Just the Thing

by Marie Harte

  “Okay.” Should she dictate the plans for their date? She normally did. Maybe this time she’d try something different.

  He watched her, looking for what, she had no idea.

  To set him straight, she explained, “But I’m not going out with you for happy Zoe time.”

  “Huh?”

  “No sex, buddy.”

  He flushed, finally. “Yeah, well. This was…an accident. Forget it.”

  “You mean you don’t normally roll around in the gym with a poker in your shorts?”

  He laid his head down and groaned. “No, I do not. Tell no one about this, and I swear I’ll buy you a kick-ass dinner.”

  “With dessert?”

  “Sure, whatever. Now go away so I can be presentable again,” he said, his words muffled.

  “Well, at least you’re more presentable than you were the other day in that fire engine–red gym shirt.”

  “I know.” He paused. “Tell me I didn’t look like a stop sign while wearing it.”

  “I was thinking more like a yield sign, actually. You know, because you have nice lats, your back like a V.”

  “Thanks, I think.” He turned his head, glanced up at her, and turned back to the mat, swearing softly. “Now go away. You’re not helping.”

  She walked toward the doorway, her awkwardness vanishing with the emergence of his. “I’ll leave my cell number with the front desk.”

  “You do that,” he said, sounding pathetic.

  Zoe laughed. Talk about mastering the art of self-defense. Zoe, one. Gavin, zero.

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday evening, Gavin stared at his family seated around the table. With everyone working different schedules and attending mandatory weddings, hump day had become the only free night this month for a get-together.

  As usual, his father had cooked the meal. Van Donnigan could make anything tasty, even eggplant, which Gavin usually couldn’t stand. Tonight, his dad had prepared an eggplant lasagna that had melted in Gavin’s mouth. Despite looking like a carbon copy of his father, Gavin hadn’t inherited any culinary skills. Those he got from his mother. Like Linda, he had a hard time boiling water. So whenever anyone promised a free meal, Gavin made sure not to miss the occasion.

  He’d already cleaned his plate and planned on having seconds. Except Theo, sitting next to him, had the same idea, gauging Gavin while inching his fork closer to the lasagna pan.

  Their mother sighed. “Honestly, Gavin. If you’re not arguing with Landon, you’re fighting my baby for the last bite.”

  Gavin grinned. “Your baby. Aw, poor little Theo.”

  “Shut up.” Theo flushed.

  Across the table, Landon and Ava tried not to smile. Hope had no such qualms. Sitting on Gavin’s other side at the end of the table, she burst out laughing, as did their father as he rose from his seat.

  “Easy, you two. There’s another pan in the oven. I’ll get it.” He took the nearly empty pan from the table and returned with the full one. Once again seated at the head of the table next to Linda, he shook his head. “Free food brings out the worst in my children.”

  “I don’t know about free,” Landon grumbled. “Ava said I have to do dishes.”

  “I said we’ll do dishes,” Ava corrected him, her green eyes gleaming. “You cook, Van; we clean up. It’s only polite.”

  Hope groaned. “Can I just tell you how annoying it is to have another suck-up in the family?”

  Theo snickered while shoveling food into his growing body. The boy was twenty and skinny as a reed.

  “You said it,” Gavin agreed. “Landon was bad enough. Major Clean, over there, can be anal like nobody’s business. You sure you know what you’re doing agreeing to marry him, Ava?”

  Landon glowered. “Seriously? This from the human pig at the table?”

  Van coughed to cover a laugh.

  Gavin shrugged. “Hey, at least I don’t sleep with the toilet brush and the glass cleaner by my side. Did you make him lose the duster yet, Ava? He’s got a sickness.” Taunting Landon made the world right every time.

  “Ass,” Landon muttered, to which their mother glared. He opened his mouth, saw Linda’s raised brow, and shut it.

  “Very good.” Linda nodded. “Now, I’d like to make an announcement.”

  He heard Hope groan under her breath, but when their mother gave her a sharp look, she pasted an innocent smile on her face. “What’s up, Mom?”

