Quaranteam - Book Two (Ch. 11)

Chapter Eleven

December 16 ^th , 2020

Andy hadn't had the heart to tell any of the girls when they'd crashed the night before that they weren't technically sleeping in his home state of Ohio. In her effort to avoid them staying at a place with Covington in the name, Niko had missed that the Embassy Suites RiverCenter by Hilton Cincinnati wasn't actually in Cincinnati. Or Ohio. Oh, sure, it was in the greater Cincinnati area, but it was across the Ohio River. In Kentucky. In a town called, sadly, Covington. Thankfully, his partners had all sort of laughed it off in the morning while they were getting ready.

Melody had tried sending Andy a text when she first woke up, thanking him for taking her in, and when he opened his eyes, generally the last one to get out of bed, he saw her grinning, standing over him. "You're a big-dicked bastard, you know that?" she said, and then turned to high five Piper. "Fuck yeah, that worked!" Andy hadn't seen the text when she said that, so he was momentarily confused until Piper showed him his phone.

"Melody sent you a text message as soon as she got up, babe, but we had your phone in silent mode so it wouldn't wake you," Piper told him. "So, as long as she sends you a message while you're asleep, it's pretty easy sailing for everyone in dealing with that. We just wanted to test it without causing too much of a fuss."

"Hey, anything that makes your lives easier, you know I'm all for," Andy said, as Lexi and Niko wheeled in a few carts from the hallway that contained plenty of breakfast options for them to all have, Andy delighted to see an entire decanter full of pineapple juice. Sometimes the girls made special requests, and Andy's only request was that he always wanted to have either pineapple juice or orange juice for breakfast, never ever grapefruit juice, or, as he described it, squint in a glass.

As breakfast was starting to wind down, Andy asked Piper to phone up her sister, so that he could talk to Declan. He hadn't liked how they'd left things the day before. "Dec? Hey, it's Andy. Look man, I feel like we sort of got off on the wrong foot yesterday, and I'm afraid I probably came across looking like a bit of an asshole, which was never my intention."

"Yeah, well, me too, Andy," Dec sighed on the other end of the line. "You know how it is. Politics flare up and tempers kick up and suddenly we're at each other's throats for no real reason. I did a bit of reading while you were gone, and you're right, we aren't tackling white collar crime as much as we probably oughta be. I voted for Trump 'cause he promised to drain the swamp, but you know, it's swampier in DC now than it's ever been. Nothing got done the whole time he was there and that fucker still raised my taxes and spit in my eye. Fool me once and all that. Wouldn't have voted for him a second time, even if he'd lived. Wouldn't have voted for Biden neither, but I mean, Trump fucking stared into an eclipse and decided he knew more about hurricanes than the weather people, so he just changed a map with a sharpie and thought nobody would notice. Fuck that guy. I'm glad he's dead. He's not one of us. He was fucking rich. That's the problem. I sort of realized, we gotta be looking at rich and poor before anything else. I'm tryin' not to think about it in terms of race, but in terms of economic status, and, hoo boy, does that turn a bunch'a shit on its head."

"And I'm sorry I bit at the racist comment," Andy sighed. "I should've known better, because I really don't think you're racist - I just think systemic problems get ignored a lot by people who think they're looking at one set of data and think they have the whole picture. It tends to make people look racist when they just occasionally act racist, and most of the time, they don't even realize they're doing it, otherwise they'd stop and think about it some. We question each other and suddenly we're both shouting like a bunch of drunken idiots." He laughed a little. "We gotta find some better way to get past these entrenched habits of ours to get our hackles up the minute we're questioned, y'know?"

"You find a way to do it," Declan laughed in response, "you let me know and I'm pretty sure we can make a fortune off of teaching it to people. Anyway, you're not a vegetarian, and you weren't bitching about my Garth Brooks t-shirt, so I'm certain we can find somewhere in the middle to make it work, even if we don't see eye-to-eye on a bunch of stuff."

Andy grinned. "They can have my cheesesteak when they pry it from my cold dead hands, Declan. Glad we were able to talk through it and not end on a bad note. You decide if you're coming up for the wedding yet?"

"Yeah, I think it'll just be me and June coming up for it while the kids and the rest of the partners stay home. We're filling out the RSVP card right now and we'll have it off to you in the mail, so maybe it'll even be waiting for you by the time you get back home."

