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As far as bachelorette parties went, this one hadn’t been too bad. There was far too much champagne, but as far as Jackie was concerned, any amount was far too much champagne. Why the world thought acidic bubbles were a way to celebrate the really important things in life, she’d never know. Give her a beer and a nice dinner any day.
But Chrissy had been her friend since high school, and wearing a grin wider than her face when everyone had arrived yesterday afternoon, so there was no way Jackie was going to rain on that parade by complaining about the pre-paid beverage choices.
She’d drawn the line at the matching Donald Duck tattoos.
The nine ladies in attendance had done their best to tear up Chrissy’s home town, keeping their chaos to a dull roar when asked, and flirty with the local deputy when their walk along mainstreet had ended up being a walk in the main street. And more than one of her friends was no doubt still lying on Chrissy’s couch, or floor, nursing a headache-and-nausea combo worthy of a friendship this long.
Jackie, however, had small children and a husband whose job required him to travel regularly, and she’d shamelessly used both excuses as a way to party hard without partying herself into a debilitating hangover this morning.
Pulling into her driveway, Jackie turned off the car and stepped out. Keys in one hand, backpack in the other, and stopped as she registered the presence of another car next to hers. Specifically, that it wasn’t Hayden’s car parked next to hers.
What was Shane doing here?
She unlocked the door, stepping inside to the sound of small feet headed her way. Emma-Jade and Ruby grabbing her legs in twin hugs as she shut the door behind her. “Hey, girls.”
“Hi, Mommy.”
Enthusiastic, but quiet. Oh no.
Keeping her voice low, Jackie stroked the hair back off Emma-Jade’s forehead. “Hi. Hey, I noticed Uncle Shane’s car in the driveway. Is he here?”
“Yeah,” Emma-Jade said.
“We called him,” Ruby said. Smug in the way only young children can be.
“You called him,” Jackie said, layering her voice with pride even as she pried for more information. “Why did you call your Uncle Shane?”
“Daddy’s sick.”
Oh no.
Straightening up, Jackie started to call for Hayden. Only to be shushed immediately by her tiny captors. “Mommy, no!”
“He just got to sleep!”
There was an irony here she doubted her daughters would ever appreciate.
“Why didn’t you call Mommy?” Jackie asked, shrugged the backpack off her shoulder.
“We tried,” Ruby said. “Daddy said we weren’t allowed to call you.”
Emma-Jade nodded. “He said you were with your friends and not to bother you.”
Well, that was sweet.
But first. Keys on the hook. Backpack on the floor. Shoes off and tucked by the door. Then Jackie followed her kids down the hall and into the main room of their home. A main room with large windows for sunlight, a door out into the backyard, an oversized TV above the fireplace, and comfy furniture scattered about for when groups of men descended upon their home to drink beer and shout at a game they weren’t currently playing in.
Today, though, the room was quiet. Stillness reigned over a surprisingly neat grouping of toys, probably because of the men currently on the couch. Shane Hollander, looking as put together as ever, even when visiting a sick friend, and her husband, currently curled up on his side and asleep, his head pillowed on Shane’s thigh.
Shane offered a silent wave as Emma-Jade and Ruby ran past him and into the kitchen and Jackie bit back a grin at the familiar awkwardness. The way Shane’s face didn’t always show what he was feeling, and less so when he didn’t want to be feeling it. And she knew he had to be silently unhappy as Hayden’s pillow, because Shane was meticulous about his health and this was clearly a sick day.
Stopping behind one of the overstuffed chairs, Jackie took in the tray of salty crackers, water glasses, and probably now cold mugs of tea, along with the tissue box nearby and the trash can on the floor. She winced in sympathy. “Stomach virus?”
“Probably,” Shane said, his voice soft. His hand, which had been resting on Hayden’s shoulder, started to rub in what she suspected was supposed to be a soothing motion, but mostly spoke to how much Shane wasn’t sure it was helping. A preemptive move against the increase in noise from the conversation and energy from whatever the girls were doing in the kitchen. “It was a rough morning.”
“Daddy threw up,” came the confirmation from the kitchen.
“Probably more than once,” Jackie murmured. She loved Hayden so much, but the man could be very stubborn when it came to being sick. No doubt he’d insisted he was fine, at breakfast like normal, and been violently ill about it half an hour later.
Not unlike several of Chrissy’s bridesmaids around nine am.
“We’re doing better now,” Shane said, and Jackie had to smile at that calm nature of his. At the way he’d probably been confused to be getting a call from two little girls this morning, who usually sent him sticker-loaded Snaps when they wanted to say hi. At the way Shane had undoubtedly showed up half an hour later, armed with a bag full of various meds and helpful items, doing his best to prepare with whatever clues the girls had given him. At the way Hayden would have insisted he was fine, and Shane would have ignored him, and after a few rounds of arguing they all would have ended up here. Emma-Jade and Ruby on the floor with their toys, Shane on the couch with a tray of things meant to help settle a stomach, and Hayden dozing next to him, ultimately defeated by those who love him. The TV on low and the middle of the day far less interesting than the morning had been.
