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Author's Note: Haaaay, kids, bet you thought I'd left this story on the shelf to languish, didn't you? Unfortunately, real life got in the way, and between graduating from college, interning and a demanding new job...well...time has become a pretty precious commodity. I have no intention of abandoning this story, however, and will continue to plug at it until it's finished. I want to extend my gratitude to Nightengale, whose beta-skills are the reason you can read this chapter at all, and last but certainly not least, to all of YOU, for your patience and all of the wonderful comments you've left me. I wouldn't still be doing this without you.
Just as an addendum; if you haven't read the story in a while, you may want to go back over it, since it's been so disgustingly long since an update. Also - you may want to check my Livejournal, status updates on IR show up there, and I plan to put up the soundtrack to Indecent Rhythm soon.
Or at least…it was hard to be depressed and be serious about it. Right about then the best that any guy could be expected to dredge up was acute, deadly embarrassment. Tristan figured he had that nailed, and then some.
Tristan dropped his head against his seat with a thump, lolling to one side to look out the back passenger window of Erin’s little Corolla. Back when Erin suggested that she accompany him to pick up the formalwear, it seemed sound enough. Back then, however, Tristan was about as interested in appearances as he was in frilly pink chiffon, and if someone else volunteered to keep the rented tuxedo unwrinkled on the way home, he wouldn’t turn down the help.
Things were a little different now. The suit mattered now. It was his armor, his protection against the hordes of beautiful, staring fashion-magazine people that his panic-fevered brain imagined whenever he called up the thought of Mai’s gala. It mattered what people thought of him. Two in particular.
“Tristan, are you feeling okay?” Erin asked. Her eyes flicked up, catching his gaze in the rearview mirror. She looked…if not worried, then mildly surprised to see him moping like a cast member on a teenage reality show.
“Yeah,” Tristan hurried to reassure, and looked away.
“Thank you for offering to pick up my dress, Tristan,” Serenity added demurely from the front seat, adding insult to injury as she reminded Tristan of her presence.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want her there. Up until the beginning of last week he’d been looking forward to taking her to the gala with a mix of anticipation and raw fear.
Now all of his energy was directed toward her brother, all the fear and nerves and intensity directed his way, and while Serenity still meant something it was just…she wasn’t…
The realization almost made him blush with guilt, and that didn’t make any sense. He used to feel a little bad about wanting his best friend’s sister, now he felt sort of guilty because he didn’t?
No wait…didn’t he? Had he ever? When did he stop? Did that make him—?
Erin swung right at a red light. Tristan snatched for the handle above the window before his seatbelt jerked him back.
Get a grip. There was nobody here to handle the problem for him, nobody to talk him down. The logistics and the labels of what he’d done already and could do in the future were flat-out scary, but he’d already had this discussion. He dropped back into his seat and rolled his head toward the open window, sticky wind striking his face.
“Tristan?” Erin asked again, “I think she was talking to you.”
Flustered, Tristan rushed through a disjointed excuse, and watched through the side mirror as Serenity’s gentle mouth curved in amusement. “I couldn’t really take you there on the bike,” Tristan explained, slouching in his seat as he touched the edges of misery and embarrassment again without meaning to. He didn’t like how Serenity had ended up on the outside of the equation, though in some small corner of his mind he saw and appreciated the irony of the situation. It meant too many things had changed already, in just one summer.
“You’re welcome, though,” Tristan added hurriedly, before Erin could give him another funny look through the rearview mirror, “no problem. This way your dress won’t get all wrinkled.”
Serenity nodded, a birdlike bob of her head and another smile, and then she and Erin picked up a conversation about the dress, leaving Tristan to pretend he was part of the upholstery.
He allowed himself one single moment more of weakness, and wished devoutly that Joey was there.
“Because I’m not about to be seen with anyone in a camouflage vest, Joey,” Mai called from the mouth of the men’s changing rooms.
“But y’know I HATE blue!” Joey retorted from the stall at the back. Blue jeans thwacked the door with cold vengeance, and swung over the top to hang there while Joey shimmied into a pair of black slacks. “…’specially this blue!”
“That is not my problem, hon,” Mai snapped, and shivered inside the tight fit of her dress, ducking her head to adjust the bust of the strapless bodice, “If you’d picked something other than RealTree six weeks ago, we wouldn’t be havingthis discussion.”
“The fact that y’know what RealTree is, is just fu—freakin’ scary, Mai.”
Mai shrugged, and once again looked down to rearrange her décolletage. “I’m a progressive woman. You’re my date, so we should match.”
