“So what’s the deal with the watch?”

We’re both staring up at the ceiling, Simone’s head lying on my chest. She twists around onto her stomach to look at me. Her breasts press into my chest as she reaches over to lift my left arm up and inspect the vintage Rolex I’ve been wearing since I picked it up in London.

“Why was this the only thing Kevin left to you?” she asks, still looking closely at it, wondering what is so special about it.

I look at it and exhale a soft laugh. “This? It’s a long story, goes back pretty far.”

Her fingers trace the wristband of the watch and come around to circle the face. I follow her pink nails, enjoying the slender, smooth contrast of her hand against the sharp cords and dark hair that cover my forearm.

Her eyes slide down to mine and she gives me a playful smile. “I think we have at least a few more hours before Stuart wakes up. Unless that was your way of kicking me out of bed?”

I smile back up at her. The last thing in the world I want is for her to go. “I guess I’d better spill then.”

I roll my eyes up, remembering how it all began. “It was my granddad’s,” I say, still looking up at the ceiling. I feel one side of my mouth pull down as I continue. “My mother’s father. He liked to gamble, usually backroom stuff where the stakes were higher. He liked the thrill of it I suppose.”

I twist my wrist to get a better look at the watch. “He won this in a game.”

I pause before going on. Simone settles her chin on my chest and looks up at me, waiting for the rest of the story.

“He used to encourage the same sort of competitiveness in Kevin and me.” I frown up at the ceiling, letting my hand settle on my stomach. “In fact, I can’t remember a time when he didn’t spur us on. Even when Kevin was in pre-school and I was already in elementary school, he’d offer up pieces of candy or a dollar bill to see who could run the fastest, jump the highest, or compete in any other thing he set his mind to.”

“Hmm, that explains a lot.”

I bring my gaze down to her with the frown still on my face. I’m about to ask her what she means by that but we both already know. Instead I shrug with acknowledgement.

“You probably have a point,” I say. “In the beginning, when I was too young to know any better, I loved how easy it was to win. I suppose it did something to me, getting off on being the best.”

I lift my hand again to look at the watch. “This came about when I was about ten or eleven. Kevin was only eight. This time it was a card game. Hearts? Gin? I don’t even remember. It wouldn’t have been poker, our mother drew that line early on.

“My granddad, pulled this off his wrist and threw it right down on the table between us offering it up as a prize. Naturally, that upped the stakes between Kevin and me. It was like we weren’t even brothers at that point.”

Even though I can’t remember the finer details about that day, what we were playing, or wearing, or even our exact ages, I do remember the fierce animosity I felt toward Kevin during the game…and the bitter resentment when he won.

“Kevin won, which was still a rare thing in those days, and I—I was so angry.” I can actually feel the tension in my muscles as I remember throwing my cards at him, Granddad laughing at it all before handing Kevin the watch. I leave that part out.

“I didn’t talk to him for days until finally one day he knocked on my bedroom door. When I refused to answer, he simply opened it and, without a word, left it on my dresser and walked out.”

I swallow as I stare up at the ceiling, not wanting to see the disappointment and disgust that might be written all over Simone’s face. I was only a boy at the time, but now more than ever it haunts me how I reacted that day.

“Of course, I gave it back to him, purely out of spite. Nothing so noble as honor for Archer Bennett,” I say with a rueful grin, still toward the ceiling. “In the end, he was the one to come up with the truce—naturally. We simply traded it off every year, switching out on the same day he won it, October tenth. This was his year to have it.”

And now it’s mine.

I’ve spent more time than I care to think about wondering why Kevin left this to me in his will instead of Stuart. I’ve psychoanalyzed it from every angle and in the end all I can think is that he felt that I rightfully deserved it upon his death. Even if he was the one to win it fair and square all those years ago.

“He was a good guy,” her voice whispers.

I quickly bring my attention to Simone for the first time since starting this story. Her eyes are calm and soothing, completely without judgement. A smile grows on her face and it’s like butter melting on toast, comforting and…mouthwatering.

“You knew him that well, did you?” I ask with a smile.

“Yeah, kind of. I mean enough to think of him as something more than just Bette’s husband.”

Her eyes roll slightly up and to the side as her smile fades into a small grin. “Like this one time I managed to make it to London. I think Stuart was only three at the time? Anyway, both he and Bette had some kind of awful bug, so Kevin offered to play tour guide with me. Before then we were friendly I suppose but not very close, certainly not as close as I was with my sister. Anyway, he took the whole day off work just for me—”

“He took an entire day off?” I interrupt, unable to stop myself.

“And yet, the company managed to survive,” she says, pinching my nipple.

“Ouch!” I growl, flinching. Then settle back into the bed. “Sorry, old habits.”

She just rolls her eyes, but not without a smile. “Anyway, he was taking me here and there and then out of the blue he breaks out into this posh British accent.” She starts giggling “I mean it was, like, really over the top.”

She stiffens against me and her face molds into a snooty pout. “‘I dare say, old girl’ and ‘that’s an exceedingly brilliant idea’, and so on and so forth.” She laughs before continuing, and I joining her. “I don’t think they had lived there long enough to entirely pick up on the lingo so he was pulling most of it out of his ass. He didn’t even care that everyone was looking at him like he’d lost his mind.”

She settles down, her chin on my chest again with a smile above it. “I guess we both lucked out when it comes to siblings.”

I feel the remnants of a smile on my face fade as my new reality sinks in, yet again. “Yeah.”

I let my eyes wander back up to the ceiling. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”

“It hurts so much at first,” she says softly. Something in her voice has my eyes down on her again. Even with her gazing off to the side, I can sense the pain in them.

“Your parents?” I ask softly.

She nods. “It was a shock, and devastating, mostly because Bette was all the way in London instead of here in New York with me.” A tear drop falls, but she smiles through it, wiping it away with her fingertips.

“We talked for hours and hours that day. That stupid boat!” she spits out, then laughs even though more tears fall. “But they’d been planning it forever. At least they died doing what they loved.” She sighs. “Now Bette….”

She quickly wipes away all of the tears watering her eyes and gives me a bright smile. “But we have Stuart, and he has us.”

I bring a hand up to brush her hair aside. “Yeah, he has us.”