Shopping for a Billionaire 3 (12 page)

“Why not? He hasn’t planted anything in there this season yet.”

“
How about I arrive in my own SUV, wearing something other than a suit, and I bring suitable Easter egg hunt items and a bottle of wine?”
 

“And your Batman costume,” I add with a smirk at Mom.

“Leave our sex life out of this,” he stage whispers.

Mom turns pink and stammers. “I—I’m so glad you’ll be there!” She skitters off to the office.

I hit Declan in the pec. My fingers crack. “Why did you say that?”

“Because I like to beat her at her own game.” His smile is so impish I stand on tiptoe
s
and give him a grateful kiss.

“You’ll never win,” I say, sighing.

“Never say never.”

* * *

“
You need to pee,” Tyler says as Declan walks in the front door of my parents’ house on Easter afternoon. It’s two o’clock and my boyfriend (that still gives me shivers to say it) is punctual. And, as promised, he drove his SUV, is wearing a long-sleeved, blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and jeans that fit him achingly well, and holds a lovely bottle of wine.
 

Declan bends down to be at eye level with my four-year-old nephew, who has his standard, serious look on his face. Little bow-tie lips, short brown hair, and brown eyes fringed by eyelashes so long they reach the ce
i
ling.

“Thanks, buddy, but I don’t need to pee.”

“You need to pee!” Tyler insists as Carol comes running from the kitchen and whisks him away to the bathroom.

I get a questioning look from Declan and try to explain. “Potty training. And Tyler has a language disorder, so right now he confuses ‘you’ and ‘I.’”

The lights go on for Declan. “I see. So he was saying ‘
I
need to pee.’” He laughs. “I hope he made it.”

Carol starts clapping and cheering from afar.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Declan’s kiss is polite and brief, so routine it warms my heart. That is the kind of kiss you give someone you’re becoming very comfortable with, and I love it.
 

L
ove him
.

“Declan! You’re here!” Mom comes barreling out of the kitchen wearing a red apron that says “Will Cook for Sex.” She gives him a warm, motherly hug. He’s a head taller than her and yet she’s the one enveloping him. He closes his eyes and surrenders to the embrace. A tiny corner of my heart grows a little more.

“Wine, as promised,” he tells her, handing off a bottle of something white. Looking
art
fully around the empty front room, he says with some care in a whisper, “And I have a bunch of plastic eggs stuffed with candy and toys out in my car. Where should I put them?”

M
om’s grin splits her happy face and she gives him a big kiss on the cheek. “You sweetie! When we’re ready for the egg hunt we’ll just grab them
and hide them
.” She holds the bottle away from her, squinting to read the label. “Jason! Come
see
Declan and take this chilled bottle out of here!”

Dad walks down the hall and joins us. He’s wearing a matching apron, khakis, and no shoes or socks. I think Dad is allergic to socks and shoes.

“
Declan!” They shake hands enthusiastically. “Good to see you.” Mom hands Dad the bottle.
 

“White!” she chirps.

“Thank you,” Dad says to Declan. “Want a beer?”

“
What about the wine, Jason?” Mom screeches, scandalized.
 

D
eclan and Dad ignore her, like they planned it in advance.
Dad shoots me a wink.
 

“Sure. Whatcha got?”

“
You like stouts? I’ve got some microbrew from this little place in Framingham...”
Declan walks away, following Dad, and just like that, he’s integrated into the household.

I
stand in my own childhood home and look around the living room. Everyone’s congregated in the tiny kitchen
and I overhear Amy telling Carol about running in the marathon
. Mom and Dad could buy a
five-thousand-
square-foot mansion in Osterville with an enormous living room and everyone would still cra
m
into the kitchen to talk and taste and hang out.

Declan breezed into the house, was told he needed to pee by a
child
, offered up a bottle of wine, and boom! Dad takes him to his Man Cave in the backyard like we’re married and have been together forever.

I’m sensing a trend here.

This might actually happen. Me and Declan.

Carol walks into the living room, rubbing vanilla-scented lotion on her hands. She stares at me for a second, eyebrows raised. “You okay?”

“Dad just took Declan to the Man Cave.”

