Give & Take (Redbeard Cove #2)

4. Raphael

Chapter 4

Raphael

I wake up the next day to the sound of my heart shattering.

I rub the grit from my eyes, lifting my head from my pillow to see Nate, Shelby’s 15-year-old stepson, working his game controller like he’s wrestling a rabid squirrel. Nope, just the wet sound of an alien splatter-gun exploding a dozen feet from my head.

“Hey,” I say groggily. I’d been dreaming of her.

“Hey,” he replies, not looking at me. Splat splat splat. “Sorry, you were sleeping for like a super long time. I tried to wait but?—”

“It’s fine,” I say, sitting up. The sheet falls off my torso, pooling around my hips. I do a quick check to see if I remembered to put on pajama pants last night. I was out at the Rusty Dinghy with Mac’s friend Cal. That guy likes to talk almost as much as me. We did a whole ‘Did we just become best friends?’ bit which was not annoying at all to Mac I’m sure. I didn’t overdo it, but I did crawl into this bed—nay, couch I definitely do not fit on—in the middle of the living room long past Cinderella’s bedtime.

On screen, a princess warrior glares at an alien. Lasers come out of her eyes, and a moment later the green creature is sliced in half.

Reminds me a little of Lana. I can’t help grinning. “Don’t let anything happen to that princess today, okay?”

Nate gives me a strange look. “Okayyy.” He goes back to his game.

I get up and stretch, thinking about what Deanie told me yesterday. I’d only caught the tail end of their conversation on the beach, but apparently my sister put my name up for a nanny job for the summer.

I’d laughed and told her Lana would probably rather hire a sentient pool noodle than me. Besides, I’m not looking for a job this summer. I’m focusing on my dissertation. It hasn’t been going well trying to peck at it here and there. That’s why I decided to spend the summer holed up at my sister’s in Vancouver. I figured I’d have every day to devote to it while she’s at work.

But damn, it would be fun to spend the whole summer up here with Lana and those kids. The kids are amazing—the little one is adorable and the oldest sassy as hell—and I’ve never met a woman like Lana before. She’s so…expressive. So easy to rile up.

Fascinating, and yes, sexy in this haughty, get-the-hell-out-of-my face way. She’s older than me, sure. But that’s what makes her so appealing. She doesn’t suffer fools. She doesn’t take shit.

She’d tell me exactly what she wanted and I’d eat it fucking up .

I drop down to the floor and do my morning pushups, and goddammit if I don’t picture her face. I do some claps to keep myself from descending into a total fucking perv, then switch to crunches.

It’s only when I’m done and shouldering off the light sheen of sweat on my skin that I notice there’s no one else around besides me and Nate, not even out on the sunny back deck where I usually find Shelby and Deanie in the mornings.

“Where is everyone?” I ask Nate as I begin assembling the stovetop espresso maker. They’ve got a coffee pot, but when I mentioned I like the old-school ritual of making coffee this way, Mac dug this out of the cupboard for me.

“I think they said something about some market in Swan River with Aunty Annie,” Nate says, amid pew-pew! noises.

That’s the bigger town further south where the ferry lands from Vancouver. And Annie, I remember, is Mac’s younger sister. Cal mentioned her more than once last night.

“I totally thought you’d wake up when we were all having waffles,” Nate says as I set the espresso-maker on the stove. He’s breaking to drink something from a can. “Your sister kept talking all loud but Dad said you looked like you needed sleep.”

I grimace. “Sounds about right.” I could have had Deanie’s place all to myself back in Vancouver this weekend, but when she told me she was visiting her bestie up here in Redbeard Cove, I said I wanted to come along .

“No,” she’d said.

“But you keep talking about Redbeard Cove like it’s Shangri-La!”

“I have never once used the words Shangri-La . What even is Shangri-La?”

I then had to recite the poem Kubla Khan to her, which led to me playing Xanadu by Abba on her kitchen speakers while she was trying to cook dinner. Once I broke out the wooden spoon microphone, she’d groaned and said, “Fine! You can come! Just turn this off!”

I happen to like Abba.

There’s a ping on the TV as Nate starts playing again. “I can go two-player if you want?”

“Oh, thanks,” I say as the coffee starts to gurgle. “Maybe tonight.” If I start playing video games first thing in the morning, my transition into absolute loser will be complete. Not that video games are bad, I’m just already a grown, unemployed homeless man sleeping on someone’s couch.

The coffee gurgles, the sharp scent of espresso filling my nostrils. When it’s done percolating, I pour it into a mug and pad out onto the sunny deck.

I’m not so badly off. I don’t have a job because teaching, which I do as part of my degree, is seasonal. I’ll go back to that in the fall, so I don’t know if that makes me unemployed so much as on sabbatical. I don’t have an apartment because I moved from California to BC for the summer. The clean air is great for my brain.

I press my hands on the wood of the railing, inhaling the fresh salty air. Forget Vancouver, this is the air to breathe. I already feel a thousand times better up here than in the smog of LA.

Too bad we’re heading back tomorrow night.

