He winked and grinned. “Any time, Grace. That’s what’s so nice about being ‘Uncle’ J.D. I get to hand them back to you just when they’re getting impossible.”
“I should be so lucky.”
But she belied her words when she grabbed her daughter off his lap and proceeded to torment her by blowing raspberries on her round belly. J.D. slipped his camera out and framed the shot in an instant, shoving his Nikon back in his pocket before Isa could stop giggling. He kneaded his thigh when his hands were empty again. Losing the cast had been frigging awesome and the therapy was helping, but he still ached. “Wanna babysit tonight?” Grace asked him.
“Not now that I know what you two plan on doing with your free time. I don’t need the mental pictures, thank you.” He grabbed one of the juice-filled sippy cups Tyler had set on the bar and passed it down to Daniel, who was waiting at his knee like a terrier. J.D. figured the boy was old enough for a real cup, no lid, but he’d learned from past experience that unless he wanted to take responsibility for mopping up any spills, he’d better keep his mouth shut.
“Besides, I’m off in a couple hours.”
“Let me guess. Malaysia? No, you’ve been there. Zanzibar?”
“Been there, too. Nice island. Spice trade. Big carved wooden doors everywhere. Excellent beaches.”
“So?”
“Vegas.” He tilted his head back to take another swallow of his beer. “The film I worked on might, uh, win some kind of MTV award.”
“My buddy, the rock star.”
“Shut up, Tyler. I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
Grace was swaying with Isa and pelting J.D. with questions about whether he’d meet U2 and what he’d be wearing. J.D. tried to explain that it wasn’t what it sounded like. It was not a big deal. The film had won an MTV technical award of some kind. The director must have had some kind of belated guilt attack about the whole thing with Lana. Either that or the fact that his coffee table book of photographs had driven a surge of interest in the film had apparently gotten his name on the invite list for the ceremony. Which was, with various other non-flashy awards, being conducted a month before the main show and would probably involve wine from a box and a choice between underbaked chicken and overcooked steak.
“It’s just an excuse for a party, really,” he explained. “Everyone gets dressed up, drinks too much and pretends for a night that they’re as famous as the people on the other side of the camera.” Time for a change of subject. “So where’s your little sister, Tyler?”
“Sarah or Maxie?” Grace asked as she snagged a handful of pretzels from a bowl on the counter.
“He better be talking about Maxie.” In response to his wife’s look, Tyler said, “J.D. has already seen plenty of Sarah.”
A man had to defend himself. “Hey, the whole thing was your idea.” He turned toward Grace. “It was your husband’s idea to have me check her out, and now he’s pissed because I gave her one lousy kiss.”
“I asked you to check on her, not ‘check her out,’” Tyler retorted with air quotes.
“Stop!” Grace threw her hands in the air. She pointed at her son. “You, go to the kitchen and ask nicely for some tortellini and broccoli. You can pretend to eat the broccoli if you go now.” Daniel went. Grace passed her youngest back to J.D. and ducked behind the counter to pour herself more wine. Propping her elbows on the bar, she rested her head on her interlaced fingers and grinned at J.D. “You, tell me about that kiss. No, wait. First things first. Why were you checking her out?”
“On, checking on,” Tyler protested. “I wanted J.D. to see if he could feel her out.” As he snagged the baby from J.D.’s lap, he gave his friend a sharp look and said, “I said out, not up, buddy. Don’t get any ideas. I told him how we’re a little concerned about Sarah.”
“Worried sick and not a little pissed off is what he means,” Grace added in a helpful and pleasant tone of voice. J.D. knew that Grace and Sarah had formed a close bond from day one. The two women joked that they didn’t need to bother with the “in-law” part of the phrase “sister-in-law” since they were already sisters, separated at birth. “We’ve been trying to get her in on the planning for Susannah’s birthday, but she’s been blowing off all our calls.” He knew that the Tyler kids went all out for their mom’s birthday every year. It was a family tradition that he couldn’t imagine Sarah skipping out on, but maybe she’d been busy with work. “Plus, it just wasn’t like her to miss Daniel’s birthday last week.”
Or maybe it was serious.
“She forgot her godson’s birthday?” Shoot, he could find her right now and tie her to a chair until she explained what was going on with her.
“Well, not exactly. I mean, she sent over a gift and a card, but she made up some excuse about why she couldn’t make it to the party. We haven’t seen her in weeks. If she blows off Susannah’s party, I’m calling the police.”
J.D. settled back into his seat with a sigh. She’d remembered the boy’s birthday, hadn’t she? She came from a terrific family, but everyone needed a break from time to time. With a family like his, that break was better made permanently. All the same, he could see why Tyler and Grace were worried. Sarah had always been the responsible, quiet one, despite her unbelievably bad taste in high school boyfriends. She’d dated a kid who was busted for stealing equipment from the AV club in the hopes of making a porno, after breaking up with a guy who was caught taking bets on the football team. What were the odds?
Still. The memory of an ace of hearts etched on smooth skin flashed before him. Maybe he didn’t know Sarah as well as he thought he did. Maybe none of them did.
“What did Aunt Sarah send you for your birthday, buddy?” he called to Daniel as the boy wobbled back into the room clutching a bowlful of pasta. Spotting a disaster in the making, he scooped the kid up and deposited him in a chair, pushing his bowl away from the edge of the table.
“A book ‘bout dinosaurs.”
J.D. shook his head, reassured. That was Sarah. If the girl wasn’t trying to splint the broken leg of a squirrel, she was sitting somewhere with her nose in a book.
“I don’t know. All I can say is that she seemed fine to me. Better than fine,” he added with a grin.
“Watch yourself, buddy.”
“Aha, which brings us back to that kiss,” Grace lunged for the topic as if it were one of her children about to run off a cliff. “C’mon, J.D., fess up. Pretend you’re a girl and give me all the gory details.”
“The man is wearing a ponytail,” Tyler said as he swooped his baby girl through the air on a roller coaster ride before handing her off to Grace.
J.D. tugged on his hair where it was tied back with a leather cord. He was starting to think that this entire conversation was a remarkably bad idea. “What kind of details?”
“Was it good?” Grace, cool and classy woman that she was, looked like she was about to start breathing heavily and maybe drooling. She bounced her daughter on her hip. “Did she enjoy it?”
Tyler stuck his fingers in his ears and started humming “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
“Aw, Grace, I was just fooling around. I don’t know if she enjoyed it or not.”
“Well, did she stick her tongue down your throat or just sit there like a bump on a log?”
The visceral memory of that kiss slammed into him and his stomach dropped like he’d just crested a hill at high speed. She damn near climbed me like a tree was what he wanted to say. At first she hadn’t moved and he thought that he’d crossed a line, that he’d pushed the teasing