Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair (20 page)

“Don’t be too hurt,” Aiden had told him then. “I remember my mom being just like this when she was pregnant with the littler kids. It just means she’s close, that’s all.”

Jeremy nodded. He understood—he did. But the last time they’d visited, he’d been telling the story of his
disastrous
first dinner with Aiden’s parents, and Ariadne had cut him off at the end.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jeremy—they’re just trying to feed you, not strip you naked and feed you to the pigs!”

He’d laughed and staved off the hurt. He’d been spoiled, that was all. For a couple of months, he’d had her to himself, but she was a mother and a wife first and Jeremy’s friend second. To want more of her was just selfish—he had to concede that.

He’d been forced to confide his feelings about the whole affair to Aiden, who, in a
complete
turn of events, had been perfectly understanding.

“I get it, Jeremy,” Aiden said. “I totally get it. Your whole life, you’ve been at the window of homes just like mine. And you were taught that these people were the enemy, and that you needed to steal from them, but the whole time you just wanted to
be
with them. How’re you going to walk into that and know how to act right off the bat? I mean”—and Aiden had tightened his grip on Jeremy’s hand here—“I didn’t get it. I thought you were being silly, but….” They were in the plane, and Aiden turned to him in the back, Jeremy leaning forward and looking into his eyes. “Jeremy, that sort of panic? That was hard on you. In a million years, I didn’t know how awful it was going to be for you. I thought you’d walk in and my family would just sort of… suck you in. And they tried, and it scared you. But I think it’s worth it. It wasn’t easy being with Craw and me at first. I know Ariadne scared the hell out of you. But you got used to ’em. You’ll get better at this too.”

Jeremy closed his eyes because Aiden’s intensity unsettled him sometimes, and Aiden had let the matter rest.

And now, on the way to greet the new baby and be there for Ariadne, Jeremy had a moment to realize that Ariadne and her family were about to become a tiny version of Aiden’s family. Closed off and secular, removed from the people of the mill.

But then, he and Aiden had been that way for three years, hadn’t they?

“The puppy’ll be ready to bring home in four weeks,” he said, and the comment was probably out of nowhere for Aiden to follow, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Yeah—think you’ll have time for her?”

Jeremy shook his head in wonderment. He was still leaving the shop after lunch, but his afternoons had become one big phone call. Trying to find a venue was killing him. He’d tried the three ski lodges, the Elks lodge, and the library, and so far he hadn’t gotten someplace that was even open to host a big benefit in six weeks.

“The Elks lodge was booked to July,” he muttered. “I had no idea there were even that many people getting married
in
Granby.”

Aiden laughed. “Well, graduations too. And birthday parties. And meetings for the Elks themselves.”

Jeremy grunted. “Yeah, whatever, but they’re not having our benefit, ’cause they’re too busy. But I’ve got people lined up to donate prizes, and I’m looking into a caterer or something, although it’s sort of a big job to have someone donate food—that’s a hang-up, you know?”

Aiden closed a large, work-roughened hand over Jeremy’s, and he stopped worrying at the strap of their duffel.

“You’ll work it out,” he said softly. “Craw and me, we’ve got faith in you.”

Jeremy swallowed again. “I think,” he muttered, and then realized Aiden couldn’t hear him over the engine noise. “I think,” he said, louder, “that we’re gonna have to ask Rory for help.”

Aiden looked at him, surprised, and Jeremy knew why. Up until right this minute, he’d been dead set against telling Ariadne or Rory
anything
about what they were trying to do. He and Craw had almost come to words because Rory was freaking out on Craw, and Craw didn’t have anything to give him but “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of her.”

But dammit!

“See,” Jeremy said, like Aiden had said something, “the thing is, we need a pièce de résistance. The blankets”—Craw and Ben had decided to do their own—“are going to be big. But we need something personal to remind everyone it’s about Ariadne. I mean, they know you and me and Craw, but Ari’s the one who talked to everyone in the store.
She’s
the one they all miss. It’s women who spend the charity money, Aiden, and we need to appeal to the women. We’ve got the lumberyard and the auto parts donations, and that might pull the men in, but the women—especially the ones with big purses—they’re gonna go for art. And Rory can produce.” Rory, in fact, was an
amazing
artist. Since Ari had been laid up, Jeremy and Aiden had been asked to help him ship the pieces he’d finished to his clients, and they were
wonderful
. Oil canvases with landscapes of the Rocky Mountains that broke Jeremy, plain broke him, with the way they captured the things Jeremy loved best. Abstract pictures of women who might be Ariadne or who might be any man’s lover, covered in shadows and shining in sunrays during quiet, private moments. He’d dabbled in stained glass, and his beginning pieces had Aiden making choking, inarticulate noises that Jeremy usually associated with Aiden and sex.

