HOW WAS THAT? Satisfying I hope. It was a long time coming. Let's see how they deal with the aftermath.
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
28
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I called Met as soon as we were out of the dining room and asked him to meet me in my kitchen. I didn't want to track blood through the whole damn house, and between my bitten hand and the damage I'd done to Joe, we were leaving a definite trail. Met arrived just as we did and used many surprised words as he assessed our conditions.
"WHAT HAPPENED?" He asked.
"We had a disagreement." I reported. "Do me a favor and just patch us up without the usual bullshit. Let me know if you run low on power."
Met held his tongue and did his job with professional speed and efficiency. He narrated the damage Joe had suffered as he did his initial exam. "Fractured jaw, lacerated cheek, broken teeth, abdominal soft tissue damage, bruising..." He went on a bit more, but I stopped listening.
When Met was done with Joe, he started on me. Joe went to the sink to wash his face and rinse his mouth. Met dealt with me in much less time than he'd needed for Joe. He even healed the raw skin on my face and the back of my neck. When Met finished, he asked for a magic booster to replace the power he'd spent on us. I gave it to him, thanked him, and sent him on his way.
I waited for Joe to finish at the sink, then I washed my hands and face. Both of us wore bloody clothes, but I didn't see much point in changing. There was no guarantee we wouldn't wind up freshly bloody before our differences were settled.
As I scrubbed the dried blood from my face, I thought about the best setting for our meeting. I wanted someplace where we wouldn't be interrupted, but someplace that was nearby. I thought about going up to the mountain, but I didn't want to be bothered with getting in the car and driving around to the elevator and all that crap.
I thought some more and decided that a few places were definitely off limits. I didn't want Joe in the apartment I shared with Shawn, and I didn't want to be in Joe's place. Both settings were `home turf' to one of the combatants and would convey an advantage to one and not the other.
With those areas set aside, I considered the rest of the estate. The public areas of the main house were too open and public. The hangar was too far away, and with Andy and Comet out in the jet, they were liable to come back at an inopportune moment. I thought about just having it out in my kitchen, but I didn't want to tarnish the joy I felt in that room with a knock-down-drag-out with Joe.
I ran through all the locations the estate offered and settled on one that we'd never really used, the barracks. I finished at the sink and dried my face on a towel. I tossed the towel onto the countertop to deal with later and moved toward the door to the rumpus room. The access to the servant's wing, and the barracks beyond, was through there. "Come on." I said over my shoulder.
Joe dug his heels in. "DO NOT PRESUME TO ORDER ME AROUND!" He bawled.
I did an about-face and strode back to stand barely an inch away from Joe. Cass stood by with his hands in his pockets, seemingly unwilling to intervene if I was going to physically attack Joe again. Paul hurried over like he expected to have to break us up.
I didn't plan to hit Joe again. I just planned to make my point known. "Look, you," I growled in his face, "you hate me, and right now, I hate you. We're gonna go somewhere and settle this once and for all. For that to happen, you either have to follow me or I'm gonna wrap you up in magic and bundle you off like a baby. We're not doing anything in this room because I happen to like this room and I don't want to fuck that up by associating it with you and your bullshit. Will you follow, or do I carry you?"
"Follow." Joe said through clenched teeth.
I turned on my heels and strode away. Paul followed me and Joe followed him. Cass loafed along behind all of us. Paul seemed to waver between wanting to walk next to me and wanting to distance himself from me. I guessed he was struggling with how to display his neutrality. If he walked with me, that would look like he was planning to take my side, and if he walked with Joe, that might imply the same thing. He tried to take the middle path and trotted vaguely between us.
As I walked, I wondered how far I was willing to go with Joe. If it was just him and me in the equation, it would have been easier. I could tell him that he could either learn to be civil or I'd send him back to Earth and he could figure his life out from there. With Andy involved, that wasn't much of an option. I knew Andy would never leave Solum. The boy had too much going for him to trash it all for his father's hurt feelings. I wondered if Joe would leave Andy behind. I wondered if he could be that selfish.
Joe had surprised me earlier when he'd said I'd stolen his life and stolen his son. I had promised to steal Andy, once upon a time, when Joe was being difficult about coming to Solum in the first place. At the time I'd meant it. Not that I planned to steal the boy physically, I meant to steal his affection from Joe. More than anything I'd wanted to protect my nephew from my brother's prejudice. I didn't intend to drive a wedge between my brother and his son unless Joe forced my hand, and he hadn't. I'd never put my plan to steal Andy into motion.
