce your parents and that shut her up,” Anna laughed. “It was an interesting and uniquely torturous visit, but at least it’s over now,” Anna said sighing.
“Baby, if you put your feet up in my lap I’ll rub them for you,” Bran offered. Anna smiled at him, the love between the two making my heart melt. This was what I wanted. Someone to love me. Someone to be beside me for the rest of my life. Someone who would never leave me.
“That is why you win the award for best husband in the world,” she said. “But we really can’t stay. I want to get home and take a bubble bath before I fall over.”
I gathered up Gracie’s things and we got her settled in her kennel in the back of their SUV. I hugged them both, waved goodbye, then headed back inside. Before I’d taken five steps, my watch dinged a-fucking-gain. I was supposed to be meeting my differential equations tutor at the university library in ten minutes. Shit. I’d forgotten our appointment when I’d headed back to the house to meet the Eameses. There was no way I was going to be there in time. I texted the tutor, a guy named Mark Verbena, and scrambled to gather my things and get on the road.
Traffic to the university wasn’t bad, so I was only about five minutes late by the time I arrived. Just as I parked my car outside the library, my phone rang. I recognized Bishop’s number, so I went ahead and answered it, even though I knew I needed to find Mark.
“Hey Bishop!” I said as I answered the phone. “What’s up?”
“Hey, K! Whatcha’ up to?” He asked.
Bishop was my best friend, and we did almost everything together. When we had time, that is.
“I’m trying to find my differential equations tutor so I don’t fail this class,” I said, looking around the quad. Mark had told me he would meet me outside the library, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
“Cool. Hey, sorry about this morning. I was running on empty,” he said. His voice sounding a little odd. Bishop and I had been close before Nicki and I had started dating, but his art studies had made him unavailable during our sophomore year. When Nicki had left, Bishop had become my best friend and confidant. He had convinced me to switch to a photography class the year I had to deal with Nicki moving away, and it was the only thing that had gotten me through it. Hell, he had even encouraged me to pursue my interest in photography as a career, but I needed something that was more stable. I knew an engineering degree would mean I was pretty much set for life. I’d be able to get a good paying job almost anywhere in the U.S. with it, and financial stability was one of my top priorities. With my history, go figure.
My brother was an amazing artist in his own right. He drew pictures that were so realistic that they had been mistaken for photographs. I had taken a year off school, and then only started going to school part-time, so even though he was younger than I was, he was going to be graduating that year with an accounting degree. Since Bishop was pursuing accounting instead of his own art, he didn’t really have any room to criticize my life choices.
“No worries, bro,” I said. “I was just worried about you. You seemed a little out of it.”
I heard some noise in the background that sounded like papers crinkling, as well as the sound of a bell jingling. I recognized that sound.
“Are you at the bookstore?” I asked.
“Yeah, I came down last night to help the twins unload a shipment they got in for the grand opening,” he said. I kept looking around the quad for Mark, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Do you think you are going to be able to make it down this weekend? I’m interested to see if Cameron is as cool as the boys say he is.”
“Twelve texts. Twelve texts during Art History this morning, between the hours of eight and nine thirty in the morning. Bish, I swear to God, I’m going to kill Sonny if he doesn’t lay off about the store! I mean, I know they have the Grand Opening coming, but for God’s sakes! It’s all he can talk about,” I said, laughing into my phone.
Cameron was like a modern-day Hemingway. He was a notorious recluse. He never did meet and greets or book signings and was rarely even seen in public. The fact the twins had convinced him to come to Ohio was nothing short of a miracle.
“They’re just excited, bro. This is what they’ve always wanted. I think it’s kind of nice to have the opportunity to watch someone’s dream come true right in front of you,” he said.
