“What time did you get here?” I messed with a button on my cuff.
Jackson pushed his fingers through his hair, cut the shortest I’d seen it for years. “Just after five. I stopped at half six to go to the gym.”
“Why so early?”
He shook his head. “Babies. When you have one, you automatically give up your right to have any sleep at all.”
I let out a laugh. I enjoyed Teddy’s torture of my brother, although it often resulted in Jackson being grumpier than usual.
“Claire was saying that Niamh’s been sleeping six hours already.” It was probably too early in the day to be baiting Jackson, but I couldn’t resist; it was like having a tickling stick and a really ticklish person held down in front of you and not using it. “When I spoke to her yesterday she was telling me how - ”
“Stop.” Jackson put his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to hear it. One day, Teddy will sleep through the night and so will me and Van. Actually,” he folded his arms and looked at me through slitted eyes. “Don’t you owe us a night of babysitting? A full night? One where we can go to a hotel and lie in bed…”
“Please don’t finish that sentence. I don’t need to be scarred!” I covered my ears. It was all an act. I was well aware that all of my siblings had healthy relationships and big smirks on their faces some mornings which told me they’d got lucky. I was just fed up of being the only one who was playing a five fingered piano solo each night.
“Sleep, Joseph, sleep. We just want a night where we can sleep from ten until eight, with no interruptions, nappy changes, feeds, crying for no known reason, loud bangs caused by some petulant ghost – just sleep.” He rubbed his eyes with his hand. “Please tell me you owe us a night.”
I was pretty sure I didn’t, but given I’d shelved my social life in the cellar for the duration of the year, I was happy to spend a Friday night with my nephew.
“I can do tonight. Book a hotel. Make sure you have fresh sheets on the bed. Not like last time.”
Last time I’d stayed over, they’d forgotten to put fresh sheets in the guest room after Vanessa’s gran had stayed. I’d not only found her underwear, but also one of her vibrators. Safe to say, it was one of my nightmares come true.
Gran, true to form, hadn’t been in the least apologetic. She’d also defended the unwashed sheets, saying there was no point in washing sheets if they’d only been slept in for a couple of nights. Bad for the environment.
It had all been bad for my sanity. Whatever had been saved in terms of the environment was lost again with the amount of scorching hot water I used in the resulting shower.
“The sheets will be fresh, although if Van makes them up, you might find her passed out on them when you get there. She’s on about two hours sleep today.” Jackson lightly slapped the side of his face, trying to wake himself up.
“Is she working today?”
My brother shook his head. “She’s not going into the office or seeing clients. Paperwork day.”
Vanessa ran a marketing company, which was how she and Jackson had met. The company had grown over the last couple of years, tripling in size and giving her more flexibility to be with Teddy, which is what I knew Jackson would also like to be doing, but he couldn’t get away from the office as much.
He was the chief operating officer, still retaining a small caseload, but for the majority of the time his job was to make sure we were all doing what we needed to. He dealt with a lot of the clients and his serious persona still went down well with the more traditional businesses we dealt with.
The look he gave me was one I recognised. One that told me he was about to land a whole heap of shit on my desk.
“What is it?”
He mumbled something completely unintelligible, but I caught one word: Hartfords.
Dread infiltrated my every vein.
“Did you say Hartfords?”
Jackson nodded.
“Did you refer them to a different practice?”
Jackson shook his head.
“Did you tell them I was emigrating to the Seychelles?”
“That would be a lie.”
“No, it wouldn’t, because if you agreed to take on another case from them, I will be emigrating to the Seychelles and sending you a postcard from the beach while drinking my Paloma cocktail and being fed grapes. David Hartford is not worthy of the label ‘human being’.” There wasn’t much I felt strongly on: I could accept it if people got my coffee order wrong or bought me the wrong size T-shirts, but working with the Hartfords again was a hard limit. They were two brothers who owned a chain of mid-range jewellery stores across the country. Both were arseholes.
The sigh from Jackson was enough to power a wind farm for two weeks. “I’ve said yes. It’s a big case. It will be high profile. You wanted a high-profile case and given what it entails, I think you’ll be the best person to lead it. And you have Georgia starting - and she’ll be able to help.”
“Who are they trying to sue now?” Georgia, that was her name. I’d had Georgie in my head. Glad to know it now so I didn’t cock it up on Monday.
“Each other. They’re selling the business, only neither are agreeing to a fifty-fifty split. I’ve left a message for Ebby to see if he can act as the forensic accountant for us.” Jackson pinched the top of his nose. “Anyway. I need coffee and to let Van know you’re babysitting tonight so we can go somewhere to sleep. Thanks for that, Seph.”
I shook my head, watching his back as he walked away. “When are you giving me the rest of these details about the Hartfords?”
“Later. Monday. You have a meeting with David at midday.” The last word was pretty much lost in a yawn. “Coffee. Need coffee.”
I watched him go, grinning, but at the same time feeling a pinch of envy that he’d been kept awake all night by his son. I was looking forward to a Friday night boys’ night with my nephew. I knew that said it all.
My twin was studying a photograph on her phone when I found her in the archives to take her for lunch. Payton wasn’t always the best at taking breaks from her work; she’d forget to eat regularly, which meant she’d turn into some angry six headed beast mid-afternoon who was significantly hangry. I’d promised Owen I’d try to keep an eye on her during the day, as a pregnant and hangry Payton wasn’t what the world ever needed. We were trying to keep the arrangement from Payton, as any form of planning that she wasn’t involved in, was likely to send her into a category four storm, where Owen and I would become chopped debris.
“Everything okay down here?” I’d tried to walk as noisily as I could. For some reason I’d inherited some stealth-like gene that meant I was regularly accused of scaring the shit out of my family. I didn’t do it on purpose, not most of the time anyway.
“Urgh.” Payton turned around to look at me. “I was trying to dig out a file that Dad led on about twenty years ago it settled and it wasn’t uploaded to the shared drive.”
I folded my arms. “This is what we have juniors for. They do shit like this, just like we had to.” I wanted to yell that being down here, in the cellars where it was damp and cold, was not the best idea. Plus, the steps weren’t even and Payton could easily trip over her own feet. Yelling, however, would do no good whatsoever. It would only get me sworn at.