Page 41 of Fated

He gives his daughter a salute and then grabs the plates from the table.

“I think,” he says, nodding at the stack of pancakes in the center of the wooden table, “we’ll not share with the others. I liked these so much I’ll eat them later.”

Amy snorts.

Sean, who was content to watch his sister’s woes, finally decides to throw the squishy banana leaking from his fingers. He flings it, and the banana arcs toward me and then smacks me in the cheek. It sticks for a moment, then it plops to the table. There’s a cool, goopy mess on my face.

Sean squeals with delight and claps his hands, little chunks of banana spraying in the air.

I wipe at the banana, smearing the goo from my cheek. It’s sweet-smelling with a tint of smoke. I pop my finger in my mouth and the baby laughs. It’s not too bad. It tastes like a campfire-charred banana marshmallow.

“Gross, Mom,” Amy says as Sean squeals and claps his squishy hands.

I smile. Then there’s a knock on the front door and the copper-haired man who was helping with the setup steps inside. Light floats in, spearing the room, as he stands in the entry.

He’s tall, built like a long-distance bicyclist, with hair cropped close to his head and high cheekbones. He’s in dark jeans and a flax-colored linen shirt buttoned to the collar. He stands out compared to the other men on the island, all in shorts and T-shirts.

He holds himself in a way that’s earnest, with an intelligence that seems to be purposely mixed with naivety. He’s the type of man I would never trust in business negotiations because he’d say one thing to your face and behind his back he’d be moving a dozen machinations against you. I’ve met his type before and successfully left them bleeding (metaphorically) from the encounter.

This is why Daniel always lets me lead negotiations.

“Hey, Becca. We need advice on the music list for the party. You got a minute?”

Gosh, he’s so puppylike. There’s definitely a wolf underneath.

I glance back at McCormick. He’s at the sink, the plates forgotten in his hands.

“Okay?” I ask.

He blinks at me as if he’s surprised I’m asking.

There’s a tension here. A strange tension curling through the room like smoke from a fire, burning, raging, its flames unseen.

“Robert,” Amy says from where she’s perched upside-down on the couch, her book in her hands. “Please tell my dad it’s necessary for my mental health that I go to New York for Christmas.”

Oh.

Sohe’sRobert.

The man I supposedly went with to New York for two weeks.

He chuckles then, a deep, scraping sound, and runs a hand through his short hair. “No can do, kid. Your dad knows best.”

“But you’re his best friend. You can change his mind. You go to New York. Mom goes to New York.”

I watch the muscles in McCormick’s jaw tense.

So does Robert. His gaze flicks to him and then away.

Robert doesn’t seem to note the tension, because he gestures to the door, an innocent, puppylike smile on his face. “The music?”

“Sure,” I say, glancing at McCormick. He’s moved on to scraping the pancake bits from Amy’s plate into a plastic tub. “Be right back.”

He nods without looking up.

Robert smiles at me then, a warm light in his eyes.

I follow him out the front door into the afternoon sun, the humidity closing around us. The perfume of the sea and the scent of fat tropical leaves broiling in the sun blankets me.

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