Dr. Stud

“She always liked you best,” I hear Sully say behind me. “Or Brock. Maybe Brock. It was sort of hard to tell you apart for a while there.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I sigh, knowing that he expected me to deny it. Even if it’s not true, I always sort of wished it were.

He chucks me on the arm, hard. It’s not his fault, he’s just a really big guy. If Sully chucks you on the arm, he’s going to leave you with a bruise.

“Everybody is all set up. The place looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“Looks like we just left,” I admit, choking back a wave of emotion when I actually say it out loud.

He slips his arm behind me, folding me into a big, uncomfortable bearhug. That’s another thing: Sully hugs you like he’s trying to kill you. But who’s going to complain to the guy?

“I hear you, brother,” he sighs.

Carefully I extricate myself, not wanting to seem like a wimp but also not wanting to spend a week at the chiropractor. I walk over to the windows and look out past the grasses toward the ocean. To my surprise, I can see Bunny and Sophia, stomping toward the surf. Bunny cradles her protectively, holding the ties of her sun hat under her chin though it is probably unnecessary. Sophia reaches out her chubby arms toward the waves. Though I can’t see her, I could see her wide-open laughter. She just learned how to do that. To laugh like that. It’s the most beautiful sound I ever heard.

“What are we doing here, Sully?”

Sully shrugs and trudges over to the leather sofa, dropping into it and scrubbing his face with the palm of his giant hand. He stares up at Mom for a long time, blinking.

“Bunny said we had to come. She demanded an extra phase of the interviews, I guess.”

“And so… you agreed? You negotiated with her?”

He shrugs. “Spencer negotiated.”

“Well, that is strangely softhearted of him,” I observe. “Almost like he didn’t really agree with your job offer, don’t you think?”

Sully leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He mashes his palms together like he’s trying to crush something between them.

“I think that is safe to say,” he admits. “But I mean, he did draw up the papers the way I asked him to.”

“So she just refused?”

He closes his eyes. “She said she wanted to continue interviewing for the job as described. Not what I had offered her… which was only a part.”

“Ha!” I bark out, making Sully startle and glare at me menacingly. “That must be an unusual feeling for you, isn’t it? Not accustomed to having people renegotiate, I’ll bet.”

“Quit it.”

“I will not quit it,” I smirk, dropping into an armchair and crossing my legs to get a really good view of him. “I’d like to have this scene memorialized in a painting. Do you think we could get an artist out here to get started right away?”

“Seriously, shut it, Trey.”

“We could call it… Sully’s Sullen Scene. Do you like that? Or... No. Sully and the Battle of Bunny.”

“You’re a laugh riot,” he sneers.

“What are you, sixty? Nobody says that. Laugh riot. Come on, man.”

“I feel sixty,” he sighs.

That kind of takes me aback. It’s weird that Sully would admit to being tired. It’s weird if Sully admits being hungry, even. He always says, “I could eat.” Like he is also saying, “I am not dependent on food for survival.” He likes to keep up this image of being carved out of stone. Impenetrable.

“Are you okay?” I venture to ask.

He breathes for a long time, periodically shaking his head as though holding a conversation with himself.

“I’m fine,” he finally says.