"Sounds great, Dec. We'll look forward to seeing you in January then."

"Cover your ass out there, Andy," Declan said. "We got unreasonable folks on both sides of the aisle, your camp and mine. Never take your eye off the ball."

"You got it, man." Andy ended the call, handing the phone back to Piper. He looked over at Alexis, who was basically playing schedule keeper for the whole trip, which was good, because Andy was pretty sure he'd have gotten lost down the rabbit hole for logistical planning. "What's our schedule for the next few days look like?"

"We're going to meet up with your mom and your nephew early in the afternoon at the house you grew up in, the book signing in the afternoon, then we're flying up to Chicago to meet Fiona's family. Crash the night there, then the next day we fly up to Pierre, South Dakota, driving down to the Rosebud Reservation to meet Niko's mom for lunch, then driving back up to Pierre, and flying from Pierre to Denver, where we're crashing for the night," Alexis told him. "Going to be a very busy few days for us, but tomorrow's got lots of travel time you can write during, and the day after's pretty lax as well with just the book signing and then the flight up to Seattle, but that's a three-hour flight, whereas everything we've got today is just a couple hours here and there. Plus you can sleep in again."

"How far from the Rosebud Reservation is Pierre?" Andy asked, gathering up his things, making sure all his various little electronics were tucked into his satchel bag.

"A couple of hours each way."

"Can't we fly straight there?"

Alexis sighed. "Yeah, we can, I suppose. Rosebud does have its own airport - Rosebud Sioux Tribal Airport - but it's not exactly what I would call a security-rich environment."

"How big is Rosebud as a city?" Andy asked, a smile on his face.

"Like, barely a thousand people?"

"Think we can afford to be a little laxer and just fly straight there instead?" he laughed. "We didn't tell anyone we were going there, it's not on the public schedule and it's remote enough that you should be able to see any threats coming a mile away. Besides, Niko'll be on her home turf."

Alexis chuckled, nodding. "Yeah, okay. I'll get the flight plan updated, but either me or Melody stays with the plane the whole time."

"Why not both of us?" Melody asked.

"Because Niko's going to be home again, so she won't be as critically sharp as she normally is, and that means either you or me's gonna be on full security detail," Alexis said. "No offense, Neeks."

"None taken," Niko replied, doing one final sweep of the hotel room, making sure nobody had left anything behind. "It's totally fair to say I won't be on my A game back on the rez. Place is going to bring up a lot of old memories, even as tiny as it is. But anything out of the ordinary there will stand out like a sore thumb."

"You mean us," Moira joked.

"I do, indeed, mean us."

"Any reason we're not doing a bookstore signing tomorrow in Chicago?" Ash asked Andy.

He sighed, having been hoping to dodge this particular bit of conversation. "You're gonna make me get into it, aren't you?"

Suddenly, all the women turned to look at Andy. "Oooooo! There's gossip!" Sarah cackled. "Andy's got an unkind word to say about somebody!"

He shook his head, rolling his eyes a little bit. "I did a book signing at Myopic Books a couple of years ago, but they've got a hard-and-fast total no-cell-phone policy for the whole store, and I had my cell on me there and it rang during the Q&A, which got me a major talking down to by the manager of the store, despite the fact that it was actually important and time-sensitive business information I needed at that moment in time. They told me they were going to put me on their blacklist and I would be persona non grata from the store, now and forever more," he scoffed. "The whole thing just put me off the idea of doing a signing in Chicago, even if we'd gone somewhere else like the Sandmeyer's or Open Books instead. And I figured I know the Smiths are going to want to have some serious time grilling me again, so I suspected having a couple of days off to meet family and travel in the middle would give everyone time to decompress a little bit. I don't want Fi's parents or Niko's mom to feel rushed. I was a little worried that we hadn't allotted enough time for Piper's family, but—"

"But I insisted we not give them more than a couple of hours otherwise I figured Andy and Declan might be at each other's throats," Piper said with a laugh. "I'm not deluding myself about who my sister married. Dec's a good guy, but he's also definitely a bit of a Florida redneck."

"We've mostly got it worked out, him and me," Andy said. "Although it did take a couple of tries to get there. But yeah, Piper told me to keep it quick to a nice in and out visit with only a few hours there."

"You probably could've done the same with me and mom," Niko said. "The reservation's so damn tiny, you'll have seen the whole thing by the time we land the plane."