Rory’s stuff—beautiful, poignant, as firm as the soil they all had their feet planted on…
one piece
would make this benefit. One piece to raffle off next to the exultant practicality of the blankets and just the general brouhaha of a party in the beginning of spring, and Jeremy thought they could make a difference.

But maybe they should wait until the baby was born to broach the subject.

By the time they all got to Boulder and took the cab to the hospital, Ariadne was almost ready to go. They arrived just as the nurses were hustling her off to the delivery room, Rory at her side.

“Ouch!” he snapped, surprising them all. “Ari, I need that hand!”

“Rory, man, it
hurts
!”

“I know, sweetheart,” he murmured, and he cast a harried look at the Granby people as they walked up, duffels over their shoulders. If Craw, Ben, and Aiden were anything like Jeremy, they had no idea what they were there for. Moral support didn’t come with a book of activities.

To their surprise, Rory’s usually stoic expression melted when he saw them. “Craw, man, get your ass over here. She’s gonna maim me if someone doesn’t take her other hand.”

Craw rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh.

And dropped his duffel bag next to Ben and took his rightful place as best friend on Ari’s other side.

Ben picked up Craw’s bag, and together he, Aiden, and Jeremy watched Ari’s bed disappear into the mysterious room where screaming women went in with big stomachs and exhausted women came out with babies.

Which, as far as Jeremy was concerned, was just the way God had intended.

“Poor Craw,” Aiden said, awed. “He didn’t even protest. Just walked up there to do his duty.”

“Poor Craw?” Ben retorted. “Poor Rory! Craw and Ari curse worse than a trucker shagging a sailor.”

Aiden and Jeremy stared at him, and then Aiden turned to Jeremy and started to chuckle. “Now
that
,”
he said wryly, “is something I wouldn’t mind hearing. C’mon, let’s find the waiting room so I can go to the cafeteria and get me some of their fuckalicious coffee.”

Jeremy perked up. “You know, the hot chocolate wasn’t too bad if you added soft-serve to it. That sounds like a plan.”

After they got situated in what was an admittedly comfy waiting room with carpeting and chairs and a little kiosk with coffee and water, the three men all did the one thing that made waiting bearable: busted out their knitting.

Normally they would have had hats or socks to work on, but all of them pulled out scraps of sock yarn and started stitching on the squares that would make up the blanket. Jeremy and Aiden were doing join-as-you-go, and after a few minutes of almost tranquil silence, Ben turned to them and watched as Jeremy joined a square on one side and Aiden joined on another.

“You guys are quick,” he said in awe. “I mean, Craw and I have a bag full of squares, but you’ve got at least a quarter of the blanket done.”

Jeremy looked at him and grimaced. “It helps me calm down,” he confessed. “Especially when I’m freaked out about planning the benefit.”

“A-fucking-men,” Aiden muttered, and Jeremy chuffed softly.

“Hey, apparently not even con men can get a benefit hall in April,” he protested, and Ben grunted.

“Why’s it gotta be a hall? Why can’t it be the pub, you know? I mean, yeah, it’s a bar, but families bring their kids there, and we all eat there once a week or so. I know they’ve been keeping Rory fed these past months.”

“Rory used to bartend there before his stuff started selling,” Aiden said, and Jeremy glared at him.

“I did not know that!” he protested, feeling out of the loop.

“Yeah, well, the entire town of Granby did not just come to life when you started working in Craw’s mill,” Aiden shot back.

“I do not expect to know everything about Granby,” Jeremy said with dignity. “But my people, that’s something important.”

“Yeah, it’s important. Did you miss the outstanding suggestion that Ben just gave you?”

Jeremy turned to Ben and smiled, because really it was an excellent idea. “Thanks, Ben. I shall call them as soon as we get back to Granby. You got any other ideas to float by me?”

Ben thought about it and shook his head and then smiled. “A band!” he said. “A live band! You know—music!”

Aiden groaned.

