The Boyfriend

by Abigail Barnette

  “Sophie, that’s wonderful!” Neil beamed. “What a relief. Did she already have the surgery or—”

  “No. She said it would be in a few hours, but that was a few hours ago.” I should have asked for specifics.

  “We could leave in the morning,” Neil suggested. “I can call for a flight crew.”

  I shook my head. “She said not to. I kind of think that might be Susan’s doing, but I don’t want to step on any toes.”

  Neil frowned and walked me toward the couch. “You’re paying for the surgery. Why shouldn’t you be there?”

  What a weird life Neil lived. “So, it’s not exactly in the best taste to tell someone that you’re invited to their kidney transplant because you’re paying for it.”

  He grimaced. “That did sound a bit crass, didn’t it?”

  I shrugged off my faux-leather jacket and tossed it over the back of one of the armchairs before I took a seat beside Neil on the sofa. Olivia played on the floor in front of the massive fieldstone fireplace, running her bright yellow plastic construction machines over the wide lip of the unlit hearth.

  “Let me see your phone,” I demanded.

  “Where’s yours?” Neil sat up straight, feigning panic. “How did it become separated from its host?”

  “Shut up.” I grabbed for the Pixel 2 he held out of my reach, and he reluctantly gave it to me. “I’m going to email Susan and see if I can’t get some details.”

  “How are you going to do that on my phone?” He demanded. I would never get over how easily simple technology eluded him at times.

  “I’m going to open an incognito tab and sign into my email.” He was only fifty-four, for god’s sake.

  “Just—” he began, but cut himself off.

  “Just don’t look at your browser history?” I snorted. “I know how much you look at porn. You’re not going to shock me.”

  “No, just don’t…” he shifted uncomfortably and scratched the back of his head. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to say.”

  I glanced up from the screen. “Just don’t be disappointed if they don’t treat me as one of the family the instant I hit send. I know. And I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that.”

  “You have,” he conceded.

  “And,” I went on, though he’d already agreed with me, “I think I’ve done really well with giving them their space but still maintaining a relationship with Molly.”

  As much of a relationship as we could have when one of our other sisters was overprotective of Molly and slightly suspicious of me. I could understand Susan’s caution. Molly had already experienced a devastating loss with the death of her father. She didn’t need some total stranger breezing in and out of her life. But I wasn’t planning to go anywhere, and I wished Susan would trust me.

  I typed up a quick email asking Susan to keep me posted and reminding her of both my cell number and Neil’s just so we wouldn’t miss a call.

  Neil watched me the entire time. When I gave him an ocular reprimand, he gestured to my hands. “You have my phone! What am I supposed to do while I wait?”

  I nodded toward the colorful characters on the television. “Watch Doc McStuffins.”

  His face, posture, and sigh all united in defeat.

  I finished up and hit send, then gave him his phone back.

  I clapped my hands together and rubbed them like I needed to warm them up. Maybe I did. I felt strangely numb. “Now I just...wait.”

  Neil studied me silently for a moment, a hint of amusement playing at the corners of his lips. But he wasn’t teasing me when he said, “You’re not good at being patient.”

  “I’m not,” I admitted. There was no point in arguing what was accurate enough to put in a biography of me. Really, I should have put it on a t-shirt to warn people.

  He drew me into his arms so that I rested against his side, my head cradled in the dip of his shoulder. “Will it help if I say that these kinds of transplants are common and usually have good outcomes?”

  “No.” I took his hand and pulled it to my lips to kiss his knuckles. “But thank you for trying.”

  After some quiet silence, he said, “Will it help if you got your phone and checked it obsessively?”

  “Probably not. That would only make things worse.” But I got to my feet. “I’m gonna do it, anyway.”

  Neil chuckled. “My darling, I would expect no less.”

  One of the biggest drawbacks of having a ridiculous square footage is that you have a lot of time to think while you walk. Considering I almost busted my ass on three different Tonka truck wrecks on the way back to the kitchen, it was no wonder that I ended up thinking about Olivia.

