Tomorrow, he gets his patch.
Tomorrow, everything is different.
I don’t know what to do with that yet.
My phone lights up on the counter, and I see Victoria’s name, so I prop it against the flour canister and accept the video call.Her face fills the screen immediately, already animated, her hair piled up in a messy knot, and her cheeks carrying that rosy flush of her sixth month.
“Okay,” she says, without preamble. “The food table.”
I pause my stirring. “Good morning to you, too, Vicks.”
“Good morning. The food table,” she repeats. “Sin has it against the back wall, and I have told himthree timesthat it needs to be near the door so people can grab food when they come in without having to walk the whole length of the room first. It’s traffic flow, Millie. It’s basic fucking traffic flow!”
From somewhere behind her, and it sounds like he’s in another room entirely, Sin’s voice carries through with an unhurried certainty, like he has no intention of shifting the table. “It’s fine where it is.”
Victoria’s voice flattens. “It isnotfine where it is.”
“There’s plenty of room, Wildcat.”
“If I have to walk across that entire room at twenty-eight weeks pregnant every time someone needs the serving spoon—”
“You’re not going to be serving,” Sin snaps. “That’s what the girls are for.”
Victoria turns back to me, wearing the exact expression of a woman demanding backup. I’m trying really hard to give it to her without laughing, mostly because Will has looked up from his coffee and is watching this whole thing unfold with way too much interest, clearly enjoying the fact that the spotlight has temporarily shifted off him for once.
“Tell him,” Victoria says. “Tell him the table should be near the door.”
“The table shoulddefinitelybe near the door,” I say, loyally and immediately.
“It’s fine where it is,” Sin says again from somewhere deeper in the clubhouse, sounding entirely unconcerned.
“Diesel Antonio Moretti, if you say that one more time, I will—” Victoria cuts herself off, already moving, chair scraping softly as she heads for the hall like she intends to finish that sentence in person. Not dramatically, not with a slam, she just disappears from view, and I stare after her for a moment before looking over at Will, who has gone back to his coffee, his shoulders shaking very slightly.
“Don’t,” I warn him.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
He takes a long, slow sip. “The table is fine where it is,” he says into the mug, and I throw a dish towel at him.
The rest of the afternoon settles into something easier after that. The first layer of the cake goes in, and the kitchen fills with the warm, dark smell of chocolate. Will gets up at some point, refills my coffee without asking, and grabs himself a beer. I set my mug back beside my mixing bowl without comment. My dad wanders through around two, reads the newspaper at the table for twenty minutes while asking Will about the ceremony logistics, and then wanders back to his armchair. The television murmur resumes.
I am pressing the finished layers together, caramel spreading slowly and golden between them, when the front door opens, and my dad’s voice carries from the hall, distinctly surprised. Then he appears in the kitchen doorway holding flowers.
He’s not holding them the way a guy holds flowers he picked out himself. He’s holding them the way a man carries something that got shoved into his hands and accepted because fighting about it would have been more embarrassing than just committing to it. But he’s fully committed now. Standing there with this stubborn, determined look on his face, like he’s decided he’s seeing this thing through no matter how much shit he catches for it.
“Penny,” he says, by way of full explanation. Will looks up. “She sent a delivery. There were flowers.” He crosses to the counter and sets them down, a small bunch of pale pink and white stems wrapped in paper, with a kind of ceremony that feels more suited to placing evidence into an official record than flowers on a kitchen bench. “There are flowers now,” he says to Will, gravely.
Will meets this with equal gravity. “I see that, sir.”
My dad nods, satisfied, as if something has been formally confirmed, and returns to his armchair.
I wait until I am certain he is out of earshot before I press my lips together firmly and concentrate very hard on my caramel. The sound Will makes behind me is not a laugh. He would strongly deny that it was a laugh.
“Penny sends him flowers every few weeks,” I tell Will, keeping my voice carefully level.
“That’s kind of her.”