My high deflates a little as I picture the summer ahead of me: reading and writing about Tolstoy. Full stop. I take a sip of coffee and grimace, and it’s not because of the bitterness of pure espresso. Back home, my life is pretty full. I have my degree work, teaching, students, volunteer gigs, friends, and little brothers. Not to mention my touch football league, and whatever hobby du jour I happen to glom onto. Last year it was carpentry. The year before guitar-building.

I’ve never been good at staying still.

Footsteps sound on the deck behind me.

I turn to see Deanie, coming out of the little one-room cabin off the deck, where she’s staying.

“Hey!” I say, surprised to see her. “I thought you were in town.”

She ambles over to the table. “I wanted to wait for you.”

It’s still a surprise seeing her like this sometimes. When she told Mom and me she was pregnant last Christmas, I’d thought she was joking. She wasn’t. She also hasn’t told any of us who the father is. I don’t push it. It’s none of my business.

I go over and pull a chair out for her. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Yeah.” She cradles her belly in her arm as I help her into it. “Bout time you woke up.”

When she’s seated, I push another chair up in front of her and lift her feet into it .

She smiles. “Thanks, Raph.”

Despite her extreme annoyance with me, which I know is half just because it’s our schtick, my older sister and I have a good relationship. She’s four years older than me, but we’ve always been a team. When Dad started his new family I think the only reason we survived—and helped Mom survive—was because of each other.

I always know when Deanie’s got something to say though, and I can tell by the way she’s fidgeting to get comfortable that’s the case now.

After offering to get her some decaf or tea, both of which she declines, I move back to the railing, resting my back and elbows on it to wait patiently for whatever it is.

Deanie finally settles down. She rubs her forehead before dropping her hand onto her chair’s armrest and looking at me. “I’m sorry, Raph.”

My jaw drops. “What? Deanie LaForest? Apologizing?”

She glares at me. “I’m serious.”

I smile, but shake my head. “You don’t have anything to apologize for, Dee.”

“I do. Yesterday I…I shouldn’t have suggested that nannying job to you.”

I raise my eyebrows but say nothing, curious as to why she thinks she needs to apologize.

“It made it sound like I wanted to get rid of you,” Deanie continues.

“Don’t you?”

“I mean, yeah, you’re extremely annoying.” My sister wraps her arms across her belly. “I mean, I don’t need to engage in philosophical discussions on historical modes of oppression and courtship rituals when I’m just trying to watch The Bachelor.”

I grimace. “Sorry.”

She smiles, kind of tiredly. “I love you, Raph. You know that. You’re responsible for me and Mom having a good relationship, despite our differences. You always know how to make everyone happy. Even Dad.”

I laugh at that, though there’s zero humor in it. The odd half-smile at the elaborate jokes I spent weeks of my life practicing for him hardly made him happy.

I’m so skilled at hiding that old wound my face is neutral by the time she looks back at me.

“And you just…you know how to be with kids. And women. My brain just went a little overboard yesterday.”

I sip my coffee. “Wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

Deanie rolls her eyes but laughs. “Anyway. It was out of line. You came up to BC to be in Vancouver with me, not this little town. Plus you’d hate being a nanny.”

But something in me bristles at the word hate. I did think about it—a lot, actually—even if I’m not actually considering it. I shrug, tipping my head back to look out at the trees and ocean. “Who says I’d hate it? Maybe it’s part of my five year plan.”

She lifts her brow. “You have a five-year plan? Mr. Go-Where-The-Wind-Takes-Me? Last year you were going to move to Botswana to study mycology. Then suddenly you’re enrolled at a top-five college doing a doctorate in Dostoyevsky because you picked up one of his books in a freaking jungle guesthouse in Cambodia.”

“Tolstoy, and my undergrad was in English. It was a natural fit.”

“Whatever. I get it. You can do anything you decide you want to do. You’ve got handsome privilege.”

“You do know we have the same genes.”

She blows out an irritated puff of air. “Yeah, but nothing falls in my lap the way it does yours.”

My jaw clenches before I force it to relax again. This is an old argument between us. Things don’t fall in my lap—I coax them over the edge and make them fall. And then I work my ass off following through. I just don’t settle. But Deanie doesn’t want to hear any of that, because she does settle for less than she’s worth.

“I thought you came to apologize?” I ask. “I don’t know why you were pushing so hard for this yesterday and suddenly don’t think I can do it. Those kids are great. And Lana’s…fascinating.”

Deanie smirks. “Fascinating, huh?” Then she frowns. “Wait, you mean you’re actually considering it?” Her expression turns to sudden concern, like she didn’t come up with this scheme. “They’re not like our brothers, Raph.”

Yesterday, she wanted to get rid of me. But when push comes to shove, she doesn’t think I can do it.

“You can’t just wrestle them when they’re having a bad day.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re sweet little girls! They’re going to want to dress up as princesses and paint their nails and stuff.”

“Awfully gendered of you.”

Deanie rolls her eyes again. “It’s fine, Raph. Just forget I asked. When we get back to Vancouver I’ll introduce you to that guy at the sailing club we rebranded last year. You can teach beautiful women how to sail all summer. That’s more your speed.”