As to stealing Joe's life, I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about there. When I walked back into his life in 2025, he was going to be dead in a year before I intervened...Shawn intervened. I didn't understand how I could have stolen something that was about to be over. Add to that the fact that at the bottom of that original decision for me to return to Earth, had been Ars and his scheming.
If it had been up to me, I never would have returned to the world of my birth. Ars had looked up my family without my knowing and kept tabs on them. When he learned of Joe's illness and Mary's shitty marriage, he sent me to Earth on a bullshit mission for his investments. His investments did need to be seen to, but anyone could have done what Shawn and I did.
Ars had sent me to Earth for the benefit of my family. I was pissed with him at the time, angry at being maneuvered yet again, but I soon got over that. Mary and her girls had thrived on Solum. Andy had thrived on Solum. The only person who was miserable was Joe. He acted like he would have preferred that we'd left him alone to die of ALS instead of saving him.
I knew Joe hated Solum, and some of that was my fault, but it was mostly a misunderstanding that never got resolved. The hurt feelings started when Joe found out that I'd offered to pick Andy up from the Earth once he turned twenty-one, whether Joe came with him or not. I think that offer made Joe think I'd already planned to usurp him as Andy's main role model and he never forgave me for that. The rest of the problem came to a head over an apartment.
In 2025, when Shawn and Bem and I brought Joe, Andy, Mary, and the twins to Solum, we all stayed in the Capital Hotel for a while until the new Solum residents started to get acclimated. While we stayed there, we sought living arrangements for the new residents. Bem wound up solving the problem for everyone.
Bem had already planned to marry Mary when we arrived, so he took immediate steps to provide for his new family. He bought the two-story building next to the one Shawn owned and evicted the tenants in the nicest way possible. He even paid for their moves and a year's rent on their new places. As soon as they moved out, Bem had the three-bedroom ground floor apartment remodeled to live in with Mary and the twins.
Bem's new building had come with a two-bedroom second floor place that he had no use for. He offered that space to Joe and Andy. Bem also paid for that unit to be redone to Joe's taste as a `thank you' to Shawn and me for previously giving him Shawn's old apartment on the fourth-floor of Shawn's building. Joe accepted Bem's offer. He and Andy moved into the newly renovated apartment and lived quite happily...for a while.
Predictably, the trouble started with Joe. He refused to embrace Solum culture and kept trying to impose his Earth morality on Andy. Andy, on the other hand, had thrown himself into Solum culture with the predictable glee of a once-repressed teenager set free on a new world.
Those differences caused several early run-ins between father and son. Because Andy loved and respected his father, despite Joe's attempts at repression, Andy tried to reduce the reasons his father had to object to his lifestyle. He kept his boyfriends away from the apartment and tried to be the model son as much as possible. That worked until Andy turned eighteen.
Officially an adult, Andy started to chafe under his father's puritanical rule. He started to get more brazen about his sexuality and began to bring boyfriends around more often. He wasn't flaunting his gayness or his promiscuity, not quite, but he no longer tried to hide either. That put Andy in direct conflict with his father.
Predictably, Joe felt that Andy was flaunting his sexuality to provoke him, while Andy felt that Joe's objections to his lifestyle were silly and repressive. As Andy was a teenager and Joe was the father of a teenager, a little of both were true, but not enough for the intent to be malicious on either side. More than anything, the trouble was that they were both bull-headed.
Andy wanted to be his own man and to make his own choices. Joe wanted Andy to be his own man, but only if the choices he made coincided with the ones Joe wanted him to make. What wound up happening was they reached a point where they couldn't stand to be in the same room with each other.
As an act of desperation and as a way to flex his new adulthood, Andy asked Bem if he could use Shawn's old fourth-floor apartment in our building. Since Bem had moved in with Mary and the girls, he hadn't used the place, so it had stayed empty and furnished for two years. Bem told Andy to ask Shawn about the apartment as it technically belonged to my husband and not to Bem. Andy asked Shawn about the apartment and Shawn readily agreed to let the teenager use it for as long as he liked.
