“I was wrong,” Will said again now. “I’ve been thinking about it and…I think I’ve been living for so long in this cutthroat world where it’s…every man for himself. It’s hard to not do unto others what’s been done unto me.”
“So let me get this straight.” Dolphina crossed her arms. “It’s hard for you to not lie, and it’s hard for you to behave like a considerate human being. I should fall into your arms because…?”
“Because I love you,” he said quietly. “That’s got to be worth something to you, because it’s everything to me.”
But she was already shaking her head.
“I’m not perfect,” he said. “I know that.”
“Understatement,” she said.
He laughed softly. “Yeah. I wouldn’t want anything to do with me, either. It’s just, you make me want to be…more than I am. You make me want to be a team player again, Dolphina.”
She almost caved at that one. He almost had her. But she just kept on shaking her head. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I just…I can’t.”
Will was looking into her eyes, and he nodded. “I’d be too scared, too. It’s scary—”
“I’m not too scared,” she said sharply. “I’m too smart.”
“Ah,” he said. “I thought you were…scared. My mistake. I…make a lot of them, apparently.”
“You should go,” she said. “The guests will be arriving soon.”
“Right,” Will said. He turned away, but then turned back. “We have one last photo session scheduled. For tomorrow afternoon. I never got a picture of the guys in their tuxedos—Robin wanted me to wait until he got his haircut, you know, for the wedding.”
Robin had needed to keep his hair shaggy and long while he was filming Art Urban’s new pilot. He’d finally gotten it cut that very afternoon, immediately after the wedding rehearsal. He looked amazingly good—and it was clear to Dolphina that Jules had thought so, too. He’d come home from having coffee with Sam and had found this shiny, clean-cut, blindingly handsome version of Robin in his kitchen. He’d circled his fiancé about a half a dozen times, and then pulled him upstairs to check out the new towels in their finally completed master bathroom.
Right. As if towel viewing always took the better part of an hour.
“I’ll make sure they’re ready for you,” Dolphina told Will. Tomorrow—Friday—had purposely been a lightly scheduled day. Friends would be arriving for Saturday morning’s wedding. Plans included nothing more strenuous than a sleep-late morning, and a casual evening get-together at the house.
Will nodded. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, so she’d waited. Impatiently.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he finally said, and went out the door.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Robin’s brother-in-law’s crazy mom had reassured everyone that she would be able to get a cab from Logan Airport when her flight arrived much, much too early in the morning, on the day before the wedding.
She hadn’t wanted to intrude on yesterday’s rehearsal dinner despite Robin’s assurances that he’d love for her to come out early with Jane, Cosmo, and Billy, and join the party.
Instead, she’d taken this later flight, insisting she was perfectly able to make her own way to Robin and Jules’s house in Boston’s South End.
Which was why Cosmo and Jane had gone to red alert when, an hour after her arrival time, she’d failed to appear at the front door.
“She’s not answering her cell phone,” Cosmo reported.
“She probably forgot to turn it on when she landed,” Janey suggested.
“Should we try to page her at the airport?” Robin had shuffled into the kitchen in his bathrobe, to grab a mug of coffee for Jules, who was still upstairs in bed, trying desperately to pretend that little Billy’s breakfast temper tantrum hadn’t blasted their day’s sleep-late plans clear out of the water.
Nothing like luxuriating in bed, knowing that their first appointment wasn’t until the afternoon, while being serenaded by But I want to! But I need to! No! NO!
Robin loved his nephew, but Jesus. The kid had a pair of lungs.
“Sorry about the Cheerios thing,” Janey murmured as he yawned his way over to the refrigerator.
“That was about Cheerios?” he asked, eyeing Billy, who was still sniffling as he sat in his high chair, a slumped picture of misery, suffering the parentally-decreed injustice of having his right to eat at the “big boy” table taken away from him due to his failure to act like said big boy. Damn, what would the noise levels have been like if it had been about Lucky Charms or Cap’n Crunch? And then he realized that that was what it had been about. Billy had wanted some of the high-energy-inducing cereal that Robin and Jules kept in their cabinets.
