by Layla Reyne
Clancy had been torn, frantic for information yet trying to respect Miller’s wishes. He’d asked his oncologist for an update, but she wasn’t legally allowed to give it to him. He wasn’t technically a doctor at the Cancer Center anymore, and Sloan and her medical POA were no longer effective there. He’d begged Miranda to contact her new bestie, and all that’d gotten him was a ticket for a Sunday night red-eye to North Carolina.
Add a four-hour drive and that brought him to here, to Miller’s hometown. And to now, with his missing half pushing open the screen door. By the haggard look on Miller’s face, Clancy had no idea if he’d won the battle or not. This was supposed to be the last stop on their tour. Miller’s last supper. Was that why Miller was here with his family? Why he needed Clancy with him? If that’s what Miller needed, Clancy would give it to him, would lend his support, but he hoped like hell they were here for a different reason.
“Hey, Doc.”
Clancy didn’t think. He ran, barreling into Miller. He considered, belatedly, that the collision of bodies may have been too hard, that Miller could still be sore from last week, and he began to pull back. Miller’s big arms wrapped around him, holding him close, and a chuffed breath ruffled his hair. Clancy inhaled and sank deeper into Miller’s embrace. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” Miller kissed the crown of his head, and Clancy figured he was forgiven for the enthusiastic greeting. “Didn’t miss this shirt, though.” Miller plucked the blue Dodgers shirt, visible under Clancy’s unzipped hoodie.
“I wore it just for you.”
“I’d hoped you’d burned it with Gingy.”
“You’re a monster!”
Miller’s laugh rumbled under Clancy’s ear. Wanting to see it, Clancy leaned back and reached a hand up, tracing the laugh lines he loved so much. Miller lifted a hand, covering and holding Clancy’s, their fingers tangling. He lowered their joined hands and tugged Clancy forward. “Come on, I want to introduce you to some people.”
Following Miller inside, Clancy was surprised at the super tight quarters. He shouldn’t have been, given the outdoor dimensions of the building, but how this place functioned during summer crush was a mystery. No bigger than a college dorm room, there was a service counter to the left, and behind it, two deep fryers, a flattop grill, oven, cabinet fridges, and a small prep area. Smaller even than some of the food trucks he regularly visited. To the right, there was an alcove with empty drink fridges, two darkened soda fountains, and a condiment stand. And that was it before you hit the back door to the patio.
Miller put a hand to the screen, about to push outside, when Clancy ground to a halt. “This was the last place on the tour, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right.” Miller glanced around the compact space—fondly. There was no other word to describe the soft, adoring look on his face. “It’s my favorite spot, hands down.”
Before their tour, Clancy would have called him a liar. A Michelin-starred chef, who’d staged at the top restaurants in New York and the Bay Area, who’d had a fine dining establishment of his own, did not favor a dockside dive above all others. Clancy knew better now. Miller was a man of many tastes, and each tour stop had meant something to him. He’d saved his favorite for last.
“Why’s this one special?”
Miller smiled. “Besides the fact it’s the best shrimp you’ll ever eat, it was one of the few places, growing up, that my family could afford. My sisters and I all bussed tables here, at one point or the other, and my mom worked the register in the summers when she wasn’t teaching. We got the employee discount, and my parents would save up all winter long, so that every Monday night in season, we’d be here. They only missed one summer.”
“The summer you and Sloan left,” Clancy pieced together. “That’s the money they cobbled together so you two could get married and leave.” Miller’s hand clenched around his; it was all the confirmation Clancy needed. “No wonder it’s your favorite.”
Miller cleared his throat and gestured to the cooking area. “Owner opened it up for us today. I was planning to cook for you.”
Clancy wiggled his nose, happy for the smile it drew from Miller. “Smells like you already did.”
“You were right on time. Let’s go, I just served it up.”