God, she loved her family.
“You can go now, if you need to,” Jackie said. She smiled as she said it. “I’m sure you had plans for the day.”
And because Shane had been Hayden’s friend for almost as long as they’d both been hockey players, he didn’t take her up on it. He knew that his friend would be difficult when he woke up, just like he knew a mentally compromised Hayden was clinging and emotional. Drunk or tired or sick. Her dear husband did best with someone to literally hold on to. And even though Jackie was home and had ways of dealing with that, and even though common sense would have suggested that Grandma or Mrs. Vincenzzo was a better choice for medical aid, her daughters' instincts were not wrong that Uncle Shane would help if he could. That he would always come if called, even if all he could do was let Ruby paint his nails or Emma-Jade give him half a dozen tiny pony tails. Or trick his best friend into resting by functioning as a pillow on the couch for half a day.
Shane looked at her, wheels turning, and then tried, in that way of his, to be nice about saying no. “Thanks, but if I move, he’ll probably wake up.” A small, apologetic smile. “And good luck getting him to go back down.”
More irony.
“OK, then,” Jackie said, her invitation to leave only half-hearted anyway. She started toward the kitchen, squeezing Shane’s shoulder as she passed, and squinted as she spotted what looked like clementines on the laminate floor.
Behind her, her supposed-to-be-sleeping husband mumbled something.
“Don’t worry about it,” Shane answered him. “Jackie got home. That’s all.”
“S’ you c’n leave n’w.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Firm. Gentle. Very Shane.
Jackie smiled as she walked in on the mess her girls were making. Fruit, which was a nice change, freed from its refrigerator prison with the kind of logic that never made sense to adults. Beaming faces waiting expectantly for her praise, even as Ruby’s hand lingered on the handle to the knife drawer.
“How about Mommy handles the cutting, hm?”
“Yes, Mommy,” came the chorus, knives immediately forgotten in exchange for collecting up spilled clementines and apples and one confused potato.
Despite their sometimes rambunctious record, after her girls had their fruity snack, they disappeared happily into their room, closing the door “only most of the way” to keep the noise down. Picking up the plate of apple slices and peanut butter, Jackie checked back in on her boys.
Shane looked surprisingly engaged in what had to be the fifteenth episode of Bluey since Jackie had gotten home. To be fair, the show was actually funny, even if you were more than two feet tall. But Shane so rarely watched TV unless a game was on, and most adults didn’t have the patience for fifteen episodes of any kids’ show, even if they were only eight minutes long.
He looked up as Jackie stopped next to the couch, smiling as she balanced the apple plate on the arm of the couch. “Thanks.”
“Thanks for being a pillow for half the day.”
Shane looked down at Hayden, his face now partially covered by a nearby doll dress to keep the shifting afternoon sunlight out of his eyes. “He takes being sick pretty badly.” Shane looked back up. “Probably better if he sleeps it off.”
“Though at this rate he may be up all night,” Jackie said with a grin.
Shane nodded at the TV. “He can watch Bluey for four straight hours.”
OK, so maybe fifteen straight episodes was more than even the pacifist known as Shane Hollander could handle.
Finding the remote, Jackie handed it over. “I’m sure there’s some kind of sport on by now. I’ll be around if you need me. And I promise you won’t have to spend the night. You can one hundred percent go home after dinner.”
“Thanks,” Shane said, doing his best to hide his relief. Then his attention was gone, focusing on surfing through to anything that wasn’t animated, the TV muted as car crashes, news anchors, and other depressing content flashed by. “We’ll be here.”
Jackie watched as Hayden’s nose twitched, her husband mumbling something in his sleep. And she watched as Shane resumed his not quite confident stroking. And she wondered if either of these idiots knew how much that meant. Because unlike Hayden, Shane wasn’t a touchy kind of guy. Hugs from the girls he didn’t mind, and being friends with Hayden meant hugs were mandatory, but Jackie knew how often Shane avoided so much as a handshake if he could get away with it. And here he was, putting up with hours of touch because it was helping his friend.
She’d have to needle Hayden into agreeing to take Shane out to that restaurant on Monroe Street for lunch next week. And no bitching about the quinoa.
Fetching her backpack from the hall, Jackie checked the group thread, sending off a few sympathy emojis before switching over to Chrissy’s texts to send a gif on how she really felt. She pulled up her e-mail to make sure there was nothing about the kids’ daycare she needed to know for the upcoming week, then pocketed her phone. A quick check on the girls showed the Barbies were engaged in some kind of siege warfare on the Duplos again, which meant a good forty minutes before the need for Crayons and coloring books would arise.
Hopefully, anyway.
Ducking back to their own bedroom, Jackie flopped on the bed with a sigh. Considered what level of engagement in a Mommy activity she could get away with before the Universe punished her for trying to have fun while the kids were still awake. And then pulled out her phone again.
Uncle Shane might be over Australian doggos, but pulling up season one for the ninety-fourth time, Jackie thought she might do a little comedy reconnaissance on how a wedding should not go. Made all the easier by the knowledge that neither the bride nor the groom would be pretending to be a horse.