Shawn assumed that, since Andy had asked him, Andy already had his father's blessing on the proposed move. Shawn assumed that Andy wouldn't have bothered to approach him without it. Shawn mentioned the arrangement to me in passing. I assumed, like Shawn had, that Joe's blessing had already been sought and provided. With that settled, and since the arrangement didn't impact me in the slightest, I didn't comment on the matter except to offer my physical help if Andy had anything large or heavy to move.
The one person who hadn't been consulted, even though we all assumed that he had been, was Joe. He didn't find out about the move until Andy went home to haul his extensive wardrobe to his new place. I didn't find out about the blatant play of one against the other until Joe blew his stack in my direction. Joe blamed me for Andy's `flagrant lack of respect' or other words to that effect. Since the whole thing caught me by surprise, and since I thought Joe was reacting like a lunatic, I took no side in the argument and refused to rescind permission for Andy to use the apartment.
To add insult to Joe's raw injury, Joe tried to lay the law down with Andy and demand he come home. It was a demand that Andy refused to comply with. Joe tried to enforce his will upon the boy but found himself without leverage. Since the allowance that Andy lived on came from me, Joe had no financial power over his son. Also, since the apartment was equipped with a culinarian, Andy didn't even have to go home for dinner. As a last-ditch effort, Joe tried to get his way with a skillful guilt trip, but Andy refused to be drawn in.
For Andy, the freedom of the apartment was far too sweet to give up over some angry words from his father. Andy reveled in his emancipation. He embraced his pretend adulthood and celebrated his own personal sexual revolution. For the next few years, Andy paraded a never-ending rotation of tall (for Solum), fit, well-built men up-and-down the stairs to his new bachelor pad. Sometimes, the parade consisted of twos and threes instead of singles.
Much like the eventual situation with Hannah and Leah and Altus, I struggled to see the harm in Andy's lifestyle. The boy was `sowing his wild oats,' to use an antiquated phrase I'd learned from my Grandmom Helen. With no risk of disease and certainly no risk of pregnancy, there was no risk at all. I assumed Andy would eventually tire of the physical and would seek the more fulfilling satisfaction of deeper relationships.
I thought that the best thing to do, was for all of us to give Andy the space he needed to grow up on his own. I cautioned him to be careful and told him that if he ever needed to talk, he could come to me without fear of being judged. I didn't think there was much else to do. Beyond occasionally drooling over the `prime beef' that paraded passed my door, I left my nephew to live the life he wanted to live.
It worked, for a while. For a while, Joe stewed and Andy fornicated, and no one seemed to mind either. The real explosion, the big rift that no one saw coming, but that was completely obvious in hindsight, took place about three months into Andy living on his own. The story of what happened is something I pieced together later from accounts I heard from Andy and from words my brother shouted at me over several occasions following what I started calling `the incident.'
It seems, on one particular Friday, Andy brought a conquest home to spend the weekend at the apartment. Andy and this other boy, whose name I've forgotten, were very much into each other and had been `romping' regularly for several weeks. Andy and his conquest spent most of the night on Friday having every description of sex all over Andy's apartment. Exhausted, they collapsed into bed in the wee hours of Saturday morning to recover their energy for more fun and games on Saturday during the day.
Joe woke up on that same Saturday morning and decided he missed his boy. He decided it was high time to repair their relationship. To his credit, he even decided not to try to persuade Andy to move back in with him. Joe had reconciled himself to the idea of Andy living on his own. He convinced himself it was good for the boy,' and would help make a man of him,' and a few more cliches. Joe cleaned himself up and made mental plans to pal around with Andy all that day. Leave it to Joe's conceit to assume Andy would have no other plans.
With visions of a happy reunion and a happy son who would be grateful for his father's magnanimity, Joe approached Andy's apartment door. He'd decided to surprise Andy with his visit and his retroactive permission for Andy to live on his own. Full of pride in his own decisions and already projecting Andy's appreciative reaction to them, Joe knocked at the door and waited.
Tragically, or maybe comically, depending on what side of the event one stood on, Joe had chosen the exact moment when Andy was brushing his teeth, to rap on the door. Since Andy was busy and unable to go to the door, the conquest, a Solum native and a man who was known to be somewhat bold even by Solum standards, decided to be helpful. He answered the door dressed in nothing but the Solum version of a G-string.
Joe was rendered temporarily speechless by the sight of the nearly nude and very tousled young man in his son's apartment. The conquest made the situation worse by calling for Andy to tell him there was some old guy at the door.' Andy assumed the old guy' was me. He further assumed that I wanted a quick word about something, or I wouldn't have come calling so early on a Saturday.