"It can't be that small, Niko," Andy said, sliding his arm around her waist. "Your mom's a teacher there, so they've got a school, and that means they've g—"

"Like a thousand people tops Andy," Niko shot back. "It's going to feel like the tiniest little town you've ever been in in your entire life. It's utterly boring, I promise you. I'm glad you want to see where I grew up, but don't set those expectations high, because you will be disappointed no matter how low they are. If after an hour or so chatting with my mom, you all want us to take off and head to Denver, I'm with you all the way."

"It's where you grew up, Niko, so that makes it important to me," he said, kissing her cheek, feeling her blush under the sudden focus and attention. "Besides, you're all getting to see where I grew up today, and I dunno how comfortable about that I am."

"Well, part of where you grew up," Fiona corrected. "Unless we're swinging by and seeing both houses?"

Andy shook his head. "Nah, just the one where I was from ages eight to eighteen. The house my folks lived in before that I don't even remember. That was more of where Matty grew up than where I did." He winced a little, mentioning his late brother, but did his best to hold it together. So much had happened over the last few months, it was almost easier trying not to think about all the people they'd lost, but the death of Andy's brother in early November still stung hard. "Sorry, it's going to be hard today not crying."

"Nothing's wrong with crying, Andrew," Emily said, moving close to join in a group hug around Andy, all of them closing around him. "Come. Let's get going and see your house."

It wasn't too much of a drive, back across the river then just on the east side of Hyde Park, not too far from Mt. Lookout, and when they drove up to the house in their SUVs, it felt to Andy almost like nothing had changed. It was a two-story house that had to have been built sometime around 1930 or so, with a white stucco exterior and stacked stone accents, a couple of chairs on the porch, with his mom, Virginia, sitting in one and his sister-in-law, Samantha, sitting in the other. Conner, Andy's nephew, was sitting on the stairs playing with his Nintendo Switch.

"Conner! Your uncle's here!" Samantha said as they all started to get out of the vehicles. Sam was in her early forties, but was still quite the attractive woman, with long, blonde hair that she typically kept up in a bun. Andy had almost expected to see her in a suit, but she was in casual attire today, clearly not showing any houses to anyone.

Conner pushed pause on his game, set the Switch down, then took off like a bolt towards Andy, rushing straight at him before giving him a massive hug. He looked so much like a younger version of Andy's late brother Matt, it was hard for Andy not to cry seeing him. The boy was only about four feet tall, with a massive flop of blonde curly hair that hung down past his shoulders. He still had Matty's eyes, though. Conner wore a giant Billibong t-shirt that Andy was absolutely sure was from Matty's collection, considering it hung down nearly to Conner's knees. He'd just eeked in under the fatal range for DuoHalo and had caught the disease off the back of his father, but now that he'd recovered from it, he was essentially immune to the virus. Even though he could still be a carrier of the virus, he would never suffer the same fate of collapsing lungs that DuoHalo normally killed people with, the way an entire generation had gone. Andy didn't even want to think about how many of Conner's friends had probably suddenly died over the summer.

"It's good to see you're okay, Uncle Andy," Conner said, clinging tightly, not even looking up at him yet. "Dad hasn't been gone that long and already Mom's got a new boyfriend. I hate it."

"I know, Conner, and it sucks, but you know your Dad would've wanted your mom and you to be safe, and your mom having a new boyfriend's part of that," Andy said as Conner pulled back so he could look up at him. "That's a weird part about how they're treating this disease, but it is how they're doing it. I heard you were hospitalized with DuoHalo for a few weeks. I'm glad you came out okay."

Conner looked to his left and to his right at all the women surrounding Andy before the boy's eyes turned back to him, his gaze a little wider. "Is this all your girlfriends, Uncle Andy?"

Ash laughed a little bit and moved over to get a bit closer to Conner. "No, your uncle's quite the important man, so they made sure he has a lot of girlfriends to help keep him safe. Most of us are his fiancées though, which means we're all getting married soon, although Alexis and Melody over there are just dedicated bodyguards, although they're his girlfriends too. They're specifically here to keep him safe. Hi! I'm Aisling, but you can call me Ash if you like."

"Like the boy from Pokémon?"

"Pronounced the same, but spelled different," she said with a smile.

Conner's innate shyness came to the forefront a little, and he smiled nervously. "You talk funny."

"I'm originally from Ireland, all the way on the other side of the planet."