Someone—thank you, Jules—had taken out the box of Corn Pops last night, no doubt to have a snack, and left it on the counter for Billy to see at oh-my-God-o’clock, when he’d woken up.
“Sorry,” Robin told his sister as he finally unburied the cinnamon bread and put two slices into the toaster.
“I can’t believe you still eat that sugary…stuff,” she said.
“It’s Jules’s,” he told her as he got out a plate and a tray to carry the coffee and toast upstairs. He gave her a wicked smile. “He likes things that are…extra sweet.”
Janey laughed as she gazed at him over the top of her coffee mug. “With your hair like that, you look like you did when you were twelve.”
Robin bent down to look at his wavery reflection in the microwave window. His newly cut hair would indeed have won the gold medal in the Bedhead Olympics this morning. He rubbed his un-shaved chin. “Not quite.”
“Yeah,” Jane agreed. “Back then, you walked around with this…perpetual expression of anxiety. Robbie, it’s wonderful to see you looking so happy.”
The cinnamon bread popped out of the toaster, and Robin put it on the plate, then grabbed a knife from the drawer. “I’m not just looking happy,” he told his sister as he buttered the toast with that organic soybean spread stuff that Jules liked. “I am happy.”
Her smile got tremulous. “I’m so glad. Robin, you can’t know how proud I am of you.”
“Stop.” He made a cross between them, with the knife and his finger. “This kitchen has a weeping limit and Billy used up the morning’s allotment.”
Jane laughed. “I just wanted you to know,” she said, this incredible woman, this half-sister who’d so fiercely loved the little abandoned boy he’d once been. She’d saved him with her attention and affection—even when it sometimes had its downsides. Like the time she’d used him—in her defense, he had been a willing volunteer—to see if syrup of ipecac truly worked.
For the record—it did.
Jane leaned closer now, lowering her voice, mischief in her eyes. “I still can’t believe you scored Jules Cassidy. If I were a guy, I’d turn gay for him, too.”
Robin looked at her. “I didn’t turn gay,” he said. “I always was gay and yeah, okay, you’re just being a jerk.”
“Don’t you get tired of always correcting reporters?” she asked, grinning at him.
“My sexual orientation never changed,” Robin recited. “I merely stopped pretending that I was straight—pretending to myself as well as everyone else. Yeah, I don’t even need to think anymore, I just open my mouth and the words come out, I’ve said it so many fucking times.” He glanced at Billy and winced. “Sorry.”
Fortunately, the kid was paying attention to something his father was quietly telling him.
And then Jane was smiling over Robin’s shoulder. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Jules had thrown on sweats and a T-shirt and was bee-lining for the coffee. He rarely added the good until he’d caffeined up.
“I already poured you some, babe,” Robin told him. “I was going to bring it up.” He gestured to the tray, and Jules stopped short and his morning blear turned to wonder.
“You
were bringing me breakfast in bed,” he realized. “You are so sweet.”
Robin shot Jane a See? look, and she laughed.
“I think he was trying to make up for screaming nephew syndrome,” she said as Jules came over and gave Robin a kiss. “We are checking into the hotel for tonight and tomorrow. I know you both have been trying to convince us that it’s okay to stay here, but…This latest bout of boundary testing can get really loud and we can’t back down—it’s a battle we can’t afford to lose. I’ve already packed up our things—we’ll be out of here shortly.”
Robin looked at Jules, and Jules looked back at Robin.
“Strangely, I feel no need to argue with you,” Jules told Jane. “So, thank you.”
“Yeah,” Robin added. “If anyone’s going to be screaming But I want to, but I need to on the morning of my wedding day, it’s going to be me.”
Jules laughed as he picked up a piece of the toast Robin had made for him. “Has he always let whatever he’s thinking just…fly right out of his mouth?” he asked Jane before taking a bite.
“Pretty much,” she said, laughing, too.