  After all the worrying and planning and meticulous daily scheduling we’d worked out as we tried desperately to raise her without making any mistakes, how had we managed to fuck up something as big as preschool? I snatched my purse off the floor, fished out my phone, and went back to the den and Doc McStuffins.

  Neil was already deeply absorbed in some mobile game. He didn’t look up when I entered. “I hate that they make you sit through ads between levels.”

  I squinted at him in annoyance. “You have billions of dollars. Pay the buck ninety-nine to get the ads turned off.”

  “I didn’t become a billionaire by throwing money away two dollars at a time,” he grumbled.

  I sat back down beside him. “No, you became a billionaire when your dad gave you a company.”

  “Exactly,” Neil said, finally looking up to give me a wry smile. “The old-fashioned way.”

  “Well, you do not want to know how much I spent on Love Nikki, Dress UP Queen last month.” Not that much, actually; games were no fun if you could just pay to win them. “So, Deja said something today.”

  “You saw Deja? And the baby?” For someone who hadn’t wanted more kids when we’d started dating, Neil still loved babies.

  “No, there was no baby there. Just a screeching, snotty hell-beast from the depths of your worst nightmares.” My ears would probably never stop ringing. “I got them set up with a night nurse.”

  “That we’re paying for,” he finished for me.

  “Take it out of my allowance, sugar daddy.” I rolled my eyes. Neil didn’t actually begrudge me spending money, but he also didn’t understand why I liked spending money on my friends as much as I did. His social circle had either grown up rich or become rich. He never seemed to meet any people who weren’t choking on handfuls of assets. “I know they could probably afford it, but Deja and Holli are the kind of people who would see a baby nurse as something extravagant and pointless. The working class generally considers caring for one’s young as one’s own responsibility. Except for daycare, of course.”

  “Holli and Deja are hardly working class anymore,” Neil reminded me.

  “Once working class, always working class.” I believed that deep in my heart due to my own experiences. “I mean, just with nicer stuff. But the mentality never goes away.”

  “You seem to abandon that mentality handily whenever we pass an Hermès boutique,” he teased.

  If I weren’t so predictable, I would have accused him of spying on me while I shopped earlier.

  “But I understand. And I’m only joking, Sophie. You know I don’t care what you lavish upon your friends and family.”

  “That’s good because the guest list for Christmas is looking pretty lavish.” I’d had no idea so many people in my family would be willing to spend the holidays abroad. “Anyway, back to Deja. When I saw her today, she said she was already looking for preschools. And I was like, phew, I’m thrilled Neil already did all of that without mentioning it to me, right?”

  He opened his mouth as if he were going to ask me a question, but it just hadn’t formed in his brain, yet.

  “I mean, because preschool is like, apparently so super competitive? We needed to be looking for one like, from the moment she was born, I guess?” Not that we had been in charge of things then. Maybe Emma and Michael had alr
eady locked the preschool thing down? I couldn’t remember the lawyer saying anything about that, and he had all their important paperwork. “Emma never happened to mention to you...”

  Neil shook his head. “No. And to be perfectly honest...Valerie took care of all of that when Emma was young. I don’t recall ever having to make a decision beyond which color pen to use on the paperwork. Even then, some of that paperwork specified a preference.”

  “So...no chance that you’ve already bought Olivia’s way into a gleaming, ivory tower future by picking exactly the right school?” The bottom of my stomach dropped out. If Olivia didn’t go soon, would that delay kindergarten? And graduating? Would she have trouble getting into college?

  “I hadn’t given any thought to it, really. At Olivia’s age, my siblings and I had private tutors. I don’t remember going to school formally until I was much older.” Neil frowned. “I don’t see what the rush is to send her off all day.”

  “I’m not in a rush,” I said, a little defensive. I found myself always walking a line that I had drawn on my own behalf. I’d been adamant about not wanting children and that had really haunted me ever since we’d become Olivia’s guardians. I wasn’t a child-hating monster, but that was the impression a lot of people got when they found out a woman didn’t want kids. Now, I monitored everything I said to make sure it didn’t sound like I resented Olivia or didn’t want her around.

