“You feel okay?”
“I feel as normal as I always do. Which, I know, isn’t a high bar to meet.” Snickering, I open my legs and make room for him to step between. “But it’s a bar I understand. I’m not sure how I respond to wine, since we haven’t tried that yet, and if it doesn’t go well, I’d rathernottest it when you have to wake up again in…” I check the time above his oven and release a disappointed sigh. “A little over seven hours. You still have to cook. Eat. Shower. That’ll take another hour.” I slide my tongue over my lips, suckling the bottom for a beat. “I don’t want to send you to work on such little sleep. Being the reason you get evenlesswould make me feel awful.”
“I’ve worked longer hours on less sleep in the past.” He slides his hands under my jaw and tips my head back. “I didn’t sleep for about three days straight when Alana had her baby.” Grinning, he turns away and sets his penlight on the counter, then he snatches up a mixing bowl from underneath and makes quick work of cracking a dozen eggs and finely chopping the vegetables. He takes a chunk of ham from the fridge and cuts it into small cubes, adding the pile to the bowl, then he whisks and sprinkles seasoning. Salt and pepper. Whatever else he keeps in his pantry, moving too fast for me to read labels. He sets a pan on the stove and drops a dollop of butter in until it sizzles, then he pours his concoction into the heat and moves back to the fridge. “I’ll make you a smoothie, too. Leafy greens. Really gross healthy shit.”
I snort. “Yum.”
“It’ll be good for us both, especially afterthree hoursof dealing with my sister and friends. You noticed how Chris and Fox disappeared, right?”
I choke out a laugh, nodding and blushing. “Yeah, I noticed. Guess they really like each other, huh?”
“To the point of obsession.” He fills two separate mixer cups with ice and water, yogurt, and… leafy greens. Powder from a tub with cartoon muscles on the side. Powder from a different tub I don’t bother trying to read. “They’re good together, though. He’s always been a troubled guy. Rough childhood,” he clarifies. “He and Tommy both caught that shit, but where Tommy deals with his in his own, violent, loud ways, Chris internalized it a lot more.”
“I noticed they were different like that. Identical on the outside, but Tommy was more outgoing than Chris. Chattier.”
“Right.” He caps the first cup and sets it on a mixer, hitting a button until a blade swings furiously fast and chops everything into a million liquidized pieces, and while that goes, he turns and carefully flips the omelet. “Then Fox came along and shook him the hell up. She’s loud and ballsy. She doesnotlet that man rest. But she makes him happy.” He comes back and stops the blender, pulling the bladed lid off the first cup and swapping it over to the second. Then he reconnects the cup to the machine and hits the button. “I’ve known them my entire life. It does my heart good to see both brothers happy.”
“What happened with Alana and you?”
He startles and stops, staring into my eyes until,yep, there’s that punch to my gut. “What?”
“There’s clearly history between the two of you. She matters to you in a way completely different from how Fox matters to you. And differentfrom how Eliza matters to you. Did you date in high school or something?”
He shakes his head and kills the blender with a flick of his finger. Disassembling the cup from the machine and twisting the lid off, he sets it down by the first, slides the chopping block across the counter and two forks from the drawer, then switching the stove off, he grabs the whole pan and sets it on the timber block.
Grinning, he takes his seat adjacent to mine, places a fork down by my elbow, and slides a cup across. Then he picks his up and holds it in place. “Cheers.”
“Oh. Well.” Surprised, I grab my leafy green concoction and tap it against his. “Cheers. This smells delicious.”
“The smoothie?”
I laugh. “No. The smoothie smells like ass. But the omelet smells amazing.” I sniff the cup and carefully sip just a little bit. Just enough to get a taste…not terrible, I suppose. “Are you avoiding my question about Alana on purpose, or…?”
“Wanted to be sitting before I started.” He chugs half his smoothie, glug-glug-glugging the filthy green mix, andahhhingwhen he sets the cup down again. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand and picks up a fork, adjusting his stool and twisting until his knee brushes mine under the counter. “Alana datedno onein high school except Tommy. It simply wouldn’t be done. Couldn’t.” He uses the side of his fork to slide into the omelet, poking a chunk and bringing it up. But instead of eating it himself, he offers it to me.
So I open my mouth and pray I’m not blushing as much as IfeelI am.
“They were always in love. There was never a single moment of doubt from day one; it was Tommy and Lana forever.”
“And yet…” Covering my mouth, I chew the piping-hot egg mix. “You have a crush on her anyway?”
He snickers and cuts a piece of omelet for himself. “No crush. Never. I love her like I love my sisters. I loved her like that even back in high school, so when she up and left just after graduation, it broke my damn heart.”
“She and Tommy didn’t always live here?”
“Tommy did. Lana didn’t. She took off when she was eighteen without saying goodbye to any of us. Didn’t say shit. And you remember how I said Tommy and Chris had a rough childhood?”
My heart thumps painfully in my chest. Aching for a couple of boys I don’t even know. “Yeah.”
“Well, this was worse. Times a thousand. She took off, and a few months later, broken-hearted and absolutely destroyed, Tommyscrounged together enough money to follow her across to New York. But if you think that’s where they get back together again, you’d be wrong.Reallywrong. Because he didn’t even get a chance to talk to her, didn’t get to plead his case, ‘cos when she turned around, her belly was big and round.” He drops his hand to his flat stomach. “She’d fled, got hitched, and made a baby. Or so we thought.” Introspective, he stares down at our dinner and cuts himself a little more. “She was married, so we assumed the baby was the new guy’s, and so for the next decade, we were pissed. All of us. Tommy more than anyone else. Eighteen or so months ago, Alana came back to town because her mom was dying, and of course, she brought her kid with her.”
“Franky,” I breathe. “The cute little one with glasses and…” I narrow my eyes. “With a matching hazel stare. Just like Tommy’s.”
“You’d think so, right?” He places the chunk of egg on his tongue and thoughtfully chews. “So then she’s back, and we’re all pretty shitty toward her. Eliza was prepared to decimate her, especially as we moved fromshe got hitched and had another man’s babytoshe was carrying Tommy’s baby and ran away without telling him.Both scenarios sucked real bad. Both hurt us all. Especially Tommy.”
“But?” I swallow the lump of dread in my throat. I push it down and drink enough green smoothie to keep it down. “And what does any of this have to do with you?”
“Turns out both our theories were wrong. Not the new husband’s baby, and not Tommy’s either. We wondered if she’doops,banged Chris, got knocked up, and ran away because she was ashamed.”
