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“Dad was old-school wealth. Thought himself above pretty much everyone in the world, king of all he surveyed, so he was all about grooming the heir to his throne.”
“Just the one?”
“Yep. I was the spare, and Conor was in no man’s land. Not that either one of us would have traded places with Matt. Dad was a humorless prick and a strict taskmaster. When Matt reached the ripe old age of thirteen, Dad decided it was time for him to stop doing ‘kid shit’ and grow up. After that, Matt didn’t play with us much, and over time…he sort of morphed into my dad’s mini-me. Personally, I miss the old Matt.”
“I’m sure you do. That couldn’t have been easy on you and Conor.”
Gage shrugged. “Like I said, things changed after that. I was eleven and Conor was nine. Conor was a bookworm, so he just sort of disappeared into his bedroom, always had his nose in a book.”
“And you…” she prompted.
He’d been looking at her, but the conversation had drifted too close to places he didn’t travel. Not even in his own thoughts. So he turned back to focus on the food. “I found video games, D&D.”
“You played alone? Or…let me guess…you had your own nerd circle back in school, didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “No. Not really. I played with my mom.” Before Penny could ask any more questions, he reached into a drawer and pulled out a corkscrew, handing it to her with the bottle of red. “Why don’t you pour us some wine? I’ve reached the critical point in the recipe.”
He hadn’t. He could make this meal with his eyes closed, but he wanted Penny to think he needed to concentrate.
“Wine glasses?” she asked.
He used the wooden spoon he was stirring with to point to a shelf to the left.
She drifted over to grab two glasses, instead running her finger over the spines of the cookbooks on the shelf above. “Is this your mom?”
Gage had been watching her peripherally, and he internally cursed. He had one picture of his mom displayed in his apartment. Just one…and it wasn’t even a big one. Just a snapshot that Conor had taken after Christmas one year with the Polaroid camera he’d had to have, proclaiming it the coolest thing ever. He and his mom had been baking cookies when Conor walked in and yelled, “Say cheese!”
The two of them had looked up, both with big goofy grins on their faces, him with flour in his hair. The picture was starting to fade, which killed Gage. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a bunch of others, tucked away in an album. It was just…he loved that one.
He’d put the photo in a small frame and tucked it there, overshadowed and practically hidden by his mother’s cookbooks. He’d inherited some of Mom’s jewelry and artwork, but it was the cookbooks he treasured the most.
Not that he ever used them. Hell, he hadn’t opened a single one of them since her death. When he moved in, he’d set them up on that shelf, along with the picture. A pathetic shrine if there ever was one.
“Yeah,” he said, turning his attention back to the sauce.
“She’s gorgeous,” Penny said, picking up the small frame.
Gage felt a ridiculous amount of pride in her comment.
“You look just like her,” Penny continued. “Same hair color, same eyes, same smile.”
It was true. While his brothers both inherited more physical attributes from their dad, he was the outlier, the one who’d looked just like their mom.
Penny put the frame back down and reached for the Indian cookbook.
Gage felt a weird sense of panic, like he didn’t want her to touch it.
“The glasses are right there, next shelf down,” he said, too loudly, pointing out the obvious. Penny’s hand hovered in midair, her fingers a mere inch from the cookbook. She changed direction and grabbed the glasses.
Gage could practically read the questions lined up in her mind, but she didn’t ask them, which was unlike her. And he wondered why.
What had she seen in his face? Heard in his voice? He was usually better at shielding his emotions.
He dipped out their plates, adding a piece of naan bread to each, then carried them to the kitchen table. The floor-to-ceiling windows by the table afforded them an amazing view of the city at night. Penny sat down, admiring it for a moment before picking up her wineglass. “I can see why you eat here. Though the view from the living room is pretty spectacular too. Should we toast to your mom? For teaching you how to cook?”
He nodded, a lump forming in this throat. “To my mom.”
They tapped glasses and took a sip.