“What?” Jeremy asked, because he sounded like a man who had been asked to do something when Jeremy could swear that wasn’t the case.

“I know a band,” he muttered. “I can ask them.”

“What’re they called?”

Aiden scowled even deeper. “The Alpaca Hat’s Band.”

Oh, that was not promising. “Well, do they suck? Because you sound pissed off, and I don’t want no suckass band playing at Ari’s benefit!”

Aiden shook his head. “No, they don’t suck,” he muttered. “But one of them would like to.”

Jeremy dropped a stitch. “You mean…
you
?” he asked, hands shaking.

Aiden covered his hand, stroking gently with a rough thumb. “Look, I knew them in high school, and I was sort of flirting with the lead singer. And then Craw hired a guy at the mill, and keeping him out of trouble was much more interesting. But in the meantime, they’ve gotten good and they’ve recorded new stuff and they’re always looking for gigs. They travel all over—Fort Collins, Denver, here—but they’re native to Granby. I mean, they play in the pub all the time! I think Rory even did the logos for their merchandise.”

Jeremy looked at him and growled. Actually growled. “Are you seriously telling me you’re going to ask your ex-boyfriend—”

“Old high school buddy!” Aiden corrected.

“Young high school buddy!” Jeremy corrected over
him
.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. Remember what I told you—you started working and you were much more interesting. And now we’ve got a band that might work for free. Or at least for snacks and good publicity. Which, by the way, my sister would give them if you ever asked her about dealing with the paper.”

Jeremy moaned. “God. Oh God. Ari’s gonna have a baby, and you’re gonna be talking to the young naked hat guy, and I’m going to have to have dinner with your parents again! It’s enough to make me want to start a game of three-card monte right the fuck now!”

Aiden let go with a long-suffering sigh and patted his knee. “Maybe just keep knitting, ’kay, Jeremy? The baby first. The rest of it we’re working on, right?”

They kept working, and eventually, after two more painstaking rows of squares, a surprised nurse came in and told them that Ariadne and the baby were ready to be visited for a few.

After some frantic stuffing of knitting back into knitting bags, the men followed the nurse down the corridor to Ariadne’s room, where that automatic hush of all people who enter into a maternity ward succeeded in swallowing all their sounds.

An exhausted-looking Rory was sitting next to Ariadne, holding her hand and kissing her knuckles. His blond hair was everywhere, and his stubble was damned near as full as Craw’s beard, but the way he looked at his wife made Jeremy’s throat all tight and his eyes hot. Ari was—well, sweaty and red and wan and a little bloated, but she had a quiet, peaceful smile on her face.

She was looking at Craw as he held a tiny, tightly wrapped bundle of odd noises.

“What do you think, Craw?” she asked, and Craw looked up at her and grinned. Just out-and-out grinned.

“I think she’s cooked long enough and needs to come out and visit!” he said before looking down at the baby in his arms again.

“C’mere, Craw, let me see,” Ben said, and Craw handed the bundle to Ben.

All the men had been warned—they’d gone back to look at pictures of what a baby with a cleft palate would look like. Every one of them had wanted to look at that baby and see only a beautiful baby and acknowledge that the fixing would come later but the perfect baby was now.

Ben’s eyes widened slightly, and then he smiled, the same sweet, genuine smile Craw had probably fallen in love with way back in October.

“Hiya, angel,” he said softly. “Looks like God forgot a little something while you were cooking. That’s okay. We’ll take care of you here.” He smiled some more, his slight body swaying, and he hummed a little, his lips barely visible under his artfully grown stubble. After a few minutes of grown people just staring at a pretty man and a baby, he turned to Aiden.

“Aiden, you want to hold her?”

Aiden nodded with unsurprising confidence. “Yeah, sure. I’ve seen a few of ’em.”

He crossed his eyes when Ben put the little bundle of blankets in his arms. “You,” he said firmly, “are awake. Lookit that. All that quiet, all these people cooing over you, and you’re awake. You’re gonna be trouble, and I am not surprised. Believe me, I know trouble when I see it.”

A syllable emerged from the little package, and Jeremy couldn’t help but smile. That baby
was
trouble, and she knew it too. Well, girls should be trouble. The troublemakers got all that attention on them, so they should be treated like trouble and given all that attention even before they asked. That way the only trouble they’d cause was breaking daddies’ hearts when they married someone good.