Family Ties

“Will you pour her a glass, dear?”

I hid a grin and told myself not to compare her to her mother. Not to her face, at least. I filled a glass and handed it to Wren.

She sipped first before she took a longer drink. Then she set the glass on the table and sagged to a chair in exhaustion.

“Hey, at least you’re half-finished with exams,” I said to cheer her up.

“Christy and I still have all ours left.”

“That’s something, all right,” Wren said. She put a hand to her head. “I think my brain turned to mush sometime this afternoon.

“Dinner won’t be for an hour or so,” I said. “You wanna go soak in the tub till it’s ready?”

“Why don’t you keep her company,” I said to Christy. “Take the wine and have a little girl-time.”

“What’re you doing?” Christy asked in a whisper.

“Telling you to take care of your friend.”

“It’s okay,” Wren said. “You don’t have to.”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“That’d be nice. Thanks.”

I went back to work on the vegetables. Trip appeared a few minutes later and grumbled about being kicked out of his own bedroom.

“Chill, dude. Have some wine. Fresh bottle in the fridge.”

“I need something stronger.” He went to the liquor cupboard. “You want anything?”

“Sure, I guess. Whatever you’re having.”

“Right. Two Jack and Cokes, coming up.” He mixed the drinks and handed one to me. “Need to give you a heads-up,” he said after a long sip.

“Wren wants to talk about New Year’s tonight.”

“Okay,” I said neutrally.

“I’ll save the longer story for dinner, but the short version is that we have a cabin in Lake Tahoe for the week after Christmas.

“That’d be a big step,” I said.

“I told her what you said, that you’re trying to take things slow, but she’s… well… ‘horny’ isn’t the right word, but it’s close enough.” He took another sip of his drink. “She misses Christy, and I know it isn’t just the sex.”

“It’s the intimacy.”

“Yeah, probably. You’d know better than I would. Oh, that reminds me.

We got together with Mark and Leah over Thanksgiving.

My eyebrows shot up.

“Anyway,” he continued, “everything turned out okay and we had fun, but I thought you should know.”

“I get the feeling she’s keeping it in reserve to throw in your face if she needs to. So don’t tell her I told you. Okay?”

“This may sound crazy,” he went on, “but she really wants your approval, at least about this. You know how she is. She wants to do everything herself, control everything.