Since Andy knew me as an ally and as someone who was more permissive in his thinking than Joe, Andy didn't bother to dress to greet who he thought was me. He sauntered out of the bathroom completely nude except for a washcloth held over his genitals.
With just a little fairness to Joe, the scene he was presented with would have been a bit much for even my jaded sensibilities. The difference between me and my brother is that, if that early morning visitor had been me, I would have reacted with a raised eyebrow and perhaps a sarcastic comment. I already knew that Andy was testing his boundaries and pushing the envelope. I assumed he was doing it as an extreme swing away from his father's strict morals. It was something that time and maturity would take care of if left alone. I wasn't the one at the door though, and Joe left nothing alone.
Instead of a red-faced apology and a tactical retreat, which may have been the only way that Joe could have handled the situation gracefully, he blew his stack. A TON of anger and recrimination passed between father and son. So much shouting took place in the stairwell that morning, that Andy's conquest got dressed and fled in the middle of it.
What resulted, once the dust had settled, was a full and seemingly irreparable rift between father and son that lasted to the present day. The two spoke but they didn't get along. In addition to the rift between Joe and Andy, was the widening of the rift that already existed between Joe and me and the establishment of a rift between Joe and everyone else who had embraced the Solum culture. Joe had chosen to react to the situation with his son by rebelling against the whole world that, in his view, was guilty of ruining his son's morals.
The festering wound that resulted from that day had never been dealt with by any of us. I saw it as primarily a problem between Andy and Joe, so I stayed out of it. I think most of the others did the same. To his enormous credit, Andy had made several attempts, over the intervening years, to patch things up with his father. Every olive branch he offered, Joe shoved right back into his son's face. Andy eventually grew tired of expending the effort and getting nothing for it. At some point, he simply gave up.
That's where things still stood as I led Joe, Paul, and Cass through the house and into the forty-person barracks that was at the end of the west wing of the estate, closest to the hangar.
The space that we called `the barracks' was a plain room with a plain black floor and a light panel ceiling. The room held twenty sets of bunk beds made from black glass, ten down each side of the room. In the middle, between the beds and arranged in a row, were four picnic tables with the benches attached. The walls of the room were set to be completely clear. They looked out onto a very typical mid-day on the plains. At the far end of the room was a commercial culinarian and a door into a gang bathroom and shower house. None of it had ever been used.
I entered the room and strode to the far end to get myself a cup of coffee. I asked the others if they wanted anything. Paul asked for a water and Cass a glass of cranberry juice. Instead of telling me what he wanted, Joe argued. "Why are you offering me a drink? I thought you hated me."
"I do," I answered as I gave Paul his ice water and Cass his juice, "but I'm not a childish enough to get drinks for the three of us and not offer you something. Do you want something, or not?"
"Coffee," Joe snapped, "cream and sugar."
I got a cup from the machine, blended the way I knew Joe liked it, and handed it over to him. I took my black coffee to the nearest picnic table and sat down. Joe sat opposite me. Paul remained standing and shuffled his feet. I gestured to Joe's side of the table and invited Paul to sit. His face showed relief at having his seating position chosen for him. Paul sat, but stayed well away from Joe in what I assumed was an attempt to maintain his neutrality. Cass stood at the end of the table on the side near Paul. He set his juice on the table and put both hands in his pockets.
I sipped my coffee and set my cup down. I looked at my hands and wasn't sure what to do with them. I jammed them in my pants pockets in an attempt at keeping them from curling into fists. "Alright," I said to start the discussion, "I'm going to start because it's my house."
Joe crossed his arms over his chest and buried his chin between them. "Why should you start?" He sulked. "I'm the injured party."
I lost my temper. "BECAUSE IT'S MY FUCKING GODDAMNED HOUSE!" I screamed at my brother. I noticed Paul wince but wasn't sure if it was the volume of my voice or the blasphemy that made him do it. I didn't address it. He'd told me not to censor myself around him. I was just doing as I was told. "Jesus you're thick." I accused Joe. "Shut the fuck up and listen for a change."
"There's no reason to talk to me like that." Joe insisted petulantly.
I stared across the table at him. I ripped my hands from my pockets, dropped my face into them, and rubbed it savagely. When I was done, I looked up to stare some more. "Are you fucking kidding?" I asked him. I looked to Paul for support and pointed at Joe. "Is he fucking kidding? I thought I said I was going to start. I thought I gave my reasons. I thought I told him to shut the fuck up and listen."
