Page 48 of At First Smile
“Dad used to do that, too. He knew Finn didn’t like sausage patties, so he always made him links when he made us breakfast.” My gaze flicks to my brother, who stands with his back to me at the stove, his head bobs as if taking in the thinly veiled truth that we’re both like our father in more ways than how we look.
At the sink, I wash my hands. Patting them dry, I move to the cutting board on the kitchen counter and begin to chop the carrots.
“Medallions, right?” I ask.
“Yep.”
“Just like Gran’s.” A wistful smile tips up the corners of my mouth.
All three of us boys learned to cook in my Gran’s kitchen. She’d make us help her with Sunday roast after church. As we got older, Finn and I found more and more excuses, but Gillian remained by her side, learning her recipes and proclivities for vegetable shapes based on what dish she’d make.
“Gran’s bread pudding.” I groan, the decadent taste of Irish-whiskey-drenched sultanas floods my memories. “Do you still offer Gran’s Sunday roast at Fiona’s?” I swipe the chopped carrots into a bowl.
Every Sunday Gran made roasted beef drizzled in flavorful gravy, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables, and bread pudding. In honor of Gran, Gillian serves it each week at his restaurant.
“Yes.”
The burner clicks off.
“But not for long.”
“Why?” A furrow settles on my forehead.
“I’m giving up my share of the restaurant to Layla in the divorce.”
My eyebrows nearly shoot into my hairline. “What? Fiona’s has been your dream. Can’t you two share or?—”
“Layla’s pregnant.”
“You two have to work this out if she’s going to have your baby.”
“It’s not mine.”
The breath wooshes out of me. “Fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly.” He grabs a bowl of potatoes, an eerie calm masking his features.
My face twists with disbelief. “How? Who?”
“Our silent partner, Becket. Turns out his silence is all about keeping secrets. Like the fact he’s fucking my wife.”
It all clicks together. Becket, a childhood friend of Layla’s, partnered with them when they opened Fiona’s.
With his MBA and their culinary experience, it appeared the perfect partnership.
Still, Finn always raised an eyebrow at Layla’s closeness to Becket.
The inside jokes. The lingering hugs. The way he insisted that Becket looked at her.
We’d tease that his romance author brain simply saw love stories everywhere.
“God, that’s rough. I’m really sorry.”
Wordlessly he starts to whip the potatoes for the topping.
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Part of me just wants to pick up and leave. To start over somewhere, but…”
“But what?”
“Mam.”
I wave a dismissive hand. “Mam is fine. She doesn’t need anyone to take care of her. Not to mention, Finn is here. Christ, he’s a professor at the same university with her.”
“Same department,” he adds with a chuckle.
“He really is a mama’s boy.”
“Does our fresh start mean we can finally team up against Finn?”
“Fuck yes. I have years of pranks to get retribution for.”
Finn may have played referee and failed peacemaker, but he also took advantage. For years he enlisted one of us to mess with the other.
“The tables have turned.” Mischief glints in Gillian’s green eyes.
Happiness about a partnership with Gillian, even just for pranks, thrums through me. It means to truly be brothers in all the ways that matter. The ways that we’d not let ourselves be for far too long. We have so much time to make up for.
“Axel’s needs a new head chef,” I say, standing up straight. It’s a bit of a lie. We don’t have a head chef, per se, just a series of cooks that funnel in and out. Still…
“Do you want me to help you find one?”
“No. I want you to be it.”
His gaze jumps to mine. “Are you serious?”
“Like a heart attack.”
“We just—” he motions between us.
“I know… Even more reason. It’s a fresh start. For you. For us.”
He gapes.
I continue, “You can stay at my place. I’m at Pen’s all the time. Plus, training camp will start soon, so I’ll barely be there. You’d run the kitchen. I have a manager who handles all the rest.”
“There are so many reasons to say no.”
“You only need one reason to say yes.”
He tips his head. “The kitchen will be my domain to run as I see fit?”
“Yes.” My mouth slants into a smirk.
“And you’re really at Pen’s all the time, because the idea of moving from one little brother’s home to anoth er’s is humiliating.”
“Yes.” Laughing, I shake my head.
“Okay.” He puts his hand out.
And I take it. “Okay.”
As the comforting scent of the baking shepherd’s pie wafts around the room, the murmured voices of the rest of our party returning from their walk fill the house.
Gillian sits outside on the back deck. I’ve come back in to grab each of us another Guinness.
I place the bottles of stout on the kitchen island to open, and to wait for who I know will appear in 3… 2…1
Pen enters the kitchen, hope and concern etched on her face. “Hey.”
Crossing the room, I pull her into my arms and kiss her senseless.
Her pliant lips meet each press before she opens for me.
Fingers woven into her hair, I pull her deeper into my thankful kiss.
I know what she did and the worry that twisted itself inside her over the last hour.
I feel it in the way her body slumps against me in relief.
“I take it that your conversation went well,” she says, breath ragged.
I glide my thumb across her jaw. “It did. Thank you for pushing me.”
“I’m sorry if I… Well, let’s face it… I overstepped. I’m sorry for that. I saw an opportunity and took it.”
“Are you sorry?” Playfulness coats my accusation.
“Yes and no.” Her fingers dance along my forearm.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t pull you aside and suggest you talk to Gillian.
That I didn’t tell you that he was more open to fixing things than you thought.
For that, I’m sorry. But I’m not sorry I seized the opportunity…
at least not now that I can see the heaviness that you carried is gone.
Sometimes love is about making someone eat their carrots. ”
“What? You hate carrots,” I guffaw.
“It’s something Aunt Bea would tell me about my mom. That, sometimes, people do things that are good for us that we, for whatever reason, don’t want to or can’t do. Carrots.”
“Well, I ate my carrots, and so did Gillian.”
“Good.” Her eyes sparkle with smug satisfaction.
“You said I could be mad at you later.” My low voice almost rumbles.
Her mouth forms an O. “And what does being mad at me look like?”
Skating my hands down her lush curves, I grip her ass. “Is tying someone up still on the table?”
“I believe that was for me to tie you up, but…” She bats her eyes.
“Seriously? You best really spend all your time at Pen’s because I’m not going to last long if each time I walk into the condo you two are like this,” Gillian grumbles as he enters the kitchen and saunters to the island to grab one of the bottles of Guinness.
Pen’s eyebrows draw into a line. “Condo?”
“Yeah. About that…” I grin.