“Who says?” Joey's disembodied voice challenged from the other side of the room. Mai tipped her head, smiling at the white socks visible underneath the door and the black slacks that fell in concertina folds around Joey’s ankles, forgotten, while he wrestled with his vest.
“Tradition,” Mai replied, resisting another shrug at the risk of disturbing her dress. She reminded herself to either keep all shrugging to a minimum, or wear the detachable straps.
“What about blue camouflage?”
“Joseph.”
“All right, all right,” Joey sighed, “keep y’girdle on, I’m comin’ out.”
The cubicle door clicked open. Mai looked up. She smiled, and Joey glowed in the moment of that beaming approval. He padded down the narrow passage in his socks, dark slick cuffs swishing just right against his ankles. He felt like James Bond. He felt like Indiana Jones, about to climb down a rope from a Nazi-ridden hall with a beautiful woman in an evening gown on his arm. He felt like one big damn hero.
Mai wasn’t quite that impressed. “Where’s the bow tie?”
“Aw, Mai, why’ve I gotta wear that frigging thing? I’m gonna choke in it! ‘Sides, I think it looks sexier with the collar undone.” He waggled his eyebrows, and in spite of Mai’s attempts to maintain her position as Heartless Fraulëin of Eveningwear, she laughed.
“All right, I suppose you could actually…” She conceded, then broke off as Joey looked past her, face losing all expression. With a sinking stomach, Mai turned to see what had caught his attention.
Téa stood on the other side of the boutique, spanning the doorway with spread arms as she herded her suddenly reluctant companion into the shop.
“Huh,” Joey whuffed, and continued tonelessly, “figured he’d’ve gotten his tux already, ordered it special from Greece’re something.” His eyes snapped back to Mai. “C’n we go? I’m done, seriously, lemme just pay for the suit an’ let’s get outta here.”
Mai deadpanned, ignoring his discomfort and the tall ponytailed boy pretending to be a wall shadow on the other side of the room. “Would you mind letting me change first, hon?”
“Wh—oh. Heh, yeah, no problem Mai,” Joey said, and looked over her shoulder again. His smile flashed and vanished as abruptly as a lightning strike. He withdrew a little toward the fitting room, wearing a guarded look. Mai didn’t have to turn around to know Duke mirrored it.
Mai swallowed an inward sigh, patted Joey’s arm – making him jump – and skirted him to head for the women’s changing room. Boys were just too much effort; every last one was secretly a drama queen waiting for a cue. That was fine, if only they wouldn’t persist in pretending otherwise.
She would have thrown a sympathetic smile at Téa on her way past, if the other young woman had been able to pay attention. Which she wasn’t.
“You didn’t tell me they’d be here!” Duke whispered to Téa in a passionate undertone, spreading his hands. He didn’t hiss, though he was thinking about it.
Unmoved, Téa folded her arms. “Is everyone expected to schedule their lives around yours?” She pressed her lips together tight against further retort. “I didn’t know they were going to be here today. It makes sense though, given that it is the day before the dance and the thought of leaving Joey alone with a rented tux for longer than forty-eight hours makes me cringe.”
Duke blinked and smiled, momentarily distracted from the source of his agitation. “Why, Téa, you’ve gotten catty since the last time I saw you.”
“And you’ve always been catty. But do I hold it against you?”
“At least with me there’s no unexpected mood swings.”
Téa rolled her eyes and pushed her totebag against his chest, trusting him to catch it. “Just pretend he’s not over there for fifteen minutes.”
“But—!” Duke started, protesting both the bag and the plan at once.
“—Or…you know…you could talk to him,” Téa added with a touch of impatience, “the way most humans communicate?” She pointed at the flowery pink-and-orange canvas bag. “Hold that for me while I go get my dress.”
Duke watched her back away, giving her his best hurt glare. Why are you being so mean to me?
Because you’re being silly, said Téa’s quirked lips and lowered eyelids. She turned away to greet the approaching store clerk, leaving him momentarily alone. With a martyred air, Duke sighed and – after looking over the totebag for a few seconds – slid the pink canvas straps onto his shoulder to wait for her.
A few minutes passed quietly while both boys held their ground in an uneasy stalemate, each pretending that the other didn’t exist. Then, from across the room, Joey happened to spot the multicolored canvas tote dangling from Duke’s shoulder, and wolf-whistled. Duke – who had noticed a mirror on his own side of the room and was trying to find a pose that made the decidedly feminine bag seem somehow less emasculating – looked up in surprise. He searched for the source of the sound, spotted Joey across the racks of formalwear between them. Joey’s good-natured smile widened into a smirk. Guilty as charged, said the canine flash of white teeth.