I glanced at Cass for additional reinforcement but was unable to meet the old man's eyes because his were focused on his cranberry juice instead of on my outburst. I diverted my eyes back to Paul because he at least was looking at me. I waved an angry hand at Joe. "This man told me he hates me and everything about where I live and everyone I know. Then he says I have no reason to talk to him like that. I feel like I'm insane." I looked back at Joe. "Is that a tactic? Make your opponent think he's lost his ever-lovin' mind? Joe...listen, are you listening?"
"Yes." Joe said through clenched teeth.
"Good...SHUT THE FUCK UP! Jesus fuck! You're a nightmare. Look, I tried, OK? I tried till I was blue in the fucking face and I'm sick of trying. You've been going out of your way to hurt me for twelve fucking years and I'm not gonna take it anymore." I clapped my hands once in the air to indicate finality. "Done. When you're not hurting me, you're hurting your kid."
"You!" Joe reared back and blustered.
I roared at him. "SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT UP!" Joe closed his mouth, and I went on at a normal volume. "You don't give that boy an inch. You haven't since you found out he was gay. He knows that he disgusts you. How do you think that makes him feel? I know that I disgust you, but I've taught myself that your opinion doesn't matter to me. It still hurts to know that my brother finds my lifestyle repulsive, but not enough for me to worry about. Andy is your son. He still respects you, though I have no fucking idea why, and he still loves you, even though you've withheld your love from him."
I took a breath and arranged my thoughts to continue my monologue. To my surprise, Joe didn't attempt to interrupt me. "Between your active hatred of his lifestyle and your deliberate, hurtful lack of interest in anything that boy holds dear, it's a wonder he gives a fuck about you at all.
"Between that and this crusade of self-indulgent," I waved my hands in the air and mock Joe, "`I'm a sad sack and everyone should worry about me,' depressed bullshit thing you've been doing for a fucking decade," I dropped my hands and shoved them back in my pockets to keep them still, "we've all had enough. It's time you decide what it is you want within the boundaries of what's available to you."
I took my hands from my pockets again and held my right hand up to count Joe's options on my fingers. "One, you can stop being an asshole and learn to live on this world like a real citizen. Go to work for Ars, go on a journey to find yourself, go on a painting tour, find something to throw yourself into that isn't moping around here. Two, you can try therapy. It helped me, it can help you. Three, you can abandon this life and this world, and you can go back to Earth. I'm certain Ars could fix you up with an identity and records and all that and you can go back to being an attorney there."
I dropped my hand and the three fingers I'd been holding up. "What you can't have, Joe, is your old life. That ship has fucking sailed. What you can't have, is a straight son. God or nature or whatever you want to blame has made Andy gay and gay he's going to stay. What you can't have is the life you planned on, sorry." I shrugged a deep, mocking shrug.
I set my hands down flat on the table and summed up my thoughts for my brother. "Joe, I'm willing to listen to anything you have to say. I'm even willing to listen if you want to spit venom at me for a while. I'm willing to promise to stay calm and not physically attack you, as long as you do NOT say anything at all about my husband. That is the one topic that is off limits to you.
"Beyond that, you can say just about anything you want to me. After that," I took a deep breath and sighed it out because I was getting near the end of my speech, "after that, Joe, you WILL make a choice, and whatever that choice is, that will be the way you live your life from this moment forward."
I used the heel of my right hand to rub the back of my neck, then I brought the hand to my left wrist and let it grip my bracelet. "I've said what I wanted to say. The floor is yours."
Joe uncrossed his arms and rubbed his neck like I do. He set his hands flat on the table and rubbed at a spot with his thumb like he was working out a stain that wasn't there. He stared at me for what felt like a long time. He didn't say anything. I don't know what he saw in my face, but he seemed not to like it. Without one word to me, Joe turned to Paul with a question. "Could I go back with you?"
Paul gaped at Joe, stunned that he would ask such a thing. I was surprised, but for a different reason. I was surprised that Joe came out with it so readily. After all the bullshit I'd endured from Joe, for all the hate he'd displayed for the world that I loved, I assumed that would be his answer. When I really thought about it, I'd long expected him to ask me to send him back to Earth.
