I closed my eyes. The pie. Our pie. Dad used to make it every Thanksgiving, and sometimes just because he caught Kirastaring at the dessert section of the menu too long. It had become our thing. We’d devour it in one sitting, usually with her perched on the kitchen counter and me pretending not to notice the way powdered sugar stuck to her cheek.
I’d tried to recreate it multiple times since Dad passed.
Now I knew why I always failed.
The secret wasn’t in the bourbon or the pecans. It was on this page, with its notes and smudges and crooked little star next to the word cinnamon. It was in the way my dad had made something ordinary feel sacred.
This felt like more than a recipe. It felt like a thread tying me back to the parts of my life that still mattered. To my father. To Kira. To who I used to be before I let everything fall apart.
Maybe I couldn’t fix things with Kira overnight. Maybe she never forgave me. But this was something I could get right. One small thing.
My hands trembled as I refolded the page and slid it into my coat pocket.
I had been so focused on the recipe that I didn’t notice that my little brother Liam stood in the doorway, hair tousled, hoodie half-zipped, and that same uncertain energy he’d carried since he was eleven and our lives cracked down the middle. I hadn’t seen him in a few days. We’d talked a little since I moved back, but it still felt like tiptoeing across thin ice.
He walked over slowly, shoving his hands into his hoodie like he wasn’t sure if he belonged.
“You gonna sit or hover like a weirdo?” I asked softly, trying to make it sound like a joke.
Liam cracked a grin and sat next to me. “Takes one to know one.”
We sat in silence for a beat, the kind that used to be filled with laughter or inside jokes—ones we hadn’t rebuilt yet. His gaze drifted to the box.
“What’s all that?” he asked, nodding.
“Old stuff from the diner. I found Dad’s pie recipe.”
His eyes lit up. “The bourbon-pecan one?”
“Yeah,” I replied, throat tight. “The one he used to make for Kira.”
Liam leaned back, a quiet understanding settling between us. “I remember that pie. You two would fight over who got the last slice.”
I smiled, but it didn’t quite reach my eyes. “I always let her win.”
“Yeah.” Liam smirked. “You were fucking whipped. Still are.”
I gave a soft laugh. Then the silence came back, this time heavier, filled with words neither of us had said for years.
“I forgive you, you know,” he said after a minute. “It was incomprehensible to me at first, when you moved away, after we went through so much. But now that I’m eighteen, the same age you were, I feel more clueless than ever. If something happened to Mom now…I don’t know what I would do.”
The weight in my chest cracked. “That’s why we have each other.”
“Yeah. Sorry for giving you shit. We were kids. You were trying to hold everything together. I was just pissed ’cause you were my big brother and I felt abandoned.”
I blinked fast, then nodded. “Thanks, man.”
“Don’t think too much about it.” He grinned. “It’s mostly ’cause I know now how lame you are.”
My jaw dropped. “I am not lame. The fuck?”
Liam drew his eyebrows down in an impersonation of me. “Is Kira mad at me? Doesn’t Kira look so pretty in that dress today? Kira’s the most talented?—”
I pushed his shoulder hard enough to knock him over. “Really funny. Shouldn’t you be at school, anyways?”
“I’m driving back tomorrow.” Liam stood, stretching his arms above his head. “Want to make me a pie to go?”
I might be an avoidant, but at least I could make a damn good pie.
