Playground.
So bizarre that his days of ball-shaving and first-date waxing had been replaced by playground makeovers. Brent saw a bigger opportunity. “Don’t know if Tanner told you, but I’ve donated some money to have some of the parks revamped in Tribeca. Happy to go further. Build a playground, too. You think the moms will like that?”
Alan nodded approvingly. “Moms love playgrounds. The only thing they’d love more would be a coffee shop in a playground,” he said, and now it was Brent’s turn to laugh. “Anyway, that’s a nice start. And we can build on that. This is what I’m thinking. We’ve got a big picnic coming up in the park. Fundraiser for some neighborhood services. Let’s have you at the picnic. You could come by earlier in the day and say hello. Talk to them. Let them know you’re a family guy at heart. Mention your brother and his wife. Mention your mom. Your dad. Don’t talk up the Vegas roots, or the comedy. I know you’re not married, but is there any chance you have a pregnant fiancée or something like that? If you did, that’d be a nice slam dunk,” Alan said, miming stuffing a basketball through the net.
Brent laughed deeply, and shook his head. “Nope. I’m not opposed to either, but I don’t have a woman in the family way.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure you’ve got plans to have a big family some day soon since you love kids, right?” Alan said, in a leading-the-witness tone.
Brent nodded. He got Alan’s drift. He got it loud and clear.
* * *
“Let me see if I got this straight. The neighborhood association only wants to approve your plans to move Edge into the space if you seem less like the guy you were on TV and more like a clean-cut family guy. So you want my daughter—my precious angel princess—to be your prop?”
Clay raised an eyebrow as he pushed Carly lightly in a bucket swing in a park in Greenwich Village. The one-year-old giggled and kicked her feet.
“My niece who adores her uncle,” he said, stepping in to push the sweetie-pie and elbowing Clay aside.
“Watch it there. That’s my baby girl.”
“And she’s the sweetest, cutest, most adorable baby in the universe,” he said, and Carly leaned back to smile at Brent. He cooed at her and made animal sounds. First a monkey, then a duck, then a chicken, and Carly scrunched her baby cheeks and laughed, the kind of infectious laughter only a child possesses. He shot Clay a sharp-eyed stare. “Told you so. She loves her uncle.”
Like a hawk, Clay swooped in and rescued his daughter from the swing, cradling her against his chest. “Clearly, she’s suffering from temporary insanity. I better get her to the pediatrician right away.”
Later, as they walked through the Village, the baby strapped to her father in a Baby Björn, his big brother relented. “Obviously, you can bring her to the picnic. I’ll just be the guy hanging by the fence, watching my kid. Ready to grab her if I need to.”
Brent clapped him on the back. “Excellent. I knew eventually you’d be good for something.”
“Or maybe I won’t be so generous,” Clay said as they neared a bustling coffee shop, spilling over with Sunday afternoon foot traffic.
“Nah. I have faith in your generosity. And I have faith in caffeine, which I need right now. Red-eye and all,” Brent said, pointing to the shop. “My treat.”
Clay shook his head, and crossed one finger over another, as if he were warding off evil spirits in the cafe. “Not that one. That shop has bad luck written all over it. That’s where Julia practically had my head when she found out I’d done something she wished she knew about sooner.”
“I’ve told you, man,” Brent said, because he was privy to the details of what had nearly split up the two of them before their happy ending, back when Julia had been in trouble with the mob, saddled with debt owed by an ex. “You need to be upfront with women. Just in general. Look at me. I’m a goddamn open book.”
Clay stopped in his tracks, scratching his head. “Wait. I’m sorry. Did I hear that right? You’re trying to give me relationship advice?” he asked, rubbing his thumb against his wedding band.
“Whatever, man. All I’m saying is women want you to lay it all out for them. Be open. You know that. Secrets are almost what ripped you and Julia apart.”
His brother nodded seriously as they resumed their hunt for coffee. “That they did, man. That they did. And I learned my lesson.”
“You ever hear from that guy? Charlie? The one she was forced to play poker for?”
“He called me once,” Clay said as they reached the corner and stopped to wait for a walk sign. A cab blew past them on the street, and a pack of Sunday afternoon runners whipped by on the cobbled sidewalk.
“What did he want?”
“Tried to get me to come work for him. Said he needed a good lawyer.”
Brent scoffed. “I bet he does. Mob bosses always need someone to bend the rules for them. What’d you say?”
Clay’s mouth twitched in a smile and he spoke in a wry tone. “I told him that my client list was full. But I appreciated the offer. Always be a gentleman with men like him. You never know when they’re going to reappear, and you need to make sure you haven’t pissed them off.”
“And you didn’t piss him off, I trust?”
Clay adopted a who me look. “I never piss anyone off. But you? You’re another story. If memory serves, you were pretty skilled in pissing off Shannon back in the day. You learned your lesson on that front? You’re treating her well now?”
Brent flashed back to last night and Shannon’s cries of ecstasy. To the past week, and how her eyes lit up with happiness over their lunches. To the sadness he saw in them, too, when she shared all her fears. All of it. Everything. He desperately wanted to be the man to make her happy. To give her hope.
“Like a queen,” he said. “Like a queen.”
“Excellent. That’s the only way to treat a woman.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Shannon crossed her arms and watched her brother mow down targets with clockwork precision. Huge earphones covered Ryan’s head, muffling out sound as he fired with one hand. A sure shot. She knew how to fire, too, though she rarely did. She owned a sub-compact Glock 42 that Ryan had bought her when she moved back to Vegas.
“It’s your housewarming present,” he’d remarked when he took her to the gun store.
“You afraid the Royal Sinners are coming for me?” she asked, joking but not joking.
He’d squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. “They’re not coming for you. But you never know who is.” He’d filled out the paperwork, plunked down his credit card, then handed her the weapon and said, “Welcome home.”
Then he’d taught her how to handle a gun.
Sometimes she joined him at Reiss, sharing his intensity of focus, his cold concentration. Other times, she wished she’d never learned to shoot, never imagined that she might need to. Even if you were skilled in how to shoot, a gun couldn’t always save you. In fact, it probably wouldn’t save you. If her father had carried a gun, he’d still be dead. He’d been shot in the back, and never saw it coming.
Guns were useless when someone put a price tag on your head.
Ryan took aim at another black and white cardboard cutout. Shannon counted off in her head with each bullet.
One target. Two targets. Three targets. Now, four. Now, five. Absently, she crossed her fingers, hoping for a perfect six. Random, but that was the number she picked.