Duke’s eyes narrowed. He turned back to the mirror, pretending once again that Joey was not on the other side of the room leering at him. From his peripheral vision he watched as Joey’s face fell, then slid back up into a sneer.
“Yanno,” Joey began conversationally, head-and-shoulders above the sea of sequins and taffeta print, “I gotta give you credit. Doin’ the whole ‘progressive man’ thing.” Joey cribbed the words from Mai, minutes ago, but Duke didn’t know that. He even threw in airquotes for good measure.
Duke looked as shocked as if one of the mannequins had begun to speak. A few seconds’ delay dragged by. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he shot back, sluggish.
“The bag, man,” Joey explained cheerfully, realizing that he’d somehow just one-upped Duke Devlin, “Makes sense yanno…lots more room than just a damn wallet. Y’can keep…what…y’keys in there,” Joey raised his eyes toward the ceiling, ticking a list of items off on his fingertips, “…extra dice in case y’gotta give some slob a concussion, y’extra leotard, Kleenex, condoms, coupla magazines an’ y’eyeshadow…”
“Do you ever shut up?”
“—What I don’t get is the orange-and-pink, dude. Those are totally not your colors.”
Before Duke could do more than register the insult and shift from staring to glaring, a soft hand curled around his elbow and tugged him back. He turned and found Téa’s expectantly upturned face three inches below his own. "Duke?"
Duke snorted, half in surprise, and traded one more glance with Joey before focusing on Téa completely. "He started it," he retorted heatedly.
"Duke-"
"He did."
"—The dress?"
"What?"
Gingerly, Téa plucked the handles of her purse from Duke's shoulder and backed away, spreading her arms in silent invitation to stop doing whatever dumb thing he was in the middle of doing and look.
"Oh," Duke said intelligently, flummoxed. Pause. Breathe. "Oh, very nice, Téa."
Téa blossomed with a smile. In comparison to Mai, her dress was much less elaborate, deep rosy-purple satin and clinging chiffon, with a graceful ankle-length skirt. The fit of it was snug from shoulders to hips, then flowed outward. It trimmed her up. It showed her off. It was maybe the sexiest thing she'd ever worn.
Duke couldn't help being just a little jealous. Well. Not of the dress of course (though he did sort of like that color), but of the way it changed her, without changing her into someone else.
On the other side of the room, Joey seemed to have taken notice as well. The two boys stared at her as if a rare tropical bird had suddenly landed on the coat racks. To Duke, she was aesthetically lovely, which he already knew; he had danced with her in a dress not unlike this one, though in the competition she'd glittered with sequins, fluttered with marabou, and the beading hurt his hands.
To Joey…it was as if the Téa he knew, his Téa, had somehow been kidnapped and replaced with an imposter, or someone (her fairy godmother?) had waved a wand over her head and transported her into adulthood in the time it took to blink.
Duke knew this woman. She and Joey were still getting acquainted.
"Téa, ya look—" Joey started, and got no further when he was cut off by Mai and the pile of blue satin and sequins she pushed into his arms. After a distracted, miserable moment of confusion, he recovered his voice and swallowed. "—Ya look really nice, Téa."
Without answering either boy, Téa smiled, set aside her purse and stretched out her left hand to Duke, right hand drawn up gracefully to the side.
Inviting him to dance.
Duke watched her warily; licked his lips and swallowed. "What, here?"
Téa continued to smile, trusting that he would rescue her. Continued to hold her pose. The slick evening-sky satin whispered against her legs.
The instrumental muzak in the boutique paused, and before Duke could protest, slid into a perfect three-beat waltz. Well, hell.
The world went into slow-motion.
While Joey and Mai watched, Duke stepped forward, extended his right hand towards her left, curled his fingertips lightly around hers and invited her in.
Joey let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding; realized with a start that he'd never seen Duke dance with Téa until now. He touched Mai on the shoulder, and pointed toward the pair, needlessly asking her to point her attention where it was already focused.
"That's my boy," Joey whispered, grinning, puffed with pride, "Just you watch. He and Téa, they taught me how t'do this dance too."
Mai said nothing. She was still beside him, and Joey tapped her until she glared at him, just to make sure she hadn't forgotten to breathe too.
"Why are you still in your tux?" Mai asked sharply.
Joey groaned, "Lemme alone," but didn't move.
