Page 27 of The Wedding Planner's Manny
“Earlier you asked how my day was. If you really want to know, I've been on the phone with your brother for most of it.”
“My brother? About his wedding?”
“Yes. I’m not going to talk badly about my client, but your brother has a million and one ideas. And he likes every single one of them the best until he thinks of something different. I wasn’t always entirely sure if he was serious, either. Just last week, he asked me if he could have a penguin jumping out of the cake and he didn’t looked like he was joking.”
“He’s always been like that.” The memory put the cutest smile on Rhys’ face. That moment, I kind of wanted to lean over and kiss him, as inappropriate as that would have been. Cynthia told me Rhys used to have a crush on me, but I had no way to know if he was still interested in me at all. And if I just kissed him now… with all the bullshit the Vinists had put into his head, he might just go along with it regardless of how he felt about it.
“I see,” I made myself say when I realized I’d been fantasizing about kissing my manny for too long.
And then a small voice made me look to the entrance of the kitchen. “Daddy?”
“Caleb! Hey, buddy, aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
“I had a bad dream!” He rubbed one eye, clutching his favorite stuffed toy in his other hand—a brown cow.
I was about to get up and go to him, but Rhys was faster than me. “I got it,” he said to me before approaching my son and taking his small hand. “C'mon, let's see if we can't chase those bad dreams away.”
Rhys took Caleb back to his bedroom and I followed a few steps behind, curious what he was about to do. Caleb looked to me, but didn't protest when Rhys tugged him back in bed. Then Rhys sat at the edge of his mattress and got something out of his pocket. “Look what I have here.”
“What?” Caleb's attention snapped to the object in Rhys' hand.
Was that a shirt button?
“This is a button, but it's not just any button. It's magic,” Rhys explained, saying the last part in a hushed tone of voice, as if it was a secret.
“Magic?” Caleb sounded as skeptical as a three-year-old could. “What magic?”
“I can tell you, but you can't tell anyone else.” Rhys shot me a glance, and I loosely stuck my fingers in my ears to pretend I wasn't hearing them anymore. Then he turned back to my son. “It has to be a secret or it'll stop working.”
Caleb's eyes went wide. “What magic?” he asked again and I had to keep myself from chuckling. He was totally buying into this now.
“My sister gave this to me when I was your age and I had bad dreams,” Rhys said, turning the button between his fingers. “But you can have it now. You put it under your pillow like this,” Rhys lifted Caleb's pillow and slid the button underneath it, “and it'll keep all bad things away. No nightmares, no monsters.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. But there's something important you have to do for it to work.”
“What?”
“You have to believe in it. Can you do that? You have to believe really hard.”
“Okay!” Caleb nodded, closed his eyes and scrunched his little face up as if concentrating on something very hard.
“Great.” Rhys ruffled his hair and then got up from the bed. “Sleep well. I'm going to let your Dad say goodnight to you now.” On his way out the room, he tapped me on the shoulder and I took my fingers out of my ears.
“Are you gonna be okay now?” I asked my son, sitting where Rhys had sat just a few seconds before.
Caleb nodded bravely. “I have magic!”
“Yeah, you do.” I leaned down to kiss his forehead. “Have a good night now, okay?”
“Okay. Daddy?” he asked when I straightened again.
“Yeah?”
“I like Rhys. Will he stay?”
A little laugh escaped me at the sincerity of my son's request. “I hope so.”