I hated the idea of him leaving, for a couple reasons. One was Andy. If Joe left, he would be abandoning his son on Solum and giving up on ever having a relationship with the boy. That would hurt Andy deeply. The other was Joe himself. I was certain that whatever he thought he'd find on Earth wouldn't be there. The problem was him. He was running away from himself. I recognized what he was doing because I'd spent a large part of my life doing the same thing. I'd discovered that, the trouble with running away from yourself is, wherever you go, there you are.
I watched Paul to see what his reaction would be. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Cass watching him too. Paul closed his mouth and seemed to wrestle some thoughts around in his head. His expressive face twisted with the effort. "I don't think I'm going back." He said very quietly after some soul-searching.
"What's that?" Joe asked.
Paul took a deep breath and said it again, this time like he meant it. "I don't think I'm going back. I like it here. Here, I have time left. I can find happiness here...or at least there's a chance I can. I want to try. God granted me this wonderous opportunity. I believe he sent me here to be happy. God wants his children to be happy. Of all the things that I believe, I believe that the most. This is my chance and I'm going to take it. I'M GOING TO TAKE IT!" Paul shouted like he wanted the whole of Solum to know at once.
"I'm going to take it." Paul whispered.
"Good for you, my boy." Cass added in his own whisper.
Paul nodded to Cass and turned an anxious face back to Joe. "And you, Joe...you should too. There's so much joy here. Your son and his young man are happy. Your brother is happy. Your sister and her husband are happy. Their little son is happy. Your nieces and their young man are happy. Your brother's mother-in-law is happy. Even that young doctor person seems happy.
"Did you ever really try, Joseph? Did you ever do as I told you and open yourself to this place, or did you try to make it into the Earth? My God, Joseph, to turn down an opportunity for a life in a place like this, it...it would be like Moses begging for death on Mount Nebo. You're in the promised land, young man, all you have to do is let it welcome you in."
I wanted to turn a cartwheel. Paul had just agreed to stay. I was so stoked. My mind soared with possibilities for him. I wondered if he and Lenis would get together. If they did, that would make Paul my step-father-in-law. He'd find a way to be useful. He'd find someone, hopefully Lenis, to complete him. He'd get to be happy, truly happy. He could have the life he'd never had before. I was so pleased.
Joe, being Joe, had to piss all over it. "YOU'RE MAD!" He shouted, his eyes wide with something that looked like fear and disbelief all mixed up. "This place..." Joe waved his hands in the air all around him like he meant to take in all of Solum with a single gesture, "this place, this Solum...Solum, more like SOLUM AND GOMORRAH! Godlessness and sex...perversion, deviance, pleasures of the flesh, it poisons everyone, even my son! I can't believe it got to you, Father. It's only been four days and it got to you. This place, it even poisoned a priest. NO! I WON'T GIVE INTO IT!"
"Joe." Paul called for my brother's attention.
Joe pressed his palms to his ears, closed his eyes, and shook his head, like a child being told Santa doesn't exist. "NO, NO, NO!" He insisted.
"JOSEPH PHILIPS!" Paul roared at my brother. Joe uncovered his ears and raised his eyes to Paul. "Stop-it! You stop this childish display this very instant, young man! I will NOT stand for it!" Paul scolded Joe.
Paul glanced at me, then turned determined eyes back to Joe. He seemed to have resolved something...made a decision of some kind. He spoke to me but didn't take his eyes from Joe. "Church, leave us. Your brother and I have much to discuss. Take Cassius with you for company. Cassius, please look after my friend for me."
Cass agreed to do as Paul asked. "Certainly, my boy. I will take the responsibility while you resolve the crisis here." Cass picked up his juice and slugged it down in preparation to leave. When he'd emptied the cup, he smacked his lips over the tart treat and clunked his glass on the table.
I stood from the table and was thrilled. I was even happier than I'd been when Paul said he was staying. Not only was Paul staying, but he was going to fix Joe as well. I moved away from the table without bothering to hide the smile plastered on my face. I gathered Cass to me and headed for the exit.
I paused just shy of the door and looked back at Paul. He'd slid along the bench to sit against Joe and had thrown his arm around my brother's shoulders. Joe seemed to huddle into the older, broader man. I didn't know what they were going to talk about, but I had a feeling it would be good for Joe.
Paul glanced up at me just as I got ready to slip through the door. A silly impulse took control of me, and I blew a kiss to Paul. He gawked at me, and I left before he could react.