  But facts were facts, and Neil was overlooking some important ones. “You had brothers and sisters to keep you company. Olivia doesn’t get much socialization with kids her own age.”

  “I think she gets plenty of attention,” he argued. “You and I are both home nearly all the time—“

  “No, we’re not. And it doesn’t matter how much attention she gets. Watching Dynasty reruns with my mom doesn’t count as socialization. Olivia needs to...roam free with her own kind.”

  After a long moment of silence, Neil sighed. “You have a point. We can’t keep her locked up like a princess in a tower until she’s ready for boarding school.”

  Boarding school? Yikes. We would cross that highly contentious bridge when we came to it.

  At the mere mention of princesses and towers, Olivia perked up. “Tangled?”

  “Yeah, we can watch Tangled.” I was eager to move the subject away from eventually shipping her off to a boarding school. And I couldn’t turn down a frothy, fluffy romance, no matter what was going on. “What about you, Afi? Want to come watch Tangled? We can make popcorn and put out the sleeping bags in the theater.”

  “I think I’ll stay here and enjoy something non-animated after a long day of children’s television.” He sounded grateful for the break. “Keep an eye on bedtime?”

  “Always.” I would keep an eye on it and watch it breeze right past. If Olivia didn’t get firm visual confirmation that Mother Gothel was defeated, she had nightmares. “While you’re enjoying your grown-up TV, see if you can’t at least google preschools and what it’s going to take to get into one.”

  “A big fat check, I presume.” He put his arms out to Olivia. “Come on, give Afi a kiss goodnight.”

  “Night night,” she said, climbing onto his lap to kiss his cheek.

  I took Olivia’s chubby little hand in mine and said, “Let’s go.”

  Though I’d never wanted kids, I didn’t want to screw up the one that had been entrusted to us. Olivia needed friends who weren’t thirty-plus years old. She needed friends who could pretend to be Rapunzel with her and who weren’t bored out of their minds playing blocks and trucks.

  But with our weird life, could we even give her that?

  * * * *

  The holidays swept in seemingly without warning; before we knew it, we were dropping Olivia off with Valerie and Laurence and flying to England. They would catch up with us on Christmas Eve, along with several members of my family as well as Neil’s brothers and their families. It would be the first time so many of them were in the same place, at least since the wedding, and we wanted time to make sure everything was being done properly at Neil’s country estate.

  And, because we wanted to spend time with El-Mudad.

  Our car, which I had sarcastically nicknamed “Of The Somerset Maybachs,” rolled down the crushed stone driveway toward the house. I was grateful for the tinted windows; guests still wandered the grounds, taking in the elegant Christmas decorations in the gardens on their guided tours. Some would still be in the house, inspecting all the weird and creepy relics Langhurst Court had to offer. The place was spooky and awful, like if the house from Crimson Peak had a baby with Hogwarts, and for some reason, people liked to visit it.

  Which was why we pulled past the front entrance and through a gated side courtyard, away from prying eyes.

  “This is probably what it feels like to be royalty,” I said, and I didn’t mean it in a good way.

  “I doubt anyone is going to snap a photo of us, darling. I’m the least interesting wealthy person in England,” Neil reassured me sardonically.

  “It’s just weird. I mean, I want to see El-Mudad, not a bunch of strangers just strolling through where we’re supposed to be living.” Why Neil loved this place and this life, I had no clue. It was just another of those things that I didn’t understand because I didn’t come from old money and slightly noble blood. There were portraits of his ancestors on the walls of Langhurst Court.

  Robert, the butler, met us at the door with Joan, the head housekeeper. They both wore smart Navy suits pressed to perfection.

  “Mr. Elwood, Ms. Scaife,” he greeted us. “Welcome home.”

  This is not my home, I mentally snarked, and I could have sworn Neil heard it because he seemed to try to hide a chuckle.