  “Your father and I are moving.”

  Gavin stared at her, glanced at the rest of his stunned family, and asked, “What?”

  “Why?” Theo frowned.

  “Well, I had another argument with your father. I realized I’m too hard on my children.” She sniffed, and her eyes watered. “And that I’m causing the family some real distress with my attitude.”

  Linda Donnigan? Crying? Gavin’s mother didn’t cry unless she lost a million-dollar listing, and then it was more an allergic reaction to losing than a true feeling of grief. Now, he could see his father rolling around in emotion. Yet the old man remained dry-eyed and tight-lipped.

  “Mom?” Landon asked. “What’s up?”

  “That’s a great question.” She leveled an angry glare at Van.

  Ava glanced back and forth between Linda and Van but said nothing.

  Recalling how his aunt and uncle had undergone some marital difficulties not too long ago—which he knew because his mother had let it slip that Beth had needed her help—Gavin wondered if Linda’s apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree of disharmony.

  “Seriously, Mom. Are you and Dad having problems?”

  “This is about me, isn’t it?” Hope asked. “You think I won’t grow up if you’re constantly strangling me with advice.”

  Trust Hope to turn this into a mother-daughter battle. “Hope, shut up,” Gavin growled. “Mom, explain.”

  Van quietly left the table, and Gavin’s heart started pounding.

  “It’s just…your father and I…” She sighed, then pointed at Landon. “Ha! I got you. I am now queen of the prank wars!”

  Gavin blinked, blew out a breath, and forced himself to relax. One crisis averted.

  “That was low.” Hope scowled.

  “Yeah, Mom.” Theo glared.

  Landon shook his head. “And here I thought at least you were above it all.”

  Linda grinned, an older, meaner version of Hope. “Please. I reign victorious! Do you really think your father and I can’t work out our issues after thirty-five years? If we even think about a hiccup, we deal with it then and there. And now we have even more assets at our disposal able to help.” She looked to Ava.

  Ava shook her head when Gavin raised a brow. He’d asked her for therapeutic help not long ago, and she’d referred him to a colleague. His current shrink. Something about a conflict of interest because she was doing his brother. Though she hadn’t put it exactly like that.

  “I know people who can help. The only person I can shrink here is Landon.” Ava nodded at the bonehead. “Except I would never do that, because that conflicts with keeping my relationship stable. Right, handsome?”

  Landon nodded, fat and happy with a woman who understood him and loved him anyway. “Exactly, Doc.”

  “Wait. I’m still confused.” Gavin held up a hand. “How is it that our parents are even aware of the prank wars?” Everyone gradually looked at Theo. “You told, didn’t you? Twenty years old and still running to Mom and Dad.”

  Theo flushed. “I did not. Dad coerced it out of me. He’s some kind of freak interrogator.”

  “Oh? Did he rip out your fingernails?” Gavin snorted.

  “No.” Theo looked mutinous. “They kind of figured it out from the orange hair.” Ah, the prank to end all pranks, the forced dye job.

  “Theo isn’t the type for Oregon State orange,
” Van said as he came out of the kitchen, a large grin on his face. “I knew it had to be Landon.”

  “Ha.” Theo pointed at their big brother. “I knew it was you too.”

  Landon shrugged. “My idea. His execution.” He nodded at Gavin. Figured he’d dime out his coconspirator. The traitor.

  Theo turned a hurt gaze Gavin’s way. “Seriously? You’re ganging up on me with him?”

  “Oh please. It was either gonna be me or Hope. Sac up, boy.”

  “Gavin.” His mother didn’t like rude or crude language. Even at thirty-two, he wasn’t immune from the wrath of Linda.

  “Sorry.” He grinned. “But Theo, you really rocked the mohawk. And hey, it’s all grown back. Mostly.”

  Theo had shaved his head, leaving it longer on top, going for more of a flattop look. Unsurprisingly, he wore it well.