"You look beautiful," Duke said when his right side met Téa's left. His voice was too low to be heard across the room, and by that time he'd forgotten about their audience, anyway. Téa's slender spine arched to keep the righthand pressure, Duke's fingertips just touching one bare shoulderblade, exposed by the low back of her dress. This, he knew how to do. This, he understood. He responded to it, and led Téa a few graceful circles to the muffled gritty strains of Moon River over the budget sound system. The sound quality didn’t matter, really - No music was really necessary; footsteps made and drove the rhythm.
"I thought maybe you'd forgotten," Téa said, one bare foot sliding behind and to the side as Duke supported her gradual lean back within his arms.
"Forgot you were beautiful?" Duke said to Téa's stomach.
"No," Téa rose, allowing Duke to sweep her in another small circle and twirl her out to the ends of his fingertips, "and watch it. Any more of that and you'll sound like some hack beefcake from The Young and the Restless." She laughed, gently, because the world was still in slow motion for them and had yet to accelerate. Her dress uncurled from around her legs, swished to a stop. "I thought maybe you forgot why you're still dancing with me. Because, you know, you used to dance 'cause you liked it."
Téa's hand slid from Duke's, and the two of them looked at one another in silence, until Duke's surprise translated into a slow smile.
"Aw, shit."
The world snapped back to full speed.
Duke's head snapped to the left, where Tristan's familiar silhouette filled the doorway. It was his voice that disturbed the uneasy peace; his voice that gave him away though he was still a featureless silhouette backlit by the sun.
Tristan edged into the showroom and along the front wall, his only exit blocked by Serenity and Erin's full heavy belly as the girls followed him into the boutique. Both women looked deeply concerned by Tristan's behavior and the almost tangible air of tension and distress in the room. On opposite sides of the floor, Téa and Mai exchanged quick looks. Mai was expressionless, but the pressure of her hand suddenly on Joey's elbow tightened enough to distract him from staring like a wary Rottweiler. When she caught Téa’s glance, without shifting her gaze Mai tilted her head a fraction in Tristan’s direction and lifted her eyebrows. As far as she was aware, Téa’s ‘grand plan’ did not involve kindling The Second Civil War. In fact, none of this was part of the plan. So what were they going to do now?
Safely shielded behind Duke’s shoulder from the rest of the onlookers, Téa gestured at her own evening gown. Mai expected her to hit the trenches in that?
Mai raised her free hand just above the dress racks, palm up in silent surrender and absolution. This is not my fault.
Téa snorted. Her soft exhale and rustle of fabric attracted Duke’s attention, who turned back and caught her. Téa felt him shift and looked up, to see him looking down, curiosity lacing his gaze. She glared. Duke rolled his eyes and turned back to watch the fireworks.
"…Hi," Erin ventured cautiously into the heavy silence, following Tristan's reflexive curse. She took in the whole of the room, and the worry lines in her forehead deepened. "I didn't realize it was going to be so busy today. Are we crashing the party, Joey?"
Joey opened his mouth to answer, torn between being polite and yelling Yes, fuck yes, get out while ya still can! Pregnant ladies and children first! Just then the store attendant appeared, reassured everyone and disappeared yet again into the back with Tristan and Serenity's orders, rendering any protest moot.
"…Guess we're all kinda stuck here," Joey finished, followed with an uneasy laugh. He took silent stock of the situation: the three guys knew the score, at least one girl (Téa) in it up to her eyebrows, one girl (Mai) who was probably knew something was up by now, judging by the fingernails leaving red crescents in his skin, and three more girls (Erin and Serenity and the poor harassed store clerk) who probably didn't have a fucking clue what was going on.
And he was still in his tux. Dammit.
Duke felt like a caged animal. Not only was the room filled with the two people he wanted to see least and their assorted entourage, but now, with Erin standing just a few steps past the door, there was no chance for a hasty exit without potentially shoving a very pregnant woman out of the way. The tension gauge needle was firmly stuck in the red, and Téa was still in her evening dress. Fate had decided he was only allowed to be happy in thirty-second increments. To hell with this. To hell with everything.
Stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place, Duke caught sight of Serenity and paused. Téa caught him looking and beat him to the punch. She hooked a finger in his beltloop the moment his weight shifted. "You're not."
It was too late. Joey and Tristan both caught Duke looking at Serenity; Duke smelled blood in the water and was desperate for a way out. He had one weapon always at the ready in his arsenal.
