[ota] a ghost still haunts him

[wascomplicit]

If anyone had ever paid any particular sort of attention to Davin's movements (not that most anyone did), they might have seen that on this day specifically, he was often on business, off Deck. For nearly the past eighteen years.

He hadn't been able to make the excuse this time. Not when Vivenne put her foot down, anyway, for reasons that only made sense to her.

So it is that he is instead holding down a corner of the bar at Mackinnon's, brooding. Which, while not a completely unfamiliar look for a Spade in general, it doesn't quite sit right on Davin.

At least he can leave a glass of white wine to the side, untouched, in memory of the wife he lost. While he works on getting through a few tumblers of scotch.

Comments

[falsepretences]

He knows that Grandmere Vivienne always has the family's best interests at heart, truly, but sometimes, Jordan thinks, he really believes she also likes pushing their buttons. Still, he didn't know what the point was in keeping Davin on Deck this week was.

No doubt it would all become clear in time, like always.

"Can I sit down?" He asks when he comes forward with his own bourbon. His own expression is the same calm, almost bored look he's worn for months. It lightens sometimes, but not for very long.

[wascomplicit]

Davin wasn't particularly sure what the point is either. He was hardly as raw with grief as he had been on the first year after Tulia's death. And certainly a harder year would have been when Zachary would have turned fifteen and become an adult in the Deck's eyes. Not this year.

He'd just stopped questioning his parents long ago.

For Jordan, he gestures to the next stool over. "If you like."

They can both be moody together.

[falsepretences]

Jordan slides into a seat and takes a drink before he says anything. His eyes glance over the white wine - funny, how he doesn't really remember much of Aunt Tulia but he knows exactly what she drank - and he sets down her glass. "We're both going to be in the doghouse, you know," he says.

It is, after all, family dinner night. Jordan at least warned Hadyn he was skipping out.

"Grandmother invited Philippa Cameron to dinner tonight," he says dryly. "I couldn't face it without alcohol."

[wascomplicit]

Davin shrugs slightly, "I don't think she'll say too much. To me, anyway." Children getting matches made were a different thing altogether, even if Jordan was hardly a child at this point. "Is there someone else she ought to be inviting?"

[falsepretences]

"I'm not seeing anyone if that's what you're asking." Devon didn't actually count, Jordan figured, because Devon would be incredulous at the idea. It was ironic, really. He liked her - she definitely liked him - but every date came with terms and conditions or had to be snuck up on her. "And if I was, she probably wouldn't meet Grandmother's approval. I don't think we have the same taste in women."

[wascomplicit]

"Don't worry," Davin says with something of a wistful smile, "your grandmother and I don't have the same taste, either."

And yet, he still got married. So there's that. And then there was seeing Avery which had Vivienne pursing her lips rather often.

"I suppose it can't hurt to humor her, though."

[falsepretences]

"Is that why we're both sitting in a Diamond bar?" Jordan asks. Of course, he knows why Davin is in Mackinnon's. Everyone in their family does. "I'm not interested in outright rebellion. Hadyn does that role pretty well without me needing to help. "

Of course, Hadyn seems to do a lot of things without needing or wanting Jordan to help. A lingering consequence of their childhood.

"I'll be sure to put in an appearance after I've medicated."

[wascomplicit]

"I always thought it was sort of an honorary Spade bar, really." Ben could thank Victor Fox for that. "Should we be expecting to see Hadyn there?"

Because even Davin will drag himself in. Fashionably late and with alcohol on his breath but not so much to be too obviously drunk. No one would point it out, anyway.

They liked to pretend uncomfortable things just weren't there in their family.

[falsepretences]

Ben himself was something closer to a Spade than a Diamond, really. He even dressed in a way designed to make the upper Diamonds twitch, and Jordan was certain it was on purpose.

"Unless he can come up with an emergency," he says dryly, in regards to his brother. "He'll be over in the same corner as Helena and Jeremy." Keeping out of the line of fire, so to speak. Jordan, unfortunately, had been named the next great Face hope for the Bernard family and was in the line of fire no matter what corner he was in.

[wascomplicit]

"Maybe we can all stand over there."

Except that would just make them cannon fodder. Sometimes there wasn't precisely safety in numbers. And it wouldn't look well for Davin to be seen sheltering himself with the children.

[falsepretences]

"No, that would just bring the whole party to that side of the room. We'll have to devise our own strategies." Jordan's would probably involve bored politeness in the direction of prospect whatever number they were on now, and then pretending like he and Clive had business to discuss.

He was probably too old to hide with the children, anyway. He'd been born when his mother was his age. Something that Vivienne reminded him of regularly.

[wascomplicit]

"Power outage," Davin says decisively before draining his drink. "Should make for a good diversion."

Before Vivienne broke out the candles, of course.

[falsepretences]

"Mm, no, explosion," Jordan says as he drinks half of his and sets it aside. "Only way to put a permanent end to the evening. Everything else we'll persevere right through."

[wascomplicit]

"I know a guy," Davin says dryly. "Wouldn't be too hard."

He sounds almost serious. But they both know he isn't. Under his long-cultivated grief, after all, is a man who loves his family despite their failings.

[falsepretences]

"Probably should avoid it, though." He could finish his bourbon. He'd like to, but he suspects a clear head might be key tonight, and Jordan sighs. "It'd undermine all our attempts to be mature adults. I don't want to know what kind of conversation you'd get."

[wascomplicit]

"I don't think conversation is the right word, really."

He looks down at the glass of wine and sighs. "How fashionably late were you planning on being?"

[falsepretences]

Jordan looks at his watch. "I should head over now, I suppose," he says. It's going to be a long night, and he'd really rather spend it with takeout and the law books Emily Smythe-Jones has set him to studying.

"I just came in to brace myself for the inevitable. Coming?"

[wascomplicit]

Davin nods and stands, leaving the wineglass behind. "Might as well. Maybe we should pick up something to take as peace offering."