“Ew,” Lexi takes the word right out of my mouth. The disgust on her face is mostly comical but definitely rooted in the trauma of walking in on them a time too many in high school. “Maybe it’s just because that one’s been tainted by you from such a young age, but I dunno, I just think ever since, maybe twenty-five or so, Weston’s really just been the closest thing to a Greek god the Heights has ever had. Puts you to shame, Grady Senior.”
Lexi’s got zero interest in me, she never has, but her riling up my brother is ten out of ten entertainment for me tonight.
“He’s not my fucking son, he’s less than four years younger than me for fuck’s sake,” my brother grumbles.
“Could’ve fooled me, old man,” I tell him, punching his shoulder lightly as he lifts his chin in as much of a greeting as I’ll get from him.
“If you’re counting emotional maturity rather than number of times around the sun, maybe,” he mutters.
Rory jabs an elbow into his ribs and he lets out a sharp exhale and narrows his gaze on her before rolling his eyes and gesturing to the table with a gruff, “Sit.”
Wow. I’m blown away by the warm welcome.
A smile breaks out across my face anyway, because I guess I can be that guy that finds the silver lining in just about anything. And to break bread with my only sibling, the love of his life, and the baby that came out of their decades-long love that’s probablystillthe talk of this town… hell, it’s not a bad way to spend a Sunday night.
Rory grins at me, hand on my shoulder as I sit down next to Gramps, as we’ve taken to calling the Weiss girls’ stepdad, and then she takes her daughter from him and lets me greet my niece thoroughly as she tells us all to dig in.
“Sorry it’s not homemade,” Rory offers with a small tilt of her head. “Actually, I’mnotsorry, and you shouldn’t be either. It’s way fucking better for all of us this way. This is freshly frozen, straight from the boroughs, and warmed up locally. Enjoy.”
We all laugh, but no one louder than her sister.
And itisgood.
Maybe great even? The tasty meal, the volley of soft insults that fly across the table between girls that share half of the same DNA, the undercurrent of warmth and familiarity in every exchange. The updates from Gramps on his recent travel overseas. Rory’s intense, passionate spiels on the New Heights project she’s heading to restore the businesses and breathe newlife into the town as a whole. Even the chill in the air, the fresh scent that smells of new growth and fresh starts all around. It’s all pretty damn great.
Until my brother opens his mouth.
“So, Wes—” Wyatt uses the nickname I loathe until his wife places another well-timed, not-at-all subtle jab to his side. He doesn’t flinch, but he does elongate the syllable in a way that could almost be comical, and adds another consonant at the end. “—t.”
His eyes—so like my own, when not much else between our appearance shares resemblance—shoot to his wife’s and then back to mine.
“Welcome, uh, welcome back.” The way he clears his throat, and the distinct lack of direction behind those words, tells me this isn’t the speech he’d planned to give me. “Rory says you’ll be here for a few months, huh?”
“I’d believe her,” I say to him, eyes on her with a smile. She returns it, one hand rubbing Wyatt’s back while he nestles their sleeping baby against his chest as Rory eats her dinner. “This is her master plan, after all.”
“My master plan,” she corrects me, “is to get you back for good.” Not a bullshitter, my sister-in-law. She might be tough sometimes, but she’s a straight shooter, I’ll say that. “Or were you referring to New Heights, not the reunification of our family?”
I give her a bit of an awkward chuckle and shake my head. “We’re going there on night one, huh?”
“My second-favorite Grady taught me that ugly truths are preferable to pretty lies.”
Rory’s stepfather lets out a hearty laugh at that, and the baby coos at the sound of it, still sound asleep on her dad.
“Second favorite?” Wyatt pulls back from her, offended.
Rory’s eyes fall down to the precious sight in his arms pointedly, and his face relaxes, softening in a way it only does for those two girls. Her attention returns to me, face still lit with something unnameable.
“So, yeah, we’re going there,” Rory says. “All my cards on the table, I’ll happily have you back for a few months. It works out a little too perfect to be able to hire you for all the interior painting at these properties being renovated, and I couldn’t resist. But does a not-so-small part of me harbor hope that you’ll fall back in love with the Heights like I did—” her eyes find Wyatt’s again, “—and stay? Definitively.”
Lexi holds her silver can of Diet Coke in the air. “Hear, hear!” she cheers.
“I’ll toast to that.” Gramps joins her with his brown bottle of beer.
Committing to a few months here was hard enough for me. Hard to go with the flow when you’re confined to a tank. I like to leave my options open, not cage myself in. But I’d be lying to myself if I said something about that speech didn’t tickle a foreign place inside of me. A feeling of longing for something that never has been, and doesn’t seem destined to be, either.
I look back to my brother, the last one to hold his beer up, and he does, though with considerably less enthusiasm than everyone else at the table. When we all drink to it, Wyatt pipes up again.
“Seems a little far-fetched if you ask me.”