"Relax," Duke said smoothly, lips curling up into an arch smirk that two years ago would have made Téa recoil, "I know what I'm doing." He started to pull away again.
Téa debated her options. Struggling with him might cause a scene – though she was pretty sure she could take him.
On the other hand, if she didn't stop him before he opened his mouth, he was definitely going to cause a scene, one that could potentially get all three boys tossed from the store.
Duke did know what he was doing. That was what Téa was afraid of.
She released his belt loop and grabbed his arm. "You said they must think you're an awful person and you use people," Téa hissed, feeling his muscles go tight under her hands, "so do it, and you're proving them right."
Duke wheeled back on her, the smooth smile vanishing beneath a dangerous dark glare. "Maybe they are," he hissed back. In a moment, a blink, the mocking grin reappeared and he pulled away from her completely. In another second she was too far away to make a second grab.
"Serenity!" Duke called with an ingratiating spread of his arms, "Are you going to be at the gala too? That's great, so am I!"
His charm was suffocatin, the result of trying too hard. Serenity didn't know what to say, and neither did the two boys watching the display from too far away to make a difference. She smiled at him, and crossed her arms. "Tristan and Erin brought me here to pick up my dress."
"Why didn't you tell me? I'm hurt!"
He knew he was too close to her when all around him, bodies tensed and hackles raised.
"You knew, I toldja," Joey said quietly, all animation stripped from him.
"She's going with me," Tristan volunteered, and when he moved toward Serenity as well, the tension shifted up another gear. Téa felt like the carpet turned to glue under her bare feet as she tried to get to Duke's side and call him off.
"Tristan, what's going on?" Erin asked, unheeded, concern lacing through her voice.
Serenity looked confused, trying to smile but losing the grip on her confidence when she looked to her right and saw Joey going red and Tristan horribly pale and angry. "Tristan invited me several weeks ago, Duke," she answered, firm and even, "I'm sure they told you, you just must have forgotten."
Duke didn't look up to confirm this with either of the young men moving slowly to flank Serenity. He didn't need to. Nearly a month's worth of practice with Tristan for the purpose of saving Serenity's feet? Of course he knew. If he looked up he'd have only seen Mai's big violet eyes promising bloody death, and the wild storm of hurt and confusion running out of control in Joey's open, honest face. It would have stopped him, and he'd still be trapped.
In another second, the silence was going to break. Tristan was flashing taut rage and another second would satisfy Duke's masochistic self; break loose Tristan's stuck tongue so that Duke could dance insults around him and make a perfect fool of them both when Joey inevitably came to his rescue.
"I would have rather heard it from—" Duke began in an unmistakable voice, moving closer still. Tristan did the same, hurt sliding easily over into shock and anger as Duke shamelessly used Serenity in front of them; forced them to watch the sham.
He got no further.
"Tristan, stop, right now!" Erin ordered and stepped forward, snatching her brother's shoulder.
Téa's fingernails dug into Duke's arm. She yanked him around to face her, surprising him so much by the violence of the action that he didn't struggle to throw her off. They faced one another. Téa's expression was a summary of the pain in all of the faces around him that he'd refused to see.
A few feet away, Joey united fronts with Tristan. Mai caught Serenity's attention and led her to the window display, removing her from the situation entirely. Just like that, Duke’s plan was ruined; the awful feeling in the room abated some but not lifted.
Erin released Tristan's shoulder to curl both hands instinctively around her belly. "What is going on?"
Nobody answered her.
"What are you doing?" Téa demanded, angrily.
"I wanna know the same thing," Tristan echoed in a deadly voice. His fists hung white-knuckled at his sides. From his peripheral vision, Duke watched as Joey's fingers slid down Tristan's arm and touched his hand, half-masked by their sleeves and Joey's pant leg. Long fingers stroked the flexing tendons; tickled the skin until Tristan exhaled and loosened his fist. Never gripping, just touching, because Joey always knew what Tristan needed because they'd been together since the fucking beginning…
"DUKE. DEVLIN."
Duke's eyes had wandered fully toward the private display of comfort, and Téa's angry voice snapped them back. He lifted his chin and glowered at her. The raw arrogance snapped something apart between them and Téa reared back with a hard shake of her head. "I'm walking. I'd rather take a bus home than let you take me anywhere." She broke away and stalked back to the dressing room without another word.
Duke watched her go, feeling helpless and guilty as hell, and after a few shocked seconds started after her—
"Leave'er alone, Devlin," Joey said in his best traffic-cop voice.
"You did way more than enough," Tristan chimed in.
