Jericho wanted to raise his hand.Me. Me.But he’d offer his dog in his stead. Orlando seemed on board, with a wag of his tail.
“See you Avengers in the morning,” she said as she turned to leave.
“Hey.” He reached for her hand. “You okay?”
She stopped. Nodded. A small smile. “Yeah.”
“So ... I think I’m headed to church in the morning.You wanna come?”
She quirked an eyebrow, caught her lower lip. “We’ll see.”
Then she leaned down and kissed his cheek before walking away.
“Old times,” Malachi said.
Sully and Hudson were grinning too.
“Stop.”
“Not even a little,” Hudson said. “But if you’re going to stick around—and I’m hoping you do, because I could use some help with the boiler, which is still not working—you might consider going through those boxes in your closet. Otherwise, you’re going to have to live with your clothes on the floor.”
“You sound just like Mom.” He’d gotten up, cleared his plate.
“You would think all those years in the military and in SAR would have turned you into a neat freak,” Hudson said, also getting up to throw his plate away.
“What are you talking about? I’m organized. There’s a folded pile for everything. Just because it’s on the floor ... and why do you care?”
“I care because I got a call from the housekeeper today who said she couldn’t vacuum your room.”
“I can vacuum my own freakin’ room!”
“This is fun,” Malachi said. “I’ll make popcorn.”
Sully held up his fist and Malachi bumped it.
Silence, and then Hudson laughed. “Yeah, we missed you, bro.” He clamped Jericho on the shoulder as he walked past him. “Clean your room.”
“Seriously.” But he laughed too. Then, “And why do you think I can help with the boiler?”
“Because hello, you were Dad’s boiler buddy.” Hudson headed down to his office.
“Truth, that,” Sully said. “He’d come home, the pilot light would be out, and he’d drag you downstairs to fix it. And not just at the house either.”
He hadn’t thought about that for ages. “Mostly I handed him tools.”
Sully finished off the final rib. “He made me help him with the cars, so at least you were warm. I climbed under cars in the snow to turn wrenches at his command.”
“I worked in the warehouse with him, opening boxes,” Malachi said. “And inventory. Oh, I hated inventory.”
He glanced down the hall, toward Hudson’s office. “He dragged Hud to the resort to work the front desk. Even when he was fourteen.”
“I have no doubt he wanted us all to take over the resort someday.” Sully got up and grabbed his plate. “Just took us a while to get there.”
He threw out the plate and can, then headed for the door. “See you in the morning.”
Jericho bid Malachi good night and followed Sully through the great room. Sully took the stairs up, and Jericho went down to his bedroom. Not a small room—queen-size bed, dresser, desk, and an en-suite bathroom with a shower.
Hudson had even hung Jericho’s high school hockey jersey on the wall, like that meant something. Maybe it did—he had gone to state championships with the Copper Mountain team.