Even if Clancy hadn’t taken a slew of genetics classes, he would have recognized Miller’s family, all standing around the two tables pushed together on the patio. Miller shared his blue eyes with his youngest sister, inherited from their mother, and his chestnut hair matched the long wavy locks on his other two sisters’ heads, and on his bald father’s chin, the older man’s goatee flecked with gray. He was a giant of a man like Miller.
“Everyone,” Miller said. “This is Clancy. Clancy, this is my family.”
His mom, a surprising five foot nothing, dressed in jeans and a cable-knit sweater, with her hair pulled back in a short ponytail, approached first. “I’m Michelle, and I’m a hugger, if that’s okay with you?”
“More than okay.” Clancy stepped into her embrace, bending to hug her back. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Michelle.”
The introductions and hugs continued from there, Miller’s sisters—Lisa, Allison, and Erin—and then his father, Sam.
“It really is nice to meet you all,” Clancy said, as he lowered himself into the open chair to Miller’s right.
“Eat, Clancy,” Michelle said from Miller’s other side. “You look like you need it.” Clancy didn’t take offense. His own mother had been saying the same all weekend.
Clancy lifted the paper plate off the place setting in front of him, revealing a crispy crab cake and a dozen or so shrimp, still steaming hot. He managed a few bites of the crab cake, Miller’s beloved blue crab, and was peeling his third shrimp—coated in Old Bay seasoning, steamed, and tossed on the flattop just before serving, Miller explained—when he dropped the shrimp and lowered his shaking hands. Everything tasted amazing, but his stomach was still a wreck. As it had been since he’d gotten that text from Miller. Longer even, since he’d found Miller on the bathroom floor of the Ritz, sick and weakened to the point of passing out.
“You don’t like?” Miller asked.
“I do like, it’s delicious, I’m just...” He snatched a napkin from the middle of the table, avoiding everyone’s stares and taking entirely too long to clean his hands.
Miller closed one over his. “I was waiting for you to get here to tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Erin asked. “Your faces don’t say happy news.”
Oh God, this was going to be harder than Clancy imagined, whichever way Miller decided. After meeting Miller’s family, after spending only fifteen minutes with them, listening to their laughter and chatter, after learning what they’d done for Miller and Sloan, Clancy knew they’d feel Miller’s pain as if it were their own. That’s the kind of family they were, same as Clancy’s. Understanding that now, he couldn’t blame Miller for wanting to shield them from it. He could appreciate the decision Miller had made, to not put his family through the brutal, no-guarantees slog of cancer treatment. He’d had patients who’d made the same call. But had Miller’s decision changed? Because even understanding the family dynamics better now, Clancy still wanted Miller to choose life, and he was sure his family would too.
Either way, he’d promised to be there for Miller. Sucking up his courage, he tossed the shredded napkin on the table and took Miller’s hand in both of his, resting their joined grip on the table. “I’m with you, every step of the way.”
Miller kissed his cheek with a whispered “thank you,” then, after a deep breath, glanced around the table at each family member. “I want you to listen, and let me finish before you ask questions. Can you do that, please?”
Five pale faces nodded.
“I’m sick. Cancer.” Gasps echoed around the table, and a choked cry came from behind Michelle’s hand ove
r her mouth. Miller took her other hand. “You all knew about the culinary tour, that I’d planned for it to end here. It was a tour of my last meals, all my favorites, because I’d chosen to die. You deserved to enjoy your retirement,” he said to his parents. “And your families and success,” he said to his sisters. “I didn’t want to put any of you through the ups and downs of treatment. Treatment that will risk my sense of taste. I didn’t know who I’d be if I couldn’t taste, if I wasn’t a chef. So I planned this trip, and this stop at the end, because it’s the place that means the most to me. I wanted to be with my family, at the end.”
“Sweetie.” Michelle’s knuckles were white where they curled around Miller’s.
“Let me finish, please.”
On her other side, Sam scooted his chair closer and put an arm around Michelle, while Miller’s sisters huddled up around the other end of the table.
“I’d made that decision,” Miller said. “But then my family expanded.”