Duke turned around slowly. "Why don't the two of you just fuck off?" he snarled.
"Don't make me beat your ass."
"Tristan!" Erin admonished. For the first time all afternoon, someone listened and the room went silent. The clerk took it as a cue, and was immediately on her way towards the knot of people near the entryway to ask them to leave. It had been a long day already. Young men fighting in the showroom? Two weeks' notice, yes sir, resignation on the manager's desk in the morning.
Erin's resonant voice stopped her in her tracks.
"I don't know what this is all about, and I don't want to know," Erin said, pretty features twisted into a mother's scowl so fearsome and so familiar that everyone under the age of twenty in the room instinctively cringed. "This is a place of business. Tristan, you say Mom and Dad don't treat you like an adult? Maybe you should try acting like one."
Tristan looked down. Joey's fingers found his wrist and squeezed in sympathy. Duke saw it, and couldn't help the superior smirk.
"And Mr. Devlin? I'm not sure how people do things where you come from, but around here, that's not how we treat friends."
If that had come from anyone else but a beautiful pregnant woman, Duke would have calmly told them to go to hell. Instead he said nothing, though his chin never lowered a fraction. He looked for Mai by the window, and found no sympathy there. Even Serenity was giving him a wary look.
Today was just not his day.
Satisfied that she'd cowed the assembly, Erin turned back on her brother. "Tristan, get your suit. Once you and Serenity have your out—oh." Both hands flew to her lower back. Hazel eyes went wide and then squeezed closed. "Oh. Oh…okay. Oh."
Joey let go of Tristan's wrist and stepped around his side to see Erin more clearly. "Erin? Y'okay? What's goin' on? S'it th' kid?"
As he was finishing the sentence, Erin's water broke. A second later, she knew, and a few seconds after that everyone knew.
The boutique clerk went pale. Yes sir. Resignation. Quitting, sir, first thing in the morning.
She took a deep breath and stepped into their midst. "Is everything all right?"
"Erin's havin' a baby!" Joey snapped, as if this should already be obvious to the world at large. He took a deep breath and settled. Everything else that had taken place in this room was promptly swept away. "She needs help, couldja call 9-1-1?" he said, while Tristan flanked him to help Erin find a place to sit down.
Eager to get away from the situation completely, the clerk vanished with a harried "Of course, right away!"
Just as the clerk rounded the corner and disappeared through the office door at the back of the boutique, Téa returned from the dressing room, still in her formalwear. Her eyeshadow was smudged, and her eyes and cheeks were red. She looked disheveled as though she'd dressed again in a hurry and dashed towards the commotion, ignoring Duke – who hung back on the sidelines in a state of shock.
"What's going on?"
"Erin's havin' a baby!" Joey repeated, "Can people stop askin' that question? Geez."
"The ambulance will be here in twenty minutes!" the clerk announced from the office door.
"Do we have that long?" Tristan asked.
"How far apart are the contractions?" Duke asked patiently, moving – without any unnecessary shoving – to Erin's side. Tristan looked up at him with an expression of gratitude – Oh, someone here knows what they're doing – like he was an angel of God. That was about as screwed up as the rest of this godforsaken day. Heh. What do you know. A pun.
Erin was oblivious to most of them, lying flat on the carpet with her head toward the front wall, knees bent and both hands resting on her belly, protecting it. Her breaths were even, but sweat sheened her forehead even on the chilly showroom floor. "Four. Maybe four minutes apart," she said, quietly. "Hurt all day. Thought…just my back…had a headache, just…" Her head rolled to one side, eyes finding Tristan's. "I'm sorry, Tristan."
"It'll be okay," Duke said, and knelt next to Tristan on Erin's right side. "Erin, I think you'll need to push soon." He paused for thought. "This is your second baby, right?"
"Mm," Erin nodded, all of her bluster gone. Tristan watched her face for a few seconds, her closed eyes. She looked alone in the middle of everything. Like nothing could touch her because it hurt so bad.
"My guess is that ambulance won't make it here in time," Duke was saying.
"How the hell d'you know all this?" Joey dropped to his knees on Erin's other side. He glared at Duke suspiciously, then turned to Mai to take the dressing room bench pad that she offered, and tucked it under Erin's head.
"I had a customer give birth in the middle of my store on Christmas Eve," Duke explained, "after that I took classes."
"Just in case," Joey said, sounding faintly awed.
Duke smirked inwardly at the other man's change of attitude. Amazing how fickle the passions could be. "Just in case," he agreed, and focused on Erin.