“God, this is good,” Jules said with his mouth full. He’d moved slightly, so that he was close enough to touch Robin’s leg with his own, to put his bare foot on top of Robin’s as they stood there talking to Janey across the kitchen’s center island. “I can’t believe you made me breakfast in bed.”
“It’s just toast.” Robin put his arm around Jules, tugging him even closer. “Besides, you know what happens when you drink coffee on an empty stomach, babe.” He made a face at Jane. “Coffee farts.”
Jules turned and gave him his what-the-fuck face. “Yeah, hello, that would be you, thank you very much.”
“As of tomorrow morning we’ll be married,” Robin pointed out, trying to gross his sister out. Old habits died hard. “And my farts will be your farts, forevermore.”
“Robin, ew,” Jane said. Score.
But Jules just laughed as he smiled into Robin’s eyes. “It must be love, because I’m actually okay with that.”
“Janey, I’m on hold with the airline,” Cosmo said from across the room, frustration ringing in his usually fluster-proof voice. “Will you try calling my mom’s cell again?”
“Of course.”
“What’s going on?” Jules asked, as Jane opened her own cell phone and dialed.
“Cosmo misplaced his mother,” Robin told him.
“Hang on, Jane,” Cosmo said. “I’ve got her on call waiting—she’s beeping me right now. Mom,” he said into the phone. “Are you all right?”
Cosmo’s mom was a still youthful fifty-something, but she could be a real space cadet at times. Still, Robin adored her.
“She’s fine,” Cosmo reported, and they all breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re where?” he said into the phone. “South Boston.”
Robin started to laugh.
“No, Mom,” Cosmo said, with the patience of a saint. “South Boston is not the same as the South End.”
And wasn’t that an understatement? The South End, where Jules and Robin lived, was Boston’s gay neighborhood. South Boston, however, was near Dorchester, where Robin’s character Joe Laughlin had grown up. It was blue collar and heavily Irish Catholic—not exactly a part of town where Robin and Jules would be able to stroll down the street, hand in hand.
“Just hang tight,” Cosmo told his mother. “Stay there, we’ll come and get you.” He paused. “No, you stay inside the coffee shop where it’s warm. If we get there, and you’re waiting outside…Mom. Robin has enough to worry about today without putting the possibility of you freezing to death on his list, all right? Good. Just order a cup of tea. We’ll be there soon.” He snapped his phone shut and shot Robin a desperately amused look. “Apparently, Mom likes you best.”
Robin laughed as Cosmo lifted Billy out of his high chair. “Come on, Buddy, let’s go find your grandma,” the SEAL said to his son. “You need to hit the head before we get into the car?”
“Yeah, but…Gwamma likes Unca Robin best?” Billy asked, clearly worried about that.
“Nah, I was just teasing,” Cosmo told his son. “See you guys tonight. Let us know if you need us to help with anything,” he said to Jules and Robin, before turning his attention back to Billy. “Grandma loves everybody best—she loves you and me and Mommy and Uncle Robin and Uncle Jules.”
“And Unca Izzy?”
“Yup, even Uncle Izzy…”
Robin sighed as he watched Cosmo carry Billy out of the kitchen.
“That’s one lucky kid,” Jules murmured, putting voice to Robin’s thoughts. “Having a dad like him…”
Jane laughed. “You guys are freaking me out a little—standing there ogling my husband.”
“I’m not ogling,” Jules said. He looked at Robin. “Are you?”
“Not in a gay way,” Robin said. “But definitely in a God-I-wish-you’d-been-my-father way.” He smiled at his sister. “Maybe you and Cosmo could adopt us. Take us camping.”
“God, no. I hate camping,” Jules said.
“Really?” Robin looked at him.
“Uh-oh,” Jules said. “You didn’t know that?”
“No,” Robin said.
“I used to like it,” Jules said, “but lately…I’m totally camped out.”
“How could you be camped out?”
“I take it you like camping,” Jules said.
“Yeah,” Robin said, pulling him close. “And I bet you I could get you to like it again, too.”