Clancy’s heart jolted at Miller’s “but.” Was that hope? Miller looked over at him, smiling wide, and Clancy’s heart leapt the rest of the way into his throat.
“I met someone.” Miller’s eyes stayed locked with Clancy’s. “He convinced me I’m more than just my taste buds, and this last stop became something else.”
“Miller, what are you saying?” Clancy asked, cautious but hope swelling.
“This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. I’m going to get treatment.”
Allison’s “Oh thank god,” was a mirror image of Clancy’s thoughts.
“You changed your mind?” he asked.
“You changed my mind.”
Clancy curled over their joined hands, resting his forehead atop them, his world spinning. The good way. There were other sounds around him—Lisa shushing Erin, Michelle sniffling, Sam yanking napkins out of the dispenser—but Miller’s voice at his ear claimed all of Clancy’s attention.
“You showed me a future, Doc. One I’m not ready to give up on yet, if you’re willing to fight alongside me for it.”
Clancy lifted his head, not giving a damn about the tears on his cheeks. “Every step.”
Miller kissed him, hard, and for the first time, hope flowed both ways between them.
* * *
Dishtowel wrapped around his fist, Miller dried the evening’s cookware while his mom wiped down the granite countertops and sink.
“Thanks for helping,” she said, voice quiet, as everyone else had gone to bed. They’d always been the night owls of the family, even though she was the first to rise in the mornings.
“I am the one who asked for it.” Miller nodded at the tinfoil-covered pie pan on the kitchen island. After dinner, which Miller had cooked, they’d finished off the pecan pie Michelle had made for him yesterday. But this pie, his absolute favorite, he’d ask her to make special. And he only wanted to share it with one person.
She tossed a wad of paper towels in the trash, wiped her hands off on her jeans, and retrieved her coffee mug from the dining bar where she’d left it. “The pie’s for him?”
Miller tossed his dishrag the length of the kitchen, right into the washer in the adjacent utility room.
She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “All that talent and height wasted.”
He rested against the counter beside her, bumping her shoulder. “What can I say? I liked home-ec better.”
“And I like him,” she replied, not letting her earlier question go.
“I knew you would. Clancy’s hard to dislike.”
“I love him, though, for what he’s done for you.” She set her mug aside and wrapped her arms around his middle. “And for us. He’s given us a chance at more time with you.”
Miller returned the embrace, his mom’s hugs always the best. “It may not work, Ma. You need to prepare yourself.”
“I know that,” she said with a sniffle. “But we may not have had a chance at all otherwise.” She pulled back, sniffled once more, and patted his cheek. “It’s a new year. I’m going to think positive on this first day of it.”
He smiled down at the tiny, indomitable woman who’d held their family together through thick and thin, who’d always given him what he needed, including a future he couldn’t wait to tell Clancy about. “I love you, Ma.”
“Love you too, sweetie. Now...” She turned, opened the silverware drawer, fished out two forks, and laid them atop the pie pan. “Go give that boy a taste of the South, in all the ways that count.” She shimmied on her way to the stairs, throwing an exaggerated wink over her shoulder. Miller buried his face in his shoulder, stifling a half groan, half laugh. Good to know, at forty, that he could still be embarrassed by his mother.
He turned toward the downstairs master suite where Clancy had passed out after dinner, the jet lag finally catching up to him, but then Miller paused, set the pie back down on the island, and opened the built-in wine fridge. He contemplated for a moment, needing something bright and acidic to balance out the sweetness of the pie. He spied the top row of tall, slender bottles with the swirl logo on the foil, his mother’s favorite dessert wine from a small vineyard he’d discovered in Ramona. He hoped she wouldn’t mind him filching one. He tucked it under his arm, grabbed a couple glasses from the cabinet, pocketed a corkscrew, and picked the pie back up, careful not to let the forks slide off. Balancing his bounty, he headed again for the master suite and pushed the cracked door open with his toe.