  “Thank you, Rob. Did our guest arrive?” Neil asked, glancing up at the windows as though he could catch a glimpse of El-Mudad.

  “Yes, sir,” Rob answered. “We’ve put him in the Gray Apartment, as you requested.”

  The rooms were named. The Gray Apartment occupied the opposite corner of the floor where our rooms were located. A door adjoined them through Neil’s dressing room, though it was usually locked. It would be unlocked for this visit, and the staff was professional enough not to bat an eyelash at the request.

  They knew what we were going to be up to.

  “Mr. Elwood, Ms. Scaife,” Joan said with a nod of her brunette pixie cut to each of us. “Mr. Ati is taking tea in the Morning Room. Would you like to join him or shall I take him a message?”

  “We’ll join him!” I said eagerly, grabbing Neil’s hand. “Come on, is it far?”

  Joan followed us through the door and into the checkered-floor and dark, gothic wood foyer. “There are still tours on the first floor of the west wing. I could take you through the staff corridors if you’d like to avoid those.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary, thank you,” Neil told her. “What time do tours end today?”

  “There should only be two more groups after this one, and the gardens close at seven. Dinner will be served at nine, and I will have a full copy of the public schedule left in your room.”

  “Thank you,” he said, giving them both nods before letting me pull him away. “Sophie, you don’t know where you’re going!”

  “I kind of do,” I giggled. “I know that the west wing is this way.”

  “You’re going to run us through a tour group and get embarrassed,” he warned and took the lead.

  As it happened, we weren’t able to avoid tour groups entirely, but aside from a few curious glances, nobody seemed to care about our presence. In New York, we occasionally wound up in society columns. I’d been snapped sitting beside Deja at a Laurence & Chico show in a photo that had run in Vanity Fair, and even that small level of public awareness had disturbed me. So, it was weird to have strangers strolling through Neil’s house, but an oddly comforting reminder that we were rarely recognized.

  Neil unhooked a velvet rope and opened one of the enormous doors to the West Gallery. We stepped thr
ough, and he fastened the barrier again. Another set of doors stood open between two large paintings of rich historical dead people. El-Mudad walked out, his arms held wide.

  I ran to him and jumped up, locking my legs around his waist and taking his face between my hands to kiss him. He took a step backward but maintained his balance, his strong arms boosting me up even higher. I sank my fingers into his silky black hair. “I missed you so much!”

  His hold tightened on me. “It’s been centuries,” he whispered against my lips, kissing me again.

  Neil stepped up beside us and put his arm around El-Mudad’s waist. “Millennia,” he corrected and leaned in for a kiss of his own. Reluctantly, I let my feet down and moved to give Neil his chance. Not that it was a hardship. Seeing the two men I loved express love for each other made me feel all kinds of flip-floppy, goofy romantic things in my belly. The way Neil cradled the back of El-Mudad’s head as they kissed, the way El-Mudad’s groan was muffled made me want to swoon.

  “Oh my god, I so ship you two,” I said with a laugh.

  “I don’t think that you can ship people who are also in love with you,” El-Mudad said with an air of authority. “And I have a daughter who writes fanfiction, so I should know.”

  “And you both have a very old partner who doesn’t understand what the hell you’re talking about,” Neil said, reaching for me to pull us all into a three-person embrace. “How was your trip?”

  “Perfect.” El-Mudad made a motion with one hand to indicate smooth sailing. “I brought the new jet.”

  “New jet?” Neil asked, his voice rising with excitement.

  “Global seven-thousand,” El-Mudad confirmed with a smirk.

  “Looks like there are perks to dating a rich man, huh?” I teased, elbowing Neil playfully.

  “I thought we would take it to Venice for New Year’s,” El-Mudad suggested.

  “Yes!” Neil agreed enthusiastically. He could barely contain his excitement. He was like a five-year-old being told they were going to get to ride on a choo-choo train. Then he cleared his throat and tried to act cool. “I’ve been hoping to see one of them in person, but I’ve never had the opportunity.”