“He’s being accepted into the tribe.”

“Is that good or bad?” I give her a helpless look and sink down onto the couch. The springs are shot, so I literally sink down, my feet flying off the floor. I bury my head in my hands.

Carol stands over me and finishes rubbing the lotion. “I think you’re afraid of success.”

“
What? No. No, I’m not. I never had a problem with Dad taking Steve into the Land of Grunts and Farts.” Dad has a little hundred-square-foot shed that he winterized a while ago. It’s got a television, ancient lounge chairs Mom tried to throw away years ago, and all his old sci-fi
paperbacks he’s been collecting since the 1960s, lined on homemade shelves.
 

He illegally piped a wood stove in there, and has an old milk jug I suspect doubles as a toilet in a pinch. Sometimes he and Mom have fights so intense he sleeps out there. Just for one night, though. The Man Cave smells like male sweat, Old Spice, and onions. Seriously. There’s a minor methane crisis in there. Jeffrey says it smells like Grandpa.

“Dad only took him back there to be nice to you. He hated Steve.”

“I know.” Once Steve dumped me they
allllll
came out of the woodwork to tell me what an ass Steve was, and Dad led the charge. He was like pressure cooker. Once you popped the seal on the lid, more steam than you knew existed came pouring out.
 

E
nough to burn if you weren’t careful.

“‘
Pearls after swine’ was the exact phrase he used all the time,” she adds.
 

“He said that about you and Todd, too.”

“I know.”

“No, like, at your wedding. And when Jeffrey was born. And then Tyler, and—”

“Got it. Don’t need my nose rubbed in it.”

S
ilence hangs between us for a second. I look like a hybrid of Mom and Dad. Carol, though, looks most like Mom. Lighter blonde hair, blue eyes, a round face with dimples, and plump cheeks that make her look
perennially
cheerful, even when she’s not smiling. She’s the oldest, and life hasn’t been easy these past few years.

“Any luck with jobs?” I ask. She’s the one who got me into mystery shopping. Back when I was hired on full-time she had a great full-time job. Then Tyler began having huge behavioral problems, Todd dropped off the face of the earth, and she was laid off. Mom and Dad have helped. Carol mystery shops with the kids when she can, and she’s living on unemployment and some vague government assistance I don’t quite understand. She has a degree, and loads of determination, but not a lot of time or hope.

“I have an interview with a call center. Night shift. Mom says she and Dad can help with babysitting.” Defeat oozes in her voice.

“Minimum wage?”

“No, actually. More like a standard three-to-eleven shift. I’d have to rely on Mom and Dad too much. it’s not fair to them.”

“They love Jeffrey and Tyler,” I protest.

“I know. It’s just…you don’t have kids. You don’t understand.”
Her eyes shift down and she looks like a very serious, contemplative version of our mother. The dissonance is hard to reconcile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mom look…reflective.
 

“
No, you’re right. I don’t.” I do want kids someday. Watching Carol struggle the way she has definitely made me extend “someday” by a few years, though. Tyler and Jeffrey are the best kids ever (I’m biased), but they haven’t been easy to raise without help.
 

“
And you’re dating a hot billionaire.”
 

I roll my eyes and she smirks. Ah. Now she looks like Mom again.

Hot Billionaire chooses that moment to walk in, overhearing Carol’s comment
“
You’re dating another guy named Hot Billionaire?” His easy touch as he wraps an arm around my waist just adds to her embarrassment. I remember when she brought Todd home, when I was thirteen, and I thought he was so hot. Jealousy poured through me then, as Todd would give her hugs and kisses and little love pats.
That
was love, I thought. Back then, before Todd turned out to be pond scum.
 

D
eclan’s not Todd.

Carol turns bright pink. It looks like she poured a bottle of Pepto-Bismol all over her face.
“
We thought you were in the Man Cave, grunting and eating roast meat off a stick,” she says.
 

“We were, until the little boys found us, and now your dad is playing horsey with them and he sent me in here for a rescue team.”

Carol laughs and takes the chance to escape. “I’ll rescue him!”

