Episode 1222: Don't Worry Be Happy

“Time to give the puppy dog eyes a rest, Rands, okay? They’ve already spent a lot of their New Year’s Eve with us and plenty of it playing your new board game with you. They need to get going so they don’t miss too much of their party. Your mom and I will play one more round after she finishes putting Russ to bed. You can force your game on Javi and Jase some other time.”

His daughter, at seven years old, seemingly missed the sarcasm in his last sentence and raced over to dole out enthusiastic goodbye hugs for each of her honorary uncles along with a vow that she’d make sure they played the game again next time they came to dinner at the apartment in the city.

“Can’t wait,” both guys said in unison and to their credit there wasn’t a false not to be heard.

“I’ll walk you out,” Ryley offered. They stepped out into the icy temperatures and across the snowy deck of the rented cabin. “I wanted to thank you guys again. Showing up this morning as Santa and his elf was way beyond the call of what Adria should ask of her CFO and his husband. The kids really did love it and I don’t think they suspected it was you. So again, thank you, their holidays and Randi’s birthday were pretty clunky. But this was a big improvement in part due to you guys.”

“Your little monsters have grown on me,” Javier said.

“They’ve grown on him to the point where maybe sooner than later he’ll agree to a monster of his own,” Jason added, “so it was well worth the slippery drive up into the mountains. We had fun this morning, a great dinner tonight, and on top of that, your wife scored us tickets to the resort’s exclusive party which should be epic if even one of the rumored guests show up. So being here was not a sacrifice.”

“Hey, so Javi,” Ryley stopped to blow warm air on his hands. “If it’s not proprietary info or whatever, could you clear something up for me? How is the theater doing? It seemed packed during the fall and Christmas seasons, yet the way Adria talks it’s like it’s five minutes from going under, should I be worried for her, the theater means-”

“Only worried in the sense that her parents skewed her notion of success. The theater is thriving, Adria is just of the belief that she should be doing bigger and better.”

“Yeah,” Ryley nodded. “That’s what I figured. It’s definitely her father’s influence to always need to top yourself when you’re already at the top.”

“But Adria is self-aware,” Javier pointed out. “She knew enough to give Rands a do-over of her birthday combined with this second go of Christmas for both kids. She knew she needed to make up for all of it and she has. She knows what matters, she just gets a bit caught up sometimes. I wouldn’t worry too much about her.”

Episode 1223: Long Time Gone