"How come you want to marry Uncle Andy?" Conner said, almost trying to hide himself behind Andy for safety. He kept looking over to one side, but Andy couldn't figure out which of his partners Conner seemed to be repeatedly glancing at before returning his gaze back to Ash.

"Because I think he's the neatest guy I've ever met," she said with a big smile. "He's my favorite person in the whole world. We met back in June and since then, I haven't let him be away from me for more than a day. I like him that much! But you know what's crazy? I like him enough that I think he's so special that he needs lots of us girls to marry him, and I'm gonna share him with all the girls here. Can I introduce you to them? Would that be okay?"

"Okay," Conner said shyly, starting to come out from behind Andy.

"So this is Niko, Piper, Sarah, Emily, Fiona and Moira," Ash said.

Fiona laughed, taking her phone out of her pocket, as she moved in close to Conner. "Can I show you something, Conner? Take a look at this..." She leaned down and showed Conner a picture of her and Andy together, back in college, with Xander, back when they were all roommates. "Your uncle and I used to be special friends before you were born, but after we finished school, we went different directions, so I didn't get a chance to see you when you came into this world. But now I'm back together with him, and it's a pleasure to meet you."

Before they did anything else, Virginia moved forward to take Andy's phone from him and get a picture of him and Conner sitting on the steps, surrounded by all of Andy's partners, and Conner seemed to be grinning like he'd won the lottery at that. "Can you send me that picture, Uncle Andy?" Conner said. "I want to show it to some of my friends."

"'Course I can, Conner."

They all started walking up towards the house, a soft smile on Andy's face, as he moved to give his mom a big hug. "Hey Mom, hey Sam," he said. "Should we all go inside? I know Lexi and Melody would feel much safer indoors."

"Sure," Virginia said, leading them all into the house.

Andy's mom was in her late sixties, and there was still a tiny hint of a Brooklyn accent to her voice. She was about five and a half feet with curly brown hair. She had on a loose shirt and a pair of classic mom jeans. She looked tired, more than anything, but was clearly trying to put on a brave face. She brought them all into the living room, where the wall behind her couch was covered with pictures of the family, many of whom were now dead. Andy's father, who'd died several years ago, Matty, who'd died last month, both of Virginia's brothers (Andy's uncles), neither of whom had survived DuoHalo, but also included pictures with Samantha, Conner, and even a printed version of the photo Fiona had shown Matty earlier.

"I don't feel like I've got time enough to learn everything about all these wonderful women you're going to marry, Andy," Virginia said to them. "So if you don't mind, Fi, I'm going to go kind of quick and gloss over you a bit, since I feel like out of all you ladies, I at least know you the best already, although we definitely have to catch up at some point about what you were up to while you were out of my son's life."

Fiona chuckled a bit and nodded. "I get that, Virginia, and I don't mind."

"You've barely aged a day since you were in college, my dear; I'm so jealous. Three different famous women, hm?" Virginia asked, putting on her glasses, as she smiled, looking over at Piper, Em and Sarah. "Two actresses and an athlete. Quite a lot of celebrity for one household. There aren't jealousy problems between the three of you, are there?"

Sarah giggled, taking Emily's hand in her own. "Well, Em and I sort of came as a prepacked deal, so there's never any fucking jealousy between the two of us, well, no serious jealousy," the tall redhead laughed. "And we've all bonded with Piper super fucking well."

"You're not bothered by my son being a bit out of shape, Piper?" Virginia asked the volleyball player, who had opted not to sit down, but was looking at all the pictures of Andy when he was younger on the wall. "You're very fit and he's, well, he's my son and he's always preferred writing to exercise."

"Not at all, ma'am," Piper said. "I couldn't really talk about it during the television interview, but Andy pulled me out of the toughest situation of my life, and the first thing he did afterwards was apologize for not being able to do more." She was starting to tear up a little bit, thinking about it. "I still have the letter he wrote me, and I'm going to carry that with me every day for the rest of my days. I don't say this lightly, Mrs. Rook, but I'd kill someone to keep your son safe. He saved me. SAVED ME. Maybe I'll try and get him to lose a few pounds around the mid-section, but even if he doesn't, I am going to love him with all my heart until the last breath leaves either my dying lungs or his." She placed her hand on Andy's shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze, so he reached up to hold her hand for a moment. "I'm sort of hoping we'll go together."