Page 29 of Lost
“They seem nice enough.” Lysander shrugged. “Pat and Brendan are both great. I don’t really know anybody else. Today’s my first time meeting them all.”
“What about Zack and Georgia? Are they what you expected?”
“Zack’s not.” He frowned as he thought back on those days leading up to his first meeting with his rockstar father. “I thought he was gonna be a stuck-up rich guy. And that he was gonna hate me. But he turned out to be decent, so that was great.” He was silent for a moment before adding, “I never really thought about Georgia before coming here. She’s nice, but…I don’t think she likes me much.”
Marina didn’t say anything to that, for which Lysander was grateful. As lovely as he knew his step-mother was, he didn’t want to hear anybody defending the way they thought she must feel about him. That was something only Georgia would ever be able to prove to him. They were going to need to work out their relationship on their own.
“So what’re you doing inside?” he asked her. “Not in a partying mood?”
“I’m grounded,” she admitted with a grimace. “Mom and Dad dragged me along so they could keep an eye on me, and so I could babysit while they all get drunk. Not that I really mind. I love my family, and I love babysitting Melody, but my band and I were supposed to be recording today.”
She sounded whiny, and the playful pout that she sent him said she knew it.
“What’d you get grounded for?”
“I borrowed Dad’s car…without asking.”
Lysander laughed outright. “Yeah, that’ll do it.”
She grinned at him. He grinned right back. And just like that, he knew he’d made a new friend.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
These parties weren’t what they used to be, Zack lamented. Long gone were the days when they would stay up into the ungodly hours of the morning getting wasted. Sure, they still did it on occasion, but not nearly as often as they used to. Their wives seemed to steer completely clear of it these days, and Brendan would no longer allow it to happen in his house — understandable, given his young and impressionable daughter.
Even the almost-alcoholic Chris had calmed down through the years, much to the surprise of everybody who knew him. It had happened sometime after Tommy’s had passed, so gradually that nobody had noticed at first. Zack wondered if it was a direct reaction to Tommy’s death, their old drummer having fallen to his own addiction. Zack’s own drinking had slowed for the same reason. Today, he realised, it had slowed even more.
Because he had to take care of his son. The thought was at the forefront of his mind no matter what he was doing, and he found himself looking toward the boy more often than not. Lysander hadn’t moved from the chair he’d claimed when they’d first arrived, and had said little more than a hello to everybody who had been introduced to him. It was perfectly clear to Zack that the kid wasn’t enjoying himself. Maybe it had been too soon for this after all. He was about to start saying his farewells to his friends when the situation took a turn.
Marina, God bless her soul. That girl could make a friend of anybody.
“Dude, are youevergonna finish that?”
Zack looked down at the bottle in his hand. He’d been nursing it for an hour already, and he shrugged in response to Chris’s question. Once upon a time he might have taken up the challenge, but things were different now. Lysander would be in the car when they drove home later that night — and even if it was only a short drive, anything could happen out on the road. It no longer seemed worth the risk.
“You’ve gone soft,” the bassist mused as he took a swig of his own drink. “Just like Bren did.”
“Ah, shut it, Chris.”
“Seriously, though,” Chris said, still grinning, “he seems like a good kid. I think you got lucky.”
Zack nodded. He couldn’t have agreed more. He could only imagine the stress he’d be going through now if he’d been landed with a teenage version of himself. He remembered well the almost daily fights that he and guys used to get into, but Lysander wasn’t like that at all. In fact, the boy rarely complained about anything. It was making things just that little bit easier.
All that panic in the days before he’d arrived had been for nothing, it seemed.
“How’re things with Georgia? You mentioned something about a fight.”
Zack looked across the yard to his wife. She was beautiful with that vibrant smile on her face and the sunlight gleaming in her hair. Her laughter drifted across to him on the breeze.
“Things are good,” he said after a moment. “Better. She’s been on my back about kids again is all.”
“What, one ain't enough for her? Two, since you’ve got another on the way.”
“She doesn’t see them as hers.”
The look Chris gave him was one of sympathy. “She’ll come around. They always do.”
They didn’t. But Zack wasn’t in the mood to argue.