Clancy was awake, wrapped in a blanket and sitting curled up on the far end of the parlor couch. The shades were raised on all the floor-to-ceiling windows and Clancy had opened the two corner ones closest to where he huddled, letting in the sounds and smells of the ocean. A single lamp dimly lit the room, casting much of it in shadow, but there was enough light to see the soft, contented smile on Clancy’s face.
Miller pushed the door closed with his heel, making his presence known. “Didn’t realize you were up.”
Clancy increased the wattage on his smile to full stunning, and Miller barely felt the chill from the open windows. “Was giving you and Michelle some time.”
“How about I give you some dessert?” Miller flicked his gaze down to the pie dish as he stepped toward the couch.
Clancy uncurled a leg, halfway to bounding up. “Oh, sorry, let me help!”
Miller shook his head. “No, here, just take these.” He handed Clancy the glasses, then shifted sideways so Clancy could slide the wine bottle out from under his arm. He lowered himself onto the edge of the couch next to Clancy, set the pie pan on Clancy’s knees, and fished the corkscrew out of his pocket. Retrieving the bottle, he got to work cutting through the foil and twisting into the cork. “You like it here?”
“It’s mesmerizing.” Clancy’s gaze drifted back out the windows to the sea beyond the dunes. “Especially with the water and sound all around.”
Miller couldn’t agree more. Located on Oak Island’s southernmost point, just across the inlet from Sheep Island and Holden Beach, the vacation home was surrounded on three sides by dunes and water. Knowing he’d spend a good part of his early career moving, Miller, when he’d saved enough to buy real estate, had bought this place. While his parents still lived in Southport, they’d downsized to a condo as soon as his youngest sister had fled the nest. But he and his sisters still regularly visited, and Miller had wanted to provide the place his amazing family had always deserved. “This is the one asset I haven’t set about liquidating,” he said, as he filled their wineglasses. “I bought it as a place for my family to gather.”
“It’s gorgeous.”
“I’m going to sell it.”
“What?” Clancy twisted around so fast that Miller had to speed juggle, shoving the bottle between his knees and creating a barrier with the glasses, slowing the pie’s careening trajectory off Clancy’s lap.
“Save the pie!” Miller exclaimed, lau
ghing as he remembered Clancy’s “save the chowder” at Oscar’s. The timing of the memory couldn’t be more perfect.
Clancy rescued the tin pan from the edge, wrapping the full length of his forearms around it. “Okay, the pie’s safe,” he said, once it was firmly back in his lap. “But I’m having trouble following the thread.”
Miller handed him a glass, moved the bottle to the floor, and picked up the fallen silverware. He wiped it off on his pant leg, handed Clancy a fork, and peeled off the tinfoil. Buttery aromas, from the pie filling and the homemade crust, filled the air. Clancy inhaled deep, eyelids fluttering.
“Try the pie first,” Miller said. “Please.”
“I have no idea what’s going on, except pie.” He took a sip of the wine, then dug into the pie. His lips had barely closed around the tines when his face lit up. It was the same look of wonder and discovery that Miller had been falling in love with on each stop of their tour. He was thinking it was his favorite Clancy expression, until he remembered his lover’s blissed-out face after the sixty-nine in Laguna. Food-blissed-out was a close second.
“What is this?” Clancy asked around his next bite.
“The pie I promised you.” He extended his right arm. “Chess pie, my mother’s recipe.”
Clancy traced again the ingredients Miller had spelled out for him in New York.
“Like I said then, it’s rather simple.”
“Simple but delicious,” Clancy replied.
“Which is what I should have been cooking all along. You helped me see that.” He took Clancy’s glass, set it on the floor with his, and moved the pie pan there next. Righting himself, he took both of Clancy’s hands in his. “If I make it through this treatment, if I can taste, or hell, if you can taste test and tell me if it’s good, I want to open a new restaurant and that pie will be the centerpiece.”
Clancy’s face filled with bright, beaming hope. “That sounds wonderful, but you don’t have to sell this place to finance it. I’m sure we can find backers—”