My shoulders tensed. When would it stop hurting so damn much? I read in a book about grief once that it was all about baby steps, focusing on each individual day. It had been ten years and I still felt like I was living frozen in time, not necessarily waiting for him to come home but still unable to figure out how to move forward.
Maybe it was time for big steps. Giant, even. I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. One day, I was going to wake up and realize that, in my desperate escape from the pain in the present, I’d let the future pass me by.
Hell, I’d already allowed a decade to slide into past tense.
What if I never got to meet someone who loved me the way my dad had loved my mom?
Or even experience the way Tom looked at her as though she were the only woman he’d ever seen?
If I kept on the same path, taking baby step after baby step, working myself to the bone to avoid reality, I was going to die on that path—miserable and alone.
But how do you move forward when all you really want is to go back?
“Charlotte,” Mom prompted. “It’s time.”
She’d never been more right.
Sucking in a deep breath, I linked my arm with my mom’s and then looked back at Lucas’s picture above the fireplace. “Happy Birthday, baby.”
And then, together, the three of us walked outside to have cake.
Tom stood at my side, doing his best to deflect Brady’s glares, and my mom held my hand as I sobbed while singing the saddest rendition of “Happy Birthday” to ever be sung. Less than an hour later, I excused myself and headed home, where the pity party was just getting started.
* * *
“Uhhh ohhh,” Tanner drawled behind a pot of bubbling red sauce, a giant shit-eating grin pulling at his lips. “I spilled it on my shirt.”
Gripping the back of my neck, I made a U-turn and continued to pace a path behind the row of cameramen and sound engineers.
Quietly, I mumbled to myself, “You always spill it on your shirt, asshole. Learn to lift a damn spoon to your mouth.”
The idea of watching Tanner flirt with a camera while making vongoli was very low on my day’s priority list. It was only slightly above being waterboarded and hung by my toenails. Sure, the day had been shitty, but that was pretty much the permanent order of my priority list when it came to watching my brother strip his shirt off for his adoring fans.
Yes. He was a chef. Not the star of Magic Mike, though if you asked the president at The Food Channel, the ratings were surprisingly similar.
“And cut!” the director yelled before turning a seriously scary glower my way. “You have got to stop talking!”
“I didn’t say anything!” I defended—and lied.
I’d been grumbling under my breath for at least a half hour. She’d already threatened to throw me off the set once. But, really, the first time had been totally warranted. I wasn’t a TV director and I knew beyond nothing about cooking, but even I could tell that he was stirring an empty pot.
“I can hear you! We can all hear you.” She waved her arms around my brother’s kitchen, motioning to a team of cameramen nodding in agreement.
Defiantly crossing my arms over my chest, I feigned ignorance. “Sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Must have been someone else.”
Her eyes bulged and her lips started doing this crazy twitching thing that made it look like she was having a seizure.
“Okay, okay,” Tanner interjected, peeling the half apron from around his hips. “Andrea, can you give us a minute?”
She sliced her gaze over to me, but her words were aimed at my brother. “Absolutely, as long as you promise to get rid of him when you’re done.”
“Get rid of me? Are you kidding?” I stabbed a finger toward Tanner then hooked my thumb at my chest. “We share strands of the same DNA. And you want him to—”
Tanner gave my shoulder a hard shove before stating, “I’ll get rid of him.”
“The hell you will!” I shot back, but only because I was pissed. I wanted to leave more than she wanted me gone.
Shaking his head, he dug a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and led me out to the porch. “Let’s go. Spit it out. I’ve only got a minute to sort your shit, so talk fast.”
“She’s a witch,” I grumbled, jutting my chin at the woman barking orders to someone on the other side of the sliding glass doors.
After flicking his lighter to life, he hovered the orange flame over the tip of the cigarette dangling between his lips and talked around it. “Amazing director, decent in bed, but crazier than a tiger on acid. I suggest you don’t piss her off any more than you already have.”
Raking a hand through my thick, blond hair, I asked in all seriousness, “Should I be concerned that you’ve seen a tiger on acid?”
He chuckled. “Probably. But let’s deal with your shit first. Tell me what’s got you ranting and pacing around like Dad the day we accidentally scratched his Vette?”
I scoffed. “Please. I’m nothing like Dad.”
His baby-blue eyes, which matched my own, danced with humor. “That’s probably because you’d never have the balls to buy a Vette. A ding on the ol’ Tahoe just isn’t the same.” He grinned and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke through his nose.
I waved the smoke away from my face. “You’re a dick. But I need a favor.”
His smile grew. “Reeeeaaaalllly?”
I mentally groaned. I hated asking him for shit. It was always the same song and dance, but as much as I would have liked to handle this thing with Dr. Mills on my own, I needed Tanner.
“What are you doing on Saturday?”
He tipped his head to the side and eyed me warily. “Probably not whatever you’re about to ask me to do.”
“I need you to cook.”
I’d spent the morning ordering a gazillion pounds of meat (rough exaggeration) and calling in four of our sous chefs to make burger patties, pasta salads, potato salads, and a bunch of other amazing picnic-style foods Tanner would never allow us to serve at the restaurant.
“You need me to cook for you every day. Seriously, I can’t watch you make a PB and J without cringing, but why specifically on Saturday?”
“I’m trying to get Travis an appointment with that new pulmonologist, so I volunteered to cater their Spring Fling.”
“And you think having celebrity chef Tanner Reese show up is going to help get your foot in the door?”
I rolled my eyes. “Your humility is astounding. No. I don’t need celebrity Tanner Reese to do anything. I do, however, need my brother to show up, be charming, and grill a literal shit-ton of hamburgers. Though, if someone asks for an autograph, sign it. Just, please, for the love of all that’s holy, wait for them to actually ask. It’s embarrassing watching you snatch cocktail napkins out of people’s hands each time you exit the kitchen. You have no idea how many of those ‘collector’s items’ the bar staff throws away each night.”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “One time. One time.” He paused and gazed off into the distance at the picturesque pond dancing in the background.
I’d always loved that plantation house, with its wraparound porches, oak-lined driveway, and the massive weeping willow that decorated the front lawn. It was the perfect house to raise a family. Thus, it had boggled my mind when my brother of all people had bought it two years earlier.
“No,” he said absently.
“No, what?”
He turned to face me. “No, I’m not spending my first day off in almost a month making a bunch of burgers for a Spring Fling. Get Raul to do it.”
I took a long stride toward him. “Don’t fucking do the diva bit today.”
He smiled. “I’m not being a diva. I’m exhausted. I need a day off.”
“So take next weekend off,” I offered—though I had no idea what the hell I’d do without him.
We booked out months in advance on the weekends. And, as much as I hated to admit it, most of that hype was because customers knew that Tanner would be there, not only in the kitchen, but also meandering around the dining room. Worse, with the soft opening of the new restaurant quickly approaching too, I doubted either one of us would be able to take a weekend off for a long while.