“How does that pertain to talking about business and resort design?”
“Because you’re judging me. These are aspects of my life. You’re rejecting my life.”
He’s cold. Closed off. I know what he’s doing. For a second, I panic, the feeling exploding in my chest, making me feel like a rat has given birth and all the babies are wriggling around, gnawing their way out.
Then a calmer version of myself kicks in. The part that can actually speak.
“You really think that?”
He holds my gaze, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other leaning against the small table next to the suite’s sofa. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong!” I interject, the words fast and true. “I don’t reject your gifts.” Or your life.
“You certainly do.”
Fair enough. “Not because I’m rejecting you,” I start, trying to explain.
“Then what? What is it?”
“I...I just didn’t grow up like this. You did.”
“Now we’re dragging our childhoods into this?”
“You started it by steering us off topic.”
He concedes my point.
“Declan, you’ve only ever known wealth. It’s been a part of your world since you were born. I know your dad’s company took off when Terry was a baby and before you were born, but your mom came from money. She worked with James to build Anterdec. You had nannies and fancy vacations, prep schools and tutors, tight expectations you had to live up to. You don’t even blink at dropping four figures on a really nice night out. That’s an entire mortgage payment for most families.”
He just stares. But he’s listening.
“I didn’t grow up like this. I’m like most people, with money I use as a tool to navigate the world, and my mind in a constant series of negotiations throughout the day about how to allocate my limited resources.”
Tap tap tap.
I frown at him. “Did you order room service?”
His frown matches mine. “No.”
“Delivery!” someone calls out. Dec makes a face of understanding and gives me the side-eye. Wonder what that’s about.
He opens the double doors to the suite and two delivery men roll in a seven-foot-tall teddy bear wearing a sweater with my name on it.
I look at him.
“Seriously?”
He shrugs. “Andrew got Amanda a six-foot-tall one, and this one is animatronic, so—”
It begins to sing. It sings Katy Perry’s “Roar.” When the word fireworks is in the song, giant silver sparklers light up and a shower of silver foil-covered chocolates shoot out. The damn teddy bear is a creation for nightmares.
“You thought I—” my words have to be shouted above the damn singing “—would like this?”
“I thought it would be fun. Those are all milk chocolate, by the way,” he adds in an acerbic tone. “No white chocolate.”
“You don’t do this at home!”
“I—”
Andrew bursts into the room and stares at the monstrosity, his mouth tightening, nostrils flaring, a patented McCormick-man look if I’ve ever seen one, and trust me, I’ve see a few thousand of these.
It’s the look that says, Oh, hell. I’ve been beaten.
But I haven’t given up.
“Well played,” Andrew concedes as the damn animatronic bear’s stomach opens up, like the hatch door on an SUV, slowly rising, and shows a video screen on its belly.
“You got me a gigantic Teletubby?” I groan. This thing looks like Dipsy took steroids.
“A what?” Declan and Andrew seem genuinely confused. I spent most of the late 1990s babysitting toddlers on weekends to make spending money for after-school activities, so I am intimately familiar with that particular breed of kids’ television star, the plush little colored stuffed beings with antennas on their heads and television screens embedded in their abs.
The video screen blinks, turns on, and a goat appears on screen.
A goat in an African village, the sun setting on the horizon on-screen.
“Greetings!” says a voice in English, the accent light. “We thank you for your donation of one thousand goats to our foundation. Your contribution will—”
I shut off the video and turn to look at Andrew, who is staring up at the top of the giant teddy bear, as if he’s measuring.
Because he is.
“Take your pants down.”
“Excuse me?” Declan says, horrified.
“Excuse me?” Andrew echoes, a little too gleefully.
“Measure your penises. Just get it over with. C’mon. The goats are a nice gesture. The teddy bear is going to creep into my subconscious and terrorize me along with Pennywise the clown and those dreams I’ve started having where Steve Harvey announces I’m Mrs. Declan McCormick and then retracts it.”
Declan gives me a WTF? look.
Tap tap tap.
“That’s probably Amanda,” Andrew says, going to the door and opening it.
Yep.
“But this competition between the two of you, showering me and Amanda with these ridiculous, over-the-top gifts in an effort to one-up each other is—”
“AWESOME!” she shouts, jumping up and down in front of my teddy bear, giggling and clapping.
When we get home, I am stealing some strands of hair from her brush and DNA-matching her against my mom.
“I’m sorry,” Dec says, rubbing my shoulders, willing me to relax into him and lean against his chest. “You’re right. I’ll take back the goats.”