Page 12 of The Loophole

She told us, “I’ll give you two a minute,” before leaving the bathroom.

I leaned against the wall and said, “Those people are more than your friends. They’re your family.”

Embry nodded. “You’re right, they are.”

“So, why would you want to move away from them?”

“I’m not really moving away. I’m keeping my room in the Pink Victorian, and I’ll be back there in a year. But if I did move out at some point they’d still be my family, even if we weren’t living under the same roof.”

“I think moving in here and away from them might make you sad, though.”

“Maybe a little, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “I’ve always been broke. Like,brokebroke. It’s hard to keep a job longer than a few days or weeks because I’m so clumsy. But with this money, I could start my own business.”

“What kind of business were you thinking of?”

His face lit up. “I’d sell custom birthday and wedding cakes. I love cake decorating so much. It’s a way to be creative, and to make people happy at the same time. There’s nothing better than that.”

“So, is the dream to own your own bakery?”

The light in his eyes dimmed a little. “I wish. But no, I can’t dream that big, especially in this city where rents are through the roof. The best I could hope for would be to rent time in one of those shared commercial kitchens and sell my cakes through word of mouth, or a website.”

That was depressing. Dreams were meant to be wild and over-blown. They should give us something to aspire to. It seemed like life had taught him to expect disappointment, so he couldn’t even entertain the notion of shooting for the stars.

Not that this was any of my business.

Since the mood was dipping, I changed the subject by asking, “Does your cut hurt?” He was holding up his hand with his finger pointing at the ceiling. Yolanda had folded a cotton pad aroundthe tip before wrapping it in first aid tape, so it looked long and bulbous.

“It’s throbbing a little, but I’ve had worse. I look like ET, though.” He pointed at my forehead and said, in a high, raspy voice, “Ellioooot.”

I grinned at that. “Want some ibuprofen?”

“Nah, it’s not that bad. It sure bled a lot, though. I’m sad about my sweater.” He gingerly touched the stain on his chest.

“It’ll wash out, especially if you get to it right away. If you want to give it to me, I’ll take it to the laundry room and soak it.”

He looked shy all of a sudden as he climbed off the counter. “No, that’s okay. I don’t have a shirt on underneath.”

“I can give you something of mine to wear if you want.”

“It’s fine. I’ll take care of it when I get home. Right now though, I want to clean up the mess I made in the kitchen.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got it.”

“No way,” he said. “That’s my responsibility.”

“Really, it’s no big deal.”

“Then just let me do it.”

We were still going back and forth when we reached the kitchen and found his friends had beat us to it. The floor was totally pristine, and Dylan was returning my broom and dustpan to the cupboard. “We had to throw out the stuff on the charcuterie board,” he said. “Some glass shards had managed to bounce up onto the island.”

“We were super careful about cleaning up the glass on the floor,” his boyfriend Lark added, “but maybe don’t walk barefoot in here for a while. You know, just in case we missed something.”

“Thanks for doing that,” I said. “And good news, we still have wine.”

Yolanda muttered, “Thank god,” as I handed her two bottles and the corkscrew.

I gathered some more glasses, and all of us moved into the lounge, which my dad used to call the family room. Vee had taken off his suit jacket and rolled back his sleeves, and as I poured the wine he said, “I guess I’m ready to sign off on you. I’m not gonna lie, I’m still skeptical about this whole fake marriage scheme. But I like the way you took care of our Em when he cut himself, and you didn’t yell at him for breaking your shit. Keep that up. And just know that if you’re ever mean to him, or if you hurt him in any way, you’ll have to answer to all of us.”

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