Even though I know she didn’t mean to be insulting, I have a harder time controlling my irritation at that. “I’m not the playboy you think I am, Dee.” Sure I’m friendly. And I’ve dated. A lot. But I’m not the horndog people assume I am, just because women do things like hand me their numbers unbidden. What so many men seem to have not figured out, is that women just aren’t used to being truly listened to by men. And listening and observing is how I learn about the world. So, yeah. They like me. But that doesn’t make me a fucking playboy.

“I know you’re not, Raph,” Deanie says. “But the yacht club would be perfect. I know how charming you are. And how much fun you had doing outdoor summer stuff back when you were a teenager.”

I scrub my face with my hand, picking up my coffee again. My sister means well. “That was a decade ago, Dee. And having rich women looking at me like a piece of meat while they do everything in their power to get themselves thrown overboard? Doesn’t sound like my idea of fun.”

I take a sip of coffee, thinking that of course, if one particular woman looked at me like a piece of meat, I wouldn’t mind in the least. “Lana, on the other hand…”

“Jesus, Raph.” Deanie shakes her head. But she’s laughing too.

“She’s extremely hot.”

“She’s like, fifteen years older than you. ”

“How old is she?”

“Forty, I think.”

I weigh this information. But I find it only adds to her appeal. Plus, it’s just confirmation of what I already knew.

I shrug. “Guess I’m into older women. Do you think she’d go for a male nanny?” I ask.

Deanie looks me in the eye.

I look her in the eye.

Maybe I will be her nanny, if she’ll have me. Maybe I could spend the summer here, having fun with those kids.

Seeing a whole lot of their Mom. Sure, she’s unbelievably sexy. But she also looked weighed down. Like life has been heavy where it doesn’t have to be. I grew up with a single mom. I know how hard it is keeping life functioning while also worrying about kids. If I could help ease her load by looking after her daughters, then that’s what I suddenly very much want to do. I want to know what it takes to make her smile. To make her laugh. But mostly, I want to see that weight lifted off her shoulders. Plus it’d be no skin off my back. Those kids are awesome.

I’d still have time to work on my dissertation at night. I was fooling myself thinking I could spend all day doing it. I’d go stir crazy.

“You’d have to live up here for the summer,” Deanie says, seeing I’m serious now.

I sweep a hand up to the blue sky and trees around us. To the ocean and mountains on the islands beyond. As if on cue, a series of bird warbles sound in the trees, perfectly punctuating the soft wash of the ocean down below. “Such torture. Deanie, I have literally nothing keeping me in Vancouver for the summer. Except you, and you’re sick of me.”

“Did you forget about your dissertation?”

“It’s portable.”

“You’d be doing kid stuff all day,” she counters. "You might be too tired to work on your own stuff at night.” Before I can argue she keeps going. “Also, it’s a live-in job. You really think she’s going to let you live with her? I don’t even think she’d consider you working for her, let alone living with her. You didn’t exactly make a good impression on her yesterday.”

I can’t help making each argument my sister puts forward a challenge. “Kid stuff all day? Sounds the best. Too tired to work on my paper at night? I’m a machine with boundless energy. A live-in job? I’m fucking homeless, sis.”

Plus, I get a sudden image in my head of Lana, walking around in pajamas shorts, and my groin does a little twitch.

“Besides, even if she didn’t want me living with her, I could stay here, couldn’t I? Mac loves me.”

Deanie frowns.

“He does, right?”

She snaps her mouth shut. “Somehow, yes. But Raph, I was just annoyed with you yesterday. I suggested it with my tired pregnancy brain. I didn’t actually expect you to?—”

“No, Deanie. You’ve convinced me. I’m going to do it. ”

“I wasn’t trying to convince you!”

“Well you did. Good job. The worst she can say is no, right?”

“Really? You think that’s the worst she can say?”

I laugh. “Fair point. But I’ve got a pretty sharp tongue.” A pretty skilled tongue too, but my sister doesn’t need to hear that.

“She’s interviewing people this week, Raph.”

“I’m great at interviews.”

“I’m willing to bet all of them are with women far more qualified than you.”

“Then I’ll just have to get creative, won’t I?”

Deanie covers her face with her hands. “You’re going to embarrass me, aren’t you?”

“If I do, that’ll just be an added bonus.”

I crack my knuckles, suddenly feeling amazing about this whole thing. Yes it’s going to be a challenge getting Lana to believe I’m the best candidate for the job. But I am the best candidate for the job. And I fucking live for a challenge.

Especially when it’s packaged like a sexy little minx who hates my guts. And two amazing kids.

The front door opens inside the house and I stride across the deck, clapping my hands. “MacGregor!” I call.

“Hey, Raph,” Mac says, looking genuinely happy to see me.

Shelby holds up a smoothie. “Hungry, sweetie?”

I grin at my sister. These guys love me, and I’m sleeping on their couch. Just wait until Lana sees me in action.

I look back at my sister, giving her a wink .

She lays her head on the table.

“You’re a goddess,” I tell Shelby. “Thank you.”

I take a sip, feeling energized as fuck. “So, Mac. How would you feel about lending me a shirt and a tie? I’ve got an interview to destroy.”