  “You look regulation,” Landon added. “USMC all the way.” He smiled.

  Theo flushed. “I’m still kicking that around.”

  Baby Brother wanted to join the Marine Corps, to follow in Landon and Gavin’s footsteps. But he hesitated because Landon had been medically discharged due to injuries sustained during battle. And Gavin…Gavin was all messed up. A bullet in the ribs had healed well enough. As had that punctured lung and torn quad. But the bombs that had killed his friends had brought on some god-awful nightmares and shakes he hadn’t been able to subdue on his own. Made his job as a sniper difficult.

  So like his brother, he’d been medically discharged, but without the primo retirement pay Major Donnigan had earned. Instead Gavin, now a medically retired master sergeant, had a tiny-ass pension, medical benefits, some spiffy medals, and a GI Bill he had yet to put to use.

  “Well, I for one think you’d look good in green,” Hope said.

  Linda frowned. “Theo, take your time. The military isn’t for everyone.”

  “Mom.” Theo sighed.

  She changed the subject. “How is work going?”

  Everyone homed in on the kid, and Gavin felt bad. Theo went through jobs like Linda went through assistants. Nothing satisfied the guy. But then, working at a place for more than a few weeks might prove the key to finding the perfect fit. Theo grew bored at the drop of a hat. The Marine Corps would chew that shit right up.

  “Where are you working now?” Gavin asked. “You said you were going to leave the coffee shop a week ago. Did you? Are you back to unplugging toilets with Flynn and Brody?” His cousins, the plumbers.

  Theo glared at him.

  “Yes, son. Where?” Van asked.

  With everyone focused on Theo, Gavin felt safe to sneak to the kitchen, away from the limelight, with his dirty plate.

  Hope soon joined him. “Man, Mom really had me going.”

  “Me too. Guess this means we have to include them in the war. I’ll TP Dad’s car; you short-sheet Mom’s bed. It’ll drive her nuts,” he suggested, only half teasing.

  “Hmm. Not a bad idea.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “Yeah.” Yet Hope looked too speculative for her own good. “So what’s this I hear about you and some woman at the gym?”

  He swallowed a groan. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Where else?” She smiled. “Before you got here, Landon was telling everyone how Zoe York keeps shooting you down. I like her already.”

  “Yeah? Well, she and I have a date tomorrow night. Guess you don’t know everything, do you?”

  “Seriously? The woman who’s been rejecting you for months said yes? What did you do? Spike her Gatorade?”

  “You know, sometimes you’re sassy and smart and pretty,” he said with enthusiasm. “Just like Mom.”

  “That’s just mean.”

  “Yes, it is.” He laughed.

  “So back to you and Zoe.”

  He groaned. “Persistent, just like Mom.” He gave himself a point for annoying her into a scowl. Then, before she could pull his hair, knee him in the balls, or pinch him, he said, “What do you want to know?”

  Hope was nearly thirty and still clueless about crap Gavin would have thought she’d know by now. She had a decent job working with their cousin, Cameron, in finance, and she rented a nice apartment away from home. Had friends, a family who cared, obviously. But her personal life had been worse than his for too long. She dated losers, and their mother never let her forget how much growing up she still had to do.

  “You like her.” Hope blinked. “For real.”

  For all her needed maturation, his sister had an uncanny way of seeing through bullshit to the heart of a thing. She’d always been able to read him, and that chafed because Gavin was older, the one supposed to protect and guide her.

  “So what? She’s pretty. I like her. Yeah.”

  “No, you like-like her.”

  He sighed. “We’re past the third grade, honey.”

  “Well, honey, do you want a second date or not? I have some advice I’m willing to share for free. Just because you’ve been so pathetic lately.”

  “And because you owe me from the wedding? You remember, when you tried to get my ass handed to me by Goliath and his friends, the Titans?”

  “Maybe,” she muttered. “Look, do you want my advice or not?”

  “Might as well. You’re a chick. You probably know how they think.”