“
Dinner’s soon! Declan, can you help set the table?” Mom comes out of the kitchen, her hair so thoroughly sprayed and set in stone by some chemical that will likely be proven in ten years to cause cancer, but by God keeps her hair in place even as she cooks.
 

“Sure.” He winks at me and walks toward Mom. “Where’s the dining room?”

M
om leads him through the kitchen into the formal dining room, the sanctuary of Good Food and the room we use exactly three times a year: Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. When not in use for a holiday, the dining table doubles as a storage facility for junk mail, LEGO
toys
Mom finds while vacuuming, and random light bulbs dad needs to remember to replace with LEDs but never does.

Mom’s really pulled out all the stops, with a pale blue linen tablecloth and matching napkins. I wonder which
thrift
store she got that deal from, and then I see the glasses. Matching crystal glasses at each seat, the tops edged with gold.

“Like my table?” she asks proudly.

“Where’d you get it all?” I ask, definitely admiring. Mom and I have a shared love for “thrifting” and yard-saling.

“Savers!” she exclaims, then catches Declan’s confused look.

“
What’s Savers?”
 

Amy happened to come into the room and is halfway to greeting me and Declan, arms stretched out for a hug, when she stops cold at Declan’s words. “
Y
ou don’t know what Savers is?”

“
Get me some smelling salts,” Mom jokes, “because I’m about to faint. Declan, we have to take you thrifting!”
 

“Thrifting?” He seems amused.

“Shopping at thrift shops. Yard sales. Estate sales. That sort of thing. And Savers is a chain of thrift shops.”

“Used items?” He still seems confused. “So you only buy used items? Like antiques?”

M
om’s turn to look confused. “Declan, you’ve never bought something used?”

“An antique. Sure. Dad buys them all the time for the office and his house. But otherwise…no.”

“You just shop in regular stores for everything?”

“I have shoppers who do that for me. Unless it’s clothing. Then I just go to a tailor.”

“
Oh,” Mom says quietly. An awkward pause fills the air.
 

“I would love to g
o
‘thrifting’ with you, Marie,” he says with a smile. “It sounds like fun.”

He is officially the Best Billionaire Boyfriend I have ever had.

Mom relaxes and points to the fridge. “Can you get the butter lamb, Declan? It’s time to get the food on the table.”

His face goes slack, the friendliness replaced by a kind of tempered shock he’s obviously trying to hide. “Butter lamb?”

I laugh, trying to get him to chill out. “A few generations back, Dad’s family was from the Buffalo area. Polish. There’s this tradition where you—”

“Where you have a pound of butter that’s pressed and formed into the shape of a lamb, and you put it out on the table at Easter,”
he says.
 

Everyone freezes. Jaws drop. Eyes open wide.

“You know about the butter lamb?”

His hands are shaking, just a tad, as he shoves them in the front pockets of his jeans. “Um, sure. My mom was from that area. We had one every year.”
He swallows so hard we can all hear the click in his throat, and his face is uncertain, eyes blinking rapidly. “I haven’t seen once since…”
 

“Since she died?” I ask gently, my hand reaching out to his forearm for reassurance. He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t change
h
is stance. I want to ask him again how his mother died, but this really isn’t the time.

Nod.

“Then wonderful!” Mom gushes. “
Not wonderful that your mother died, but wonderful that you can reconnect with an old family tradition.” She reaches for his shoulders and directs him to the fridge, then walks past him to the stove to stir something. A timer goes off and she mutters to herself.
 

Declan sets the yellow lamb on the table and looks out the back sliding doors toward the yard, where Dad is pushing Tyler on the swing set.

“Can we go outside?” he asks in a ragged voice.

“Of course.”
We head toward the door and I pause with my handle on it. “If this is too much, we can leave. Go somewhere quiet and—”
 

He takes both my hands in his and smiles at me with troubled eyes. “It’s more than enough, but not too much. I want to stay. Your family is lovely.”

“My family is crazy.”

“Crazy can be lovely.”

By the time dinner and the Easter egg hunt are over, everyone has turned into a
human potato bug
,
round and grey, a series of roly-polies
stuffed silly. Conversation has devolved into exclamations of how good all the food was and groans about how our stomachs are about to explode.