“Okay. I want to tell you some things about me. The reason Ireallyhate the song ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud.’ My mom used to play it on that grand piano in that room with the chandelier and sing in this very sort of pointed, melodramatic way, just banging away and howling with her eyes closed, and my brother and I knew she was passively-aggressively singing it to my dad andaboutmy dad. And oh my GOD I hated it. I wanted to curl up and die. It was farcical. Back then it was torture. Every day was a cavalcade of tension. Of things implied but never said. No one ever talked to each other and my brother and I were both together and alone because I couldn’t really talk to him, either.”
“Jesus, Mac...”
“Not fun to hear, right? I used to go out to the hot springs with my brother to get away from Mom and Dad fighting. Going at it hammer and tongs. Yelling at each other, over each other, about each other. Never, ever solving a damn thing. Sometimes I think they liked big houses because both loved the sound of their own voices, so the echo in a big marble foyer was just an added bonus. I have never told anyone that in my entire life.”
The silence almost rang. As if it was the aftermath of a little explosion. Perhaps a stair crash.
Her eyes were on him, softer now. But still wary.
“So you don’t talk to your mom at all?” she ventured. Not accusingly. Trying to understand.
“No. Not really. She remarried a plastic surgeon. Her nose changes subtly every year. I get the Christmas card.”
She tried and failed not to smile at that. “Maybe you can make a flip book out of them.”
It was a relief to laugh at that. She was such a smartass, but it came with such warmth.
They had inched closer to each other, without realizing it.
“What about Ty?” she pressed.
He blew out a breath and swept his hand through his hair. “Ty kind of turned into my dad, if you exclude the bit about felonies and federal prison, and that was exactly what my dad always wanted. He’s a venture capitalist. Puts deals together for other companies. Brokers buyouts, that sort of thing. He thought I was an idiot for joining the national guard. He was always sticking up for my dad. We fought. It got ugly. We haven’t talked in about eight years.”
She was still. He watched her shoulders rise high as she pulled in a long breath.
“Wow. I just... Yeah, I can imagine you wouldn’t back down.”
He couldn’t quite read her tone. Soft, just a little ironic. But not without affection. And not without a certain sadness. She did know him, after all.
He was breathing easier, now. “It’s just... I wanted to be as different from my dad as possible. My dad was a destroyer. So I wanted to build things. My life was chaotic. I wanted order and predictability. I never really learned a damn useful thing, unless you counted getting hair gel just right. I never felt I’d been much good to anyone. I wanted to know what it was like to grow or create something from the very beginning, to know my life had an impact and areason. It felt like if you could plan it, and build it, and see it, and touch it, then no one could rip it right out from under you.”
She was silent for a moment, taking this in. “Mac... you’ve always had value. You know that now, right?”
He wished she would say, “You, in fact, meant everything to me.”
Because he once could have said those words to her and it would have been true.
“Sure,” he said softly. Because she was waiting for reassurance, hurting on his behalf. And he wanted to reassure her.
She’d fallen silent again.
Somehow, like shadows stretching toward each other, they’d moved closer still.
“Anyway. I was good at the work in the guard and I made friends based on what I could do and on my own strengths, not who my dad was or how much money I had. I knew I’d made the right decision for me.”
Her big dark eyes were fixed on him, and her mouth was turned up in a sort of rueful way. “I just...” She gave up and made a helpless little gesture with her hands, almost supplicating. “That’s one of the finest things I’ve ever heard.”
He loved the wordfinest.Elegant and somber, almost ceremonial.
“Yeah, I’m a prince. I didn’t actually like the regimentation one bit.”
“I was gonna say...”
He laughed and so did she.
It felt luxurious to be known. “I’m better at leading, I think. Which I eventually was able to do. And I know how to survive. And so... here I am.”
There passed a moment of silence interrupted only by Chick Pea making snorkeling noises into her flank as she cleaned.
