"I want to sort your website out first," Luc said, once he'd scraped his plate clean and pushed it away slightly.
"What's wrong with the website?" their dad asked.
Luc stared at him. "You're kidding, right?"
Adam shifted in his chair as he watched the two of them stare each other down.
"Your dad designed it," Deborah, their mum said, when neither man spoke.
"Well, it's a great effort," Luc said, picking over his words slowly. "But you need better. You need something with more pizzazz."
"Pizzazz?" Their dad curled his upper lip. "We're primarily a ballet school."
"But that's not all you teach," Luc said, barging on as though he really didn't care about their dad's feelings. "Besides, there's no reason why ballet has to be boring." His gaze flicked to Adam ever so briefly. "Right?"
Adam didn't appreciate being dragged into the middle, so he gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut. It wasn't that he didn't agree with Luc—about ballet anyway; he knew nothing about website design—but he wasn't going to take Luc's side over his dad's.
"What are you suggesting we do?" Deborah asked.
"I was going to ask Jane, the web designer I work with to take a look at it. If you can give me all the login and server details, she should be able to whip up a new template for you."
"We can't afford that," their dad said gruffly.
Luc waved his hand. "I'm pretty sure I can talk her into doing it as a favour to me. Don't worry about it." He leaned forward onto the table, planting his elbows in the space he'd cleared by moving his plate away. "I noticed you have no social media presence. At least, I couldn't find you on Facebook or Twitter when I searched." He looked at their parents, his eyebrows raised a fraction, lips parted, as he waited for their response.
"We've never bothered with that stuff. It's just cat pictures and people whining about their lives, isn't it?" Their dad asked.
Luc laughed. The sound made Adam's lip curl.
"Social media can be a powerful tool, Dad," Luc said. "I'm surprised Adam didn't suggest you get on there."
Adam narrowed his eyes.
"I've never bothered Adam with the business side of things," their dad said. "He's a damn fine teacher and dancer."
Finally, Luc looked at Adam and held his gaze for more than a microsecond. "Yeah," he said, drawing the word out. "I remember how good a dancer he was." Luc looked away abruptly.
Adam continued to stare at him, eyes narrowing further as he tried to pick apart the expression on Luc's face and the tenor of his voice. His words had been soft, as had his gaze, and that confused the hell out of Adam.
"I'll set you up on Facebook and Twitter and manage the accounts while I'm here," Luc went on, his attention firmly divided between their parents. "But one of you is going to have to take the time to sit with me and see the kind of things I'm posting, the frequency and so on, so you can keep it up once I head back home."
Their parents exchanged an uncertain glance.
"Maybe Adam could do that," Deborah suggested, with a thin smile on her lips. "It would give the two of you a chance to catch up."
"I don't want to catch up," Adam said. He scraped his chair back and stood abruptly.
He started clearing the table, not looking at any of them as he picked up their plates. His comment hadn't been massively mature, but Luc's presence was bringing out the worst in him.
"Adam," there was a clear note of warning in his dad's voice.
He sighed. "It's your business. You've never wanted me involved in this side of things before, why do you want me involved now?"
"We're not getting younger," his dad said. "You'll gradually need to take on more responsibility. If you want to."
Was his dad saying what Adam thought he was? Not that he wanted to think about it. Aside from the fact he wasn't sure he wanted to take over the dance school one day, he definitely didn't want to dwell on the mortality of his parents. He'd already lost his biological mum far too early.
He filled the dishwasher in silence, half listening to the conversation that carried on behind him.