A few more minutes passed. The clerk stayed on the phone with the dispatcher, grateful to have a legitimate excuse not to interfere. Tristan, Joey and Duke continued to sit with Erin, while the rest of the group perched around the scene like a flock of mismatched birds. Joey realized belatedly that he was still wearing his suit.
Erin spiraled off into another contraction long before even a quarter of the allotted time had passed. The baby would be there long before the ambulance.
"Tell me what to do," Tristan said resolutely. Erin was his sister, her baby was his family, and if this was anyone's responsibility, he was taking charge.
"Take her underwear off."
"What?"
"You didn’t think that women give birth in their Victoria’s Secret panties, did you? Oh, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. Push her skirt up, and pull her underwear off."
"Why me?"
“’Cause you’re her brother!” Joey said quickly, before anyone could shoehorn him into doing it.
"You know," Erin interrupted the tense argument, maintaining her humor despite her breathless voice, "I could always do it myself." Then she disappeared under the weight of the pain, became something else entirely as her body started straining and imploding, and even if that was a feeling she recognized there was nothing she could do to get around it. Her body was no longer her own.
In the end, nobody remembered who got the panties off, but before the next contraction they were no longer an issue.
"Erin," Duke said quietly, "I think on the next contraction you're going to need to push."
Tristan looked up at him from Erin's hip. Duke looked from him to Joey at her shoulder. The two of them wore identical expressions of childish fear and childish resolution, waiting for orders. In this single moment, he'd become a hero. All sins forgiven.
Great. He'd just keep a pregnant woman around for the next time he screwed up.
"Don't worry. She'll be fine."
"How do you know?" Tristan demanded, "Is she dilated?"
"Tristan, do you know what 'dilated' means?"
"How the fuck should I know what 'dilated' means?"
"If she pushes and nothing happens, we'll know she's not dilated. I took a class, that doesn't make me a doctor!"
Erin let out a breath with a whoosh, moaning on the exhale. Her body tensed, and Joey winced as the hand that his had been laced with up 'til now squeezed so hard that the imprint of her wedding band would make a purple bruise across his knuckle.
"Erin, you've gotta push, okay? Joey, make sure she breathes." It had been a while since that class, and Duke felt inordinately stupid, but tried not to let on.
"What? How'm I—"
"Just tell her. And stay calm."
"Oh. Right." Joey focused his attention on Erin's face as Duke motioned to Tristan to follow him. Erin's skirt was still mostly tented over her knees, and gingerly, Duke lifted it, letting it slide back. "Tristan, you wanna play catch?" Duke asked, in an undertone.
Tristan's attention was riveted on Duke's face, panicked and doing his best not to look at his sister. He couldn't even think the words that went with those girl bodyparts, not to mention look at them. "You mean--?"
"Yeah. Look, just…when the baby crowns—you'll be able to see the head. Just, kind of…make a net. A cradle. With your hands. So it doesn't hit the floor."
Tristan twitched.
"Doesn’t touch the floor, sorry. Just hold it when it comes out. Okay? Or should I? If you can't handle it."
"I can handle it," Tristan snapped. He took a deep breath, squinted, and took a long look just to avoid the weirdness. Because if it looked freaking weird now, it was going to get a lot worse in a few minutes.
Not so surprisingly, it did. It took another five minutes of breathe…and push…and breathe, before all of the slimy, wiggly whitish-pinkish baby slid into Tristan's hands. As soon as he felt it, Tristan forgot about where it came out of. Forgot everything else but what it felt like to have the baby in his hands, new, tiny, delicate and absolutely fricking disgusting.
The EMT's appeared just in time to save them all from panicking when what Duke delicately called 'the follow-up' was a little slow in finishing. They came in a surge of blue jackets and khaki pants to rescue Erin from the boutique and clean up the aftermath. By then, Duke had already shown Tristan how to cut the umbilical cord – the clerk at least knew where the First-Aid kit was and a pair of sterile scissors – and Erin had been holding her new baby for five minutes.
"It's a girl," one of the EMT's announced, unnecessarily, as she wrapped the baby in a towel and held her until the rest of the crew finished loading Erin's cart into the back of the ambulance.
"We know," Tristan said. He hadn't let the new baby out of his sight since she'd appeared, and was watching her now. Someone from the team had given him a towel to clean off his hands. He was holding onto it, balled against his stomach, until Joey came up to throw an arm around his shoulders.
"We're gonna call 'er Joey," he said, looking as pleased as if he'd fathered the baby himself.
