"Oh, no, really.I can handle them fine. I don't want to hold you up!" Bryn protested. Don't help me, she pleaded silently.
It's too easy to accept help.Too easy to lean on strength. And too easy to find your support gone, and you falling deeper__
"Go on, Perry, Mick," Lee said comfortably. He was looking at Bryn again. "We're just fooling around with some new tunes tonight. Andrew had a date and won't make it until eleven, eleven-thirty. I'll carry our little rice-throwing Rip Van Winkle over there so you don't have to wake him up. Then I'll give Mick and Perry a call, and one of them can come back to get me."
"Oh, no, really..."
"You already said that." Mick grinned. "No problem, Bryn. Just make sure he gives us the right address when he calls."
She didn't get a chance to protest again; they were already waving and leaving the restaurant. "Are you ready?" Lee asked. "I just have to get the check." "I already paid it." "What? How?When?"
"How indignant you can get! I asked them to add your tab to mine when I saw you in here." "But you had no right--" "Bryn, it's a lousy dinner check." "Mr. Condor, I earn my salary, and I pay my own bills."
"Ah...I just became 'Mr. Condor' again. I liked it when you used my given name. Okay, let's set the record straight. You do earn your salary. You more than earn it. But I wanted to pick up your check. No strings, no, 'You owe me something.'Just dinner. It's been worth it to have a meal with kids. Now, do you want to get out of here before Rip awakens and starts to bawl in the middle of the restaurant?"
"All right, all right!"Bryn snapped. "Let's go. I'll carry Adam until we get to my van.""The blue Ford?"
"Yes."
She almost forgot about Keith and Brian as she struggled to stand with Adam scooped into her arms. It was Lee who turned back to them. "Brian, Keith? You guys all set?"
They came with him as meekly as lambs.
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Outside the restaurant, Lee turned around and smoothly plucked Adam from Bryn's arms. She didn't say anything; Adam was a good forty pounds, and she had already been puffing. Lee carried him as easily as a football.
She didn't speak at all during the short drive home, but it didn't really seem to matter. Lee talked to the boys. And she had to admit that he had a nice way about him. It wasn't so much that he spoke to them as if they were adults; he spoke to them as if they were people--a talent which many grownups were sadly lacking. She vaguely heard a conversation that began dealing with different Indian tribes in theUnited Statesand went on to history in general.
"My teacher said your medieval video was great!"
"Well, thankyour teacher for me, Brian. There was a time when I thought I might be a history teacher myself."
"What happened?"
"I found out that I liked being a drummer better."
"I thought you played the tom-toms?"
"Well, they're a lot alike."
A few moments later Bryn pulled into the driveway. She began to hope that she hadn't left laundry scattered anywhere, and that she had remembered to dust sometime within the past month.
After parking, she turned around to look at Lee, who still held Adam.
"I've got him," Lee assured her. "Just lead the way."
Brian and Keith bounded out of the van; Bryn followed them at a more reserved pace. She didn't fumble with the key, but she did have difficulty finding the light switch.
"Upstairs," she told Lee, trying to hide the trace of nervousness in her voice. "Brian, Keith, please don't trip Mr. Condor."
She followed him up the stairs, along with their boisterous escort of two. "Adam is the bottom bunk!"
Brian informed Lee in a low whisper. "I'm the top, and Keith has the bed over there."
"Okay!" Lee whispered, ducking low to deposit Adam on the bunk.
"And Aunt Bryn sleeps in her own bed down the hall. She has her own room, you know."
Bryn gritted her teeth and clenched her fists at her sides, shooting her eldest nephew a murderous glare.
If I did what I wanted to do to you right now, Brian Keller, she thought, I would definitely be arrested for child abuse.
"You two go brush your teeth and get ready for bed!" Sometimes she could swear that they were sixteen and seventeen instead of six and seven.
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"I guess you want to slip his jeans off or something," Lee told her with a smile. "Mind if I wait for you downstairs?" "No, that'd be fine, thanks," Bryn replied. Lee disappeared. Bryn could hear water splashing in the upstairs bath as she tugged off Adam's jeans. He'd be all right in his T-shirt, she decided.