“Lucah’s told us so much about you, I feel like we’ve already met,” April said as she set the girls up on the floor with a box of crayons and two coloring books.
Well, I couldn’t really say the same. Lucah was very close-mouthed about his family.
“Good things, I hope.” I looked at Lucah and he gave me a face of feigned innocence. “They better be good things.” I glared at him, and he put his arm around me and kissed the side of my face.
“Don’t be so paranoid.”
I couldn’t help it. I sipped my water and prayed for someone to say something else that would start a conversation I could excel at.
“Well, you seem to know about me, but Lucah hasn’t been as forthcoming about you. Except for the girls. He talks about them all the time.” Said girls were wrestling each other over a crayon. April broke up the fight by taking the crayon and breaking it in half, giving one to each. Like King Solomon, only in this case she’d actually cut the baby in half. Or the crayon.
Tate and April both laughed. I was missing the joke. I glanced at Lucah and his ears were getting red.
“We’re just surprised he told you anything at all. He’s not exactly forthcoming with anyone,” Tate said. “Not an open book, are you?” He slapped Lucah on the knee. “He’s always been like that, though. Even when we were kids.”
I couldn’t really imagine Lucah as a child. I was kind of hoping that childhood photos would make an appearance sometime during this visit.
“Well, he put up quite a fight,” I said.
“I had to. It was my job.” That made Tate laugh again.
“He used to pretend to be a spy growing up. He would invent an alias and a personality and refuse to answer to anything else. I think a lot of parents would have told him to stop pretending, but Mom and Dad always went along with it. Even that time when you were a doctor. What was your name again?”
“Dr. Harold Oglethorpe,” Lucah said. His arm tensed around my shoulder. Now he was the one stressing.
Tate shook his head, smiling. There was definitely an older brother/younger brother dynamic going on here.
“So, Tate, in the interest of disclosure, what do you do?” It was a terrible transition, and made it very clear that I was changing the subject.
“I’m a corporate attorney at a firm in Cambridge.”
“Impressive. I thought about going to law school, but I always knew I wanted to work for my father. Still, I guess I could always go back.”
“How are things going with the company? You’ve had some . . . difficulties recently, or so I’ve heard,” Tate said. At least he’d tried to put it delicately.
I sighed.
“That’s a bit of an understatement. Things are . . . we’re doing the best we can, but reassuring our clients is a full-time job right now, and we’ve been struggling to fill the positions that are now vacant while at the same time doing enough background checks to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.”
We talked some more about my company and how I’d started working there, and April jumped in. She ran a non-profit that helped out-of-work women (many of them single mothers) get back on their feet with job training and interview skills and professional attire. I’d liked her immediately, but after she told me what she did, I liked her even more.
She reminded me of my own mother. Gorgeous and put together, and able to tackle anything with a serene smile. The girls had two more fights that she broke up without even raising her voice. April Blythe was one of those women. The ones who had it all. I wanted to hate her, but I was in awe, so I couldn’t.
After the initial ice was broken, we moved into the kitchen where April had quite a spread set out.
“I didn’t bake any of this,” she confessed to me. “I was going to pretend that I had because I was trying to impress you, but then I was worried about you asking for a recipe, so I figured I should just be upfront.” I wouldn’t have asked for a recipe, and knowing the food that Sloane could turn out, I would have stayed in ignorance.
“Your secret is safe with me,” I whispered back as I picked up a little jam and cheese tartlet.
“Momma, I want a cookie!” Gracie said, tugging at her mother’s skirt.
“Cookie!” Fiona shrieked, trying to push Gracie out of the way.
“You may each have one cookie. Remember that candy you had?” They both shook their heads.
April sighed.
“Cookies have lots sugar. If you eat too much the sugar monster will come and nibble on your toes while you’re sleeping.” She growled and tickled both of them, and then handed each a cookie and told them to go sit at the little kid-sized table in the corner of the room to eat.
Tate and Lucah were chowing down on what looked like shrimp and chicken skewers on the other side of the kitchen.
“God, I hope that bit about the sugar monster doesn’t send them to therapy when they’re older. But you do what you can, right?” April gave me a tight smile and grabbed a tartlet herself. “So, you and Lucah are living together now.”
“Uh, yes.”
“I’m not trying to interrogate you,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I’m just, well, I’m shocked. But you have to know by now that he’s not the kind of guy who jumps into a commitment like that. Which means you must be pretty darn special.” The guys came over, as if they sensed what we were talking about.
“Hey,” Lucah said, putting his arms around my waist from behind and resting his head on my shoulder.
“Hey,” I said, turning my head and giving him a smile.
“What were you talking about?” he said, swaying us back and forth.
“None of your business, Mr. Blythe,” I said, grabbing another tartlet and holding up for him to eat. Unlike in the car, he didn’t lick my fingers. April and Tate were both watching us, and it was almost as bad as being caught mid-coitus. I had a tendency to forget anyone else was around when I was with Lucah. In addition to the getting emotional at random moments and the urges to declare my love almost constantly. Side effect of love.
I moved away from him and grabbed another tart. Those things were addictive.
April started talking about the Company Ball. Lucah had shown her some pictures he’d covertly taken of me coming down the steps. I hadn’t known he’d taken him. Stealthy.
“Where did you get that dress?” April said as she showed me the pictures on her phone. Thankfully, I wasn’t making a weird face in any of them. Or at least not in any of the ones that Lucah had sent her.