"That's her middle name," Tristan corrected seriously.
"Deidre Joanna. We're'nna call 'er Joey, yanno we are."
"You wish."
From a few feet away, silent and brooding, Duke watched them. He wanted to talk to them; he'd earned the right to. He maybe even wanted to say he was sorry. But somehow walking up to them was harder than it looked.
He felt a light touch on his elbow and turned.
"I still think you were an asshole today," Téa said quietly, lips quirked as though she wasn't quite sure if the words would ache when she said them, "…But you did a good thing."
"Look, I'm really—"
"You didn't have to help them, but you did. I think I understand. It's not okay but—given everything you've had to deal with, I'm giving you a pass for today."
Duke laughed, breathing out on the sound and not quite meeting her eyes. "Is this where I'm supposed to say thank you?"
"No, this is where you apologize to those two. While you've still got a pass."
That did it. He was definitely putting an ad in Sunday's paper. Wanted: Pregnant women to volunteer their time and effort to save Duke Devlin's ass.
"Can I still take you home?" Duke asked, as Téa was moving away. She gestured to the dress that was dangling over her opposite arm and nodded, then headed in the direction of his car. Her flip-flops scraped across the pavement in cadence.
Alone now, Duke went back to his vigil. Ready. He was ready. He was brave enough for this. Only…
They were gone.
"C'mon, Serenity, Mai's goin' home an' Tristan an' me, we're goin' after Erin. We're gonna drop you off home before we go," Joey was saying behind him, voice resonant and free as sun once again. All of the tension seemed to have burned off the minute they walked from the boutique into the oppressive summer air.
Duke turned around and faced them. They slowed to a stop in front of him.
Not for the first time, he couldn't think of a thing to say. Maybe whatever it was they had was contagious. "Look, about today—"
He got no further, as Tristan slammed into him for an unabashed hug.
“You know…every time I see one of these skies, it makes me think the world’s ending.”
“Mm,” Joey reported, leaning a little more into Tristan’s shoulder and following his gaze to the vibrant red underbellies of the clouds. Deeper in, their layers changed from red to peach and violet and blue-gray. He liked watching the color go out of them.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah. Keep going.”
“I remember, for as long as I can remember…watching the red go away and thinking, ‘This is it. This is one more day gone.’” Tristan picked invisible lint from his jeans and tossed it into the water for the sake of something to throw. “It makes me sad.”
“That’s kinda depressing.”
“You don’t think it too? This is another day gone before school starts. Another day gone before the leaves drop and it starts snowing, and then another year goes away.”
“Nope. Thanks for ruining a perfectly good sunset, though.”
“You’re starting to sound like Duke.”
A month ago, Joey might have bristled. Instead, a slow grin split his lips wide, exposing a row of teeth that wetly reflected the apricot sky. The high points of his features were rosy with the light, cool shadow blue beneath his brows and the underside of his jaw. He laughed, and dropped his cheek on Tristan’s shoulder. “I don’t get what you mean, though. Why d’you think about that stuff? Summer’s not over yet.”
“Sure…” Tristan agreed, accepting the weight of Joey’s head without moving, “I guess…” He looked down at his companion, then quickly back out at the sky. The sun had vanished, and now the clouds nearest the horizon were golden, the ones above their heads dark, striated blue. “I guess maybe I just don’t like losing time.”
“So don’t lose anymore,” Joey snorted. He raised his head, and tossed his bangs quickly from his eyes with a jerk. “It’s still pretty,” Joey pointed out.
They listened to the white noise of the water and the humming traffic behind them for a few minutes, and watched the fire in the clouds slowly die. Tristan’s mind picked up where Joey left off, busy now with thoughts besides the painted sky.
Don’t lose any more time. Don’t lose anymore.
We’re making it harder than it really is.
The end of the world turned yellow-orange, and Tristan slipped his arm behind Joey, starting to smile now. “You’re right, it is pretty.”
Right above the orange was the prettiest shade of green, and pale blue above that. The whole picture at the end of the pier looked like a colorized print from the window of the camera shop.
“We’d better head back to the hospital,” Tristan said at last, leaning back on his hands and tucking his heels up on the edge of the pier, “Mom and Dad’s gonna wonder where we went. Besides...we can’t stay up all night.” He turned, to see Joey looking at him curiously. “We’ve got a party to crash tomorrow night, remember?”
For a minute, Joey studied his expression. Then his features brightened, and he bobbed his head once. They got to their feet, heading back to the end of the dock and the motorcycle waiting on the pavement.
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