Sasha nodded. "Okay."
Wade grinned and gave a celebratory fist pump, his hazel eyes twinkling behind the same pair of horn-rimmed glasses he'd been wearing for thirty years. "Excellent news!" he declared. "I would have been so disappointed if you didn't join us, Sasha. And don't worry about Hayley, hmm? I was just reminding Matt earlier that his sister Jackie acted up in a similar fashion when she was a teenager, and she worked through it pretty quickly. I'll bet it will be exactly the same thing with Hayley. Next thing you know, the two of you will be the best of friends!"
Sasha smiled politely at Wade's enthusiasm, but Matthew could tell from the wariness of her expression that she was every bit as doubtful about his father's prediction as he was.
"Well, it sounds like Casey had a great time at your father's this past week. What about you, Hayley? Did you have fun?"
Hayley gave her mother a look that was part sneer, part disbelief. "Seriously, Mom? I spent an entire week surrounded by not one, but four science and math nerds. I felt like I was trapped at a Geekfest with no way out. Does that sound like I had any fun at all?"
Casey cheerfully dunked an egg roll into sweet and sour sauce, just one of the dishes that Lindsey had ordered from their favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner. "I had a lot of fun," he declared, biting off half the egg roll at once. "It's always great to see Grandma and Grandpa. And the new show at the planetarium was awesome! And Grandma and Grandpa had never been to the Disney Museum, so it was like seeing it all over again."
Hayley rolled her eyes as she nibbled on a snow pea. "Like I said, it was just one big Geekfest. Meanwhile, you got to stay at a five-star resort right on the beach, sleep late, get massages, and drink margaritas all day. Now, that's my idea of the ideal vacation. I should have gone along with you, Mom. I might have actually had some fun that way, as well as having an awesome tan right now."
Lindsey paused before replying, not willing to admit out loud that bringing Hayley along on vacation this past week would have definitely put a cramp in her style. In addition to lazing around the beach for a good part of the day, Lindsey had also treated herself to a whole array of spa treatments, bought a dozen new outfits at the designer boutiques in town, and hooked up with three different men - all of them gorgeous, and all of them anywhere from ten to twenty years younger than she was. Dragging her teenaged daughter to the Caribbean with her would have put a complete damper on what had been a fabulous getaway.
"But your brother is right, honey," replied Lindsey. "You hardly ever get to see your grandparents. They would have been so disappointed if you hadn't been there."
"Oh, please." Hayley gave her mother another of those scathing looks that made Lindsey long to slap her across the face. "Stop trying to dream up excuses, Mom. You just didn't want me along to spoil your fun is all. Instead, I had one of the worst weeks ever. Thanks a bunch."
Casey, who seemed to be the only one at the table who was actually eating, took seconds of the vegetable chow mein, orange chicken, and honey walnut prawns. "Well, I had a good time and so did everyone else - Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Sasha. Hayley's just mad because Dad took her phone away for a few hours one day."
Hayley stuck her tongue out at Casey, but Lindsey didn't even notice. Not at the mention of that name.
"Sasha was there during your grandparents' visit?" she asked faintly.
Casey nodded as he poured a generous amount of soy sauce over his heaping plate of food. "Sure. Oh, not the whole time. She probably just had dinner with us a couple of times, and maybe brunch once or twice. And she went to the museums with us and to Muir Woods."
Lindsey scowled. "That sounds like a whole lot of time to me. She didn't sleep over, did she?"
"Oh, God, are we back on this?" asked Hayley in dramatic fashion. "No, Mom. She did not spend the night. She never does when we stay with Dad. I guess they have to get their fucking done some other time."
"Hayley!" exclaimed Lindsey in outraged shock. "Do not say those things in front of your brother!"
Casey grinned. "Relax, Mom. I have heard the word before, you know. And I'm fourteen now, not four, so I sort of figured that Dad and Sasha are, uh, having sex. But Hayley's right, she never stays overnight when we're at Dad's."
"But he introduced her to your grandparents," she fretted, almost as if she was thinking out loud. "He brought her along on family outings, the sort of things I should be doing with you. It's not right, you know. Not right at all."