  She sighed. He could almost hear her counting to ten in her head for patience. “Look, you horndog. From what I hear, you’ve pretty much rolled every available woman in the gym.”

  “Hey now.”

  “Shut it. You like this woman, you leave off the sex.”

  “Hope.” Great, now he felt icked out by his sister saying the s-word. He’d teased Theo about not being a virgin anymore. Was Hope? In this day and age, probably not. And now he wanted to scour out his brain.

  “Listen to me. I know how women think. And I know you. If this Zoe has rejected you for months, it’s because she’s not interested in being a notch on the old Gavin bedpost. Say what you want,” she said hurriedly before he could interrupt, “but we all know you had a rough time adjusting when you came back. You did a lot of stupid things—and stupid women—before you realized sex and happiness do not go hand in hand.”

  “What? You’re taking shrink lessons from Ava now?”

  “Maybe I am. She’s smart, and I can admit I’ve been as bad as you, steering myself in the wrong direction for a long time. Heck, Gavin, you’ve admitted the same thing. You confessed it at the wedding, remember?”

  “So?”

  “So you can’t have sex with Zoe on the first date. You have to show her you want to be with her for more than that. So no slick moves. No trying to shove your tongue down her throat before she’s out of her car. Do something unexpected. Take her somewhere different. Somewhere fun.”

  “Saying my bedroom is both fun and different would be immature at this point.”

  She sneered. “Very.”

  “Well, where the hell should we go? Dinner and a movie? That’s boring.”

  “What does she like to do? Please tell me that you know something about her besides she has a great ass.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Ew. I was kidding.”

  He shrugged. “She teaches software to doctors. She likes to work out, and she looks amazing in pink.”

  “Keep trying. I’m sure something will come to you.”

  He recalled other things. “She has a big brain. She’s into fitness, but I don’t think a run together will be much fun. She’s the competitive type. Instead of talking, we’ll end up racing to the finish line. Then she’ll get all pissed off ’cause I beat her.” Gavin had his faults, but being slow wasn’t one of them.

  “What else?” Hope asked as she placed her dish and his in the dishwasher.

  “Hmm. I’ve overheard her talking about plants a
lot. She’s way into gardening.”

  “There you go.”

  “What? We should plant something together?” How lame.

  “I know that look. It’s not lame.” Sometimes his sister scared him. “I happen to have access to an amazing garden that needs some tender care.”

  “What?”

  “I’m house-sitting for a friend.” She shrugged. “One of Cam’s clients. She’s loaded, and she’s into gardening. I’m keeping an eye on her place while she’s in the Caymans, and she told me I can do whatever I want. Part of watching the house means tending her garden. You want to come over and dig in the dirt with your wannabe girlfriend, go for it. Just don’t kill anything.”

  “So you’re trying to use my need to impress a date to get me to weed the gardens you’re supposed to be tending.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.” Hope narrowed her gaze, looking uncomfortably like his mother. “Another is I’m doing you a favor by setting you up as a guy with game. Not just a player out to shag the next woman on his Do Me list.”

  “Where the hell do you come up with this stuff?”

  “Do you want the garden or not?”

  “Yes, okay. Jesus, ease up.”

  She smiled. “Awesome. Follow me home, and I’ll get you the keys and show you around. And remember, you owe me.”

  He felt a little as if he’d sold his soul to the devil, but worst case, he could finagle his way around his baby sister. He hoped. “Gardening on a date? You think that will work?”

  “What do you have to lose? Think of it this way. She’ll never see it coming, and then she’ll think you actually have a brain in that head. One that’s thinking about more than getting into her pants.”

  “Would you stop talking like that?” He scowled.

  “What? Is it the innuendo?” She batted her eyelashes. “Hearing me talk about s-e-x?”

  He darted out of the kitchen.

  “Gavin?” his father asked. “You okay?”

  “Hope’s picking on me,” he whined, grinning when his mother reprimanded her only daughter while his father sat back and shook his head.

  “Narc.” Landon looked disappointed, as did Theo, but Ava laughed.