Jules laughed. “Sweetie, there’s not much that you couldn’t get me to like, if you put your mind to it.”
“My mind?” Robin teased.
“Among other things…”
And, ooh, the look that Jules was now giving him was not a conversation-in-the-kitchen-with-Robin’s-sister-listening look. And sure enough, Jules had forgotten that Jane was standing there. “Yikes,” he said, glancing over at her. “Sorry.”
But she was laughing. “I bet if you run upstairs really fast, I could talk Robin into bringing you the rest of your breakfast in bed.”
“I suspect he won’t need any encouragement,” Jules told her, even as he blushed.
“I suspect he won’t either,” she said, reaching across the island to ruffle Robin’s hair, the way she used to do when he was little. “Seriously, guys, it’s not even seven. Go back to bed. We’ll lock the door behind us when we go, okay?”
Robin nodded. “See you tonight.”
“Yes, you will.” Jane ruffled Jules’s messy hair, too. “Thank you for loving my little brother.”
The smile Jules gave her was beautiful. “Thank you for loving your little brother, too.”
Adam stank.
The trip from L.A. had been horrific, with a too-short layover in Phoenix that had made him miss his connecting flight. He’d then had to wait seven hours for the next flight to Boston—via Dallas, Atlanta and Newark.
He was exhausted, he was starving, and yes, the cold sweat he’d manufactured back in his kitchen in L.A. had not improved with age. His T-shirt was ready for a toxic waste dump and he could smell his own feet, even while standing up.
The jacket he was wearing was barely suitable for a cold day in Southern California, let alone winter in Boston, but he hunched his shoulders against the wind and put his hands in his pockets as he bypassed the luggage carousels and headed for the door to the taxi stand.
Please God, let the cabs here in Boston take credit cards…
The line was long and, damn, it was cold, but Adam stood there, because cold was better than lying dead on the floor of his living room, with a hole blown through his extremely nonrobot head by some mental case with a newly purchased gun.
He took out his phone and turned it back on, checking to see what time it was because he had absolutely no clue, other than it was daylight.
It was nearly noon, which was good. It was also the day before Jules and Robin’s wedding, which probably wasn’t as goo
d, although certainly better than being the day of.
Adam keyed in Jules’s cell phone number with his thumb and was just about to press talk, when a voice spoke in his ear.
“Close the phone, Wyndham.”
It was a male voice, a rich baritone with a faint Western accent.
Adam turned and found himself looking up at …not Jim Jessop, but Jules Cassidy’s good friend Cowboy Sam.
“Oh, thank God,” Adam breathed, even as his phone was taken from his hands by someone standing on his other side. It was the cowboy’s wife, Alyssa, whom Adam had always thought to be much too gorgeous, much too smart, and much too not-white to have hooked up with a good ol’ boy from Texas.
Of course, Sam did ooze pure sex appeal, with his rugged good looks, sun-streaked hair, and long, long blue-jean-clad legs. The cowboy boots and sheepskin-lined leather jacket he was wearing this afternoon really worked for Adam, too.
“Jules is a little busy today,” Alyssa said, checking his phone to see that, yes, he had been about to call Jules. In fact, as Adam watched, she deleted both Jules’s and Robin’s numbers from his address book.
Hello, she was pregnant, which oddly enough didn’t make her look any less capable of thoroughly kicking his ass.
“Congratulations,” Adam said, but it was like talking into a void.
“He and Robin are both very busy,” Sam told him. “They don’t want to talk to you. They don’t want to see you. And they really don’t want you fucking up their wedding. So why don’t we all just go on back into the terminal and get you onto a flight back to L.A.?”
Alyssa was thorough as she went through his phone. She also deleted his incoming and outgoing call logs before she handed it back to him. “You really need to go home and sleep this off, Adam,” she said, her tone far more kind than Sam’s had been as she, too, took hold of his arm.
“I’m not drunk,” he said. “And I’m not going anywhere, so take your hands off me.” He smiled at Sam. “Honey, you can put your hands a whole lot lower if you want.”
All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas Page 21