Page 26 of Double Puck

“Nope. Turns out picturing it is extremely difficult.”

“Try picturing me as a child, you pervert.” She calmly takes a bite of avocado. “Anyway, I don't see what the big deal is. I also played piano and learned French. Didn't your parents have you try different hobbies when you were a kid?”

I swallow my food and look across the café.

“Well, yeah. But my hobbies included playing Mario Kart in my underwear while fighting with my brothers about who gets to have first go each day." I lower my fork and drag a piece of bacon through the salted caramel melting across my plate. “Did you actually like any of it? The hobbies, I mean.”

“I liked ballet,” she says with a tilt of her head. "And my mother told me I was good at it."

I wait, but that’s all she gives me.

Not I loved dancing. Not I couldn’t wait to get onstage.

Just I was good at it.

I shove a bite of French toast into my mouth, and for some reason, this conversation feels like the most important thing I’ve done all morning.

“What did you do during school holidays?” I ask. “Perform Swan Lake for foreign diplomats?”

She nearly laughs. “Mostly travelled.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere. My father’s company was always opening a hotel or inspecting a resort somewhere. Paris. Vancouver. Geneva.”

“That sounds incredible.”

“It was.” She takes another bite of avocado. “Although the excitement fades after the third week of wearing formal shoes to breakfast.”

“Darcy, I spent my school holidays eating cereal in Spider-Man underwear while fighting Mason and Declan for the Nintendo controller.”

That finally earns me a laugh. “That actually explains quite a lot about your family.”

I grin down at my breakfast, because looking too pleased with myself for making this woman laugh might scare that gorgeous smile away.

It's funny, talking like this with the woman trying to trade me.

I spent twenty-four years believing our family was the one thing that actually worked. Two parents, thirty-one years, four kids who turned out mostly okay.

Now, in the blink of an eye, it's just... gone.

I used to be the guy who believed things worked out. Now I'm not sure what to believe.

Declan's been lying to me for seventeen years. Dad's been lying to all of us for just as long. The family I thought was rock-solid? Turns out it's been built on secrets and everyone else deciding what I could and couldn't handle.

It's hard to be the optimist when you find out the people you trust most have been distorting your reality since you were seven years old.

“For the record, Mason cheated at Mario Kart," I say, needing to talk so my thoughts don't take over.

“Mason? Really?”

“Fuck yeah. Don’t let the whole quiet, responsible thing fool you. He’s a fucking animal when he gets hold of a controller. Declan was worse. He’d make up rules halfway through and insist they’d always existed.”

“Must’ve been nice, though. Having siblings to fight with.” Darcy’s grin softens as she sips her coffee. “If I wanted a friend over, my mother scheduled a playdate between piano and French. The kitchen made tiny cucumber sandwiches and cut the crusts off for us.”

“That’s not a playdate, Darce. That’s a shareholder meeting with juice boxes.”

Her laugh slips out before she can stop it.