He pauses and looks back at me. “Try to act like a normal human being for a few hours instead of a grumpy hermit who punches bags at four in the morning and pines after journalists.”
I grab a napkin from the desk, ball it up, and throw it at his head. He catches it and tosses it back at me with perfect accuracy, hitting me square in the chest.
“Love you too,” he says cheerfully, and then he’s gone, disappearing down the hallway with that easy confidence he’s always had, leaving me alone with my coffee and my thoughts.
The Victorian house sits on several acres of waterfront property at the end of a long gravel driveway, the same land all five of us grew up on, and as I pull up I can see the house lit up warm against the dusk sky.
Calvin and Maren have fixed it up since moving in a few years ago, restoring it to what it was when we were kids, before time and neglect and Mom’s illness let it fall into disrepair.
I stop the car and sit there for a moment, looking at the house.
A few years ago, I was ready to let all of this go. Our childhood home, the land, everything. After Mom died, when the house was falling apart and none of us were living here, I was the executor and it was my call to make. The developers had offered good money. It made sense on paper, and I couldn’t see past the grief and the practicality of it to understand why Calvin fought me so hard.
We almost came to blows over it more than once, and said things to each other that took a long time to heal from. That ugliness between us is something we’ve moved past now, though we still butt heads more than I do with anyone else in the family, probably because we’re too much alike. But about the house, the property, he was right and I was wrong.
I grab the bottle of wine I picked up on the way over and get out of the car. The evening air has that end-of-summer feel to it, warm but with a coolness underneath that wasn’t there a few weeks ago.
Laila, originally Mom’s golden retriever and now Maren and Calvin’s, starts barking before I’m halfway up the porch steps, and the front door swings open.
She comes bounding out, all seventy pounds of golden fur and enthusiasm hitting me at shin level with enough force that I have to brace myself against the porch railing. Her tail is wagging so hard her entire back end moves with it, her whole body wiggling with a joy so pure it’s impossible not to smile.
“Hey, girl.” I crouch down and she immediately tries to lick my face, pressing her whole body against me. I scratch behind her ears the way she likes, and look up to see Theo standing in the doorway. His eight-year-old daughter Chloe pops her head out from behind him, eyes bright with excitement.
“Hi Uncle Dom!” She ducks under Theo’s arm and throws her arms around my neck before I can fully stand up. The kid gives hugs like she means them.
“Hey, kiddo.” I ruffle her hair and she pulls back, smiling up at me with the gap-toothed grin of a kid who’s still losing baby teeth. “You’re taller every time I see you, I swear. What’s your dad been feeding you?”
“Lately we’ve all been on a homemade pasta kick,” she says seriously. “Last week we did fettuccine with a brown butter sage sauce, and this week we’re going to try ravioli with a butternut squash filling. The trick is to not overwork the dough or the pasta gets tough.”
I laugh, ruffling her hair again. “That sounds way more advanced than anything I could pull off in a kitchen. I can barely make scrambled eggs without setting off the smoke alarm.”
“It’s not that hard,” she assures me with confidence. “You just have to be patient with the dough. I could teach you sometime if you want.”
“I might take you up on that,” I tell her, and she beams at me before heading back inside with Laila trotting at her heels. Theo grins at me from the doorway, shaking his head.
“I heard Laila losing her mind out here, but I didn’t think you’d make it this early,” he says. “We all figured you’d be at the gym until the last possible second with all the prep you have to do before the NYC fight.”
“I was starting to see double when I was reviewing Roman’s tapes, so I figured I’d better call it a night before I lost the ability to function entirely.” I brush dog hair off my jeans and straighten up. “Thought I’d come be useless here instead of being useless at the gym.”
Theo laughs. “Probably a good call. Come on in.”
He steps back to let me through the door, and the scent hits me as soon as I step inside, garlic and roasting chicken and fresh bread. It smells like home, like the Sunday dinners when we were kids.
Gus comes skidding around the corner from the kitchen like a small gray furry missile with no concept of traction. He’s Theo and Chloe’s rescue mutt, a terrier mix they adopted from the shelter a few months back, and he’s an absolute menace that they are all completely obsessed with. Twenty pounds of chaotic energy and questionable decision-making. Gus launches himself at Laila and the two of them immediately start wrestling, tails wagging so hard they’re practically blurs.
“Gus, Laila, watch where you’re going,” Theo calls out, laughing as he steps over the tangle of dogs.
Emma and Maren are on the couch in the living room, deep in conversation about something that has them both leaning in close and gesturing, and they both look up when I come through.
“Hey, Dom!” Emma says, shifting to sit up straighter, which takes some doing given she’s ready to have that baby any day now. She’s got one hand resting on her belly and the other wrapped around a glass on the coffee table.
“Hey, Emma.” I pause by the arm of the couch. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a whale with heartburn who’s ready to evict this tenant,” she says, patting her belly. “This kid is using my bladder as a punching bag. I keep telling Theo she must take after your side of the family.”
Theo laughs from where he’s just come in behind me, settling next to Emma on the couch and putting his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t look at me. I was a peaceful baby. Mom said so.”
“Keeping the Midnight boxing tradition alive before she’s even born,” Maren adds, grinning.
