Well, that was bad news. The good news? Barney, who had worked under Sean for years at the Napa restaurant and been only too happy to move east and join Sean in his new venture, had the soul of a pit bull version of Martha Stewart when it came to making sure things in the kitchen ran smoothly and on time.
“I assume you knocked a few heads together?” Sean asked, an unnecessary question.
“Let’s just say I made some people shit their pants. The fish’ll be here by three at the very latest.” Barney winced at Serena. “Sorry for the language, ma’am.”
“Don’t mind me,” Serena said happily. “Whatever you have to do to pull this thing together by opening and making my son’s restaurant a huge success is fine by me.”
“You got it, ma’am,” Barney said, saluting her with a tip of his black cotton chef’s skullcap as he hurried off to have an urgent word with one of the line cooks, whose carrot slicing was evidently not up to snuff.
“Barney’s my bad cop, in case you hadn’t put that together,” Sean told them. “He does all the heavy lifting when I need an asshole on my side.”
“Looks like you chose well,” Dara said, laughing as she stared after Barney.
Mike didn’t say anything.
Sean felt his tension level ratchet higher through his shoulders. Deciding to continue his policy of ignoring Mike, he focused on his crew and raised a hand.
“Now’s a good time to break for lunch,” he told them. “Take half an hour. Get some fresh air. Say goodbye to sunlight because you won’t be seeing it for a while.”
“Thanks, Chef,” they said, pulling off their hats and untying their aprons as they streamed out of the kitchen.
“Bye, Chef.”
“Later, Chef.”
“I love how they call you Chef,” Serena said, exchanging impressed grins with Dara.
“Me too,” Dara said.
Nothing from Mike.
“Come check out my stoves over here,” Sean said quickly, determined not to hang his entire mood on what Mike said or didn’t say. “These babies can do any—”
The door from the back hallway flapped open just then, and in walked Nigel and Ada.
“Come on over, folks,” Sean said, holding an arm out to them and relieved to have these additional friendly faces to balance out Mike’s Glare of Doom. “Folks, these are my Cincinnati folks. Mama, Mike and Dara, meet Nigel and Ada Harper. My surrogate parents and bosses.”
“It’s so nice to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you!” Serena and Ada told each other, laughing and hugging like sisters separated at birth but now reunited.
Greetings were exchanged all around. Hands shaken. Hugs given.
When it was all said and done, Sean stood between Nigel and Ada, who each slung an arm around him and regarded him as though he’d cured climate change by snapping his fingers.
“We’re so proud of Sean, Serena,” Ada said mistily. “He’s worked his fingers to the bone for this restaurant. We could never have rebuilt after the fire without him and his determination. He’s completely turned this place around. I can’t wait for the opening. It’s going to be a huge success. I know it.”
“No need to get carried away,” Sean said, cheeks burning. “And don’t jinx it.”
“Hush, son,” Nigel said, shooting him a would-be severe look that was tempered by his deepening dimples. “Nobody asked for your input while we’re bragging on you. Serena, I keep telling him that he’s like my bonus sixth son. I hope you don’t mind sharing him with us. But we’re not giving him back at this point.”
“Well, our children are never ours to begin with, are they?” Serena fondly patted Sean’s face, which now felt so white-hot it was a wonder it didn’t set off the new overhead sprinkler system. “I’m just thrilled to see the boy so happy with his new career and new home. I can’t thank you two enough for being part of that.”
“Our pleasure. Sean’s made it possible for me to retire. You know that, don’t you?” Nigel said. “I put the restaurant in his capable hands and now I spend all my afternoons on the golf course. Win-win.”
“That could have really gone south on us,” Sean said, laughing. “Pops promised he’d give me the run of the place. Except that he’s known for his micromanaging. So I was braced for the worst. But it’s all worked out.”
Nigel leaned closer to Mike, adopting a conspiratorial whisper. “And wait until you taste his menu. The way Sean puts flavors together? He makes your taste buds sparkle.”
“All right, that’s enough. No one can live up to that glowing recommendation,” Sean said.
“You enjoy your tour,” Ada told Serena, Mike and Dara. “Make yourselves at home. And plan on having dinner at the house before you go back to Cincinnati. We’re headed off to lunch. That’s another benefit of Nigel’s retirement. He has time to take me out to lunch every now and then.”
“Wow, they’re great, aren’t they?” Dara said as Nigel and Ada waved and left the kitchen. “Sean, you have such a nice family here. They’re way better than us!”
Everyone laughed.
Except for Mike, who frowned down at the floor with those heavy brows of his. Even his five o’clock shadow seemed to disapprove of Sean.
Sean pointed at his favorite new appliance again. “So the thing about this stove is that it can handle—”
“I want to hear about your stove, honey, but tell us more about Amber first. It’s a mother’s prerogative to be nosy,” Serena said with unmitigated glee. “She seems lovely. Are you getting serious? That’s the only thing that could make me happier than seeing you with this beautiful new restaurant. To see you settle down and get married like your brother.”
Ah, there it was, Sean thought sourly. The first Like Mike of the weekend.
Make sure you try to be like your perfect brother and his perfect wife, Sean. Not that you ever could, but still. Try.
“Glad you liked her,” he said, determined to both steer the conversation back on solid ground before things got too personal and to not let any comparisons to Mike scrape his nerves, which were already raw. “I figured you would —”
“But do you think she’s the one?” Serena said brightly, undeterred. “At my age, I need to know how many more grandchildren I can expect.”
Now there was a tricky topic.
Did Sean think she was the one? Hell, yeah. So far, so good, right? The real issue was whether Amber thought he was the one. Or could one day be the one. Or might one day be worthy of spending time with her daughter.
But, as the Magic 8 Ball used to say back in the day, OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD. Especially given Amber’s reaction to Edward’s engagement announcement a little while ago.
Had she taken the news with the peaceful grace of a woman who has gotten over her ex?
No.
No, she had not.
She’d taken it like someone receiving the news that only ten minutes remained before that speeding meteor demolished all human life on earth.
And it wasn’t that Sean couldn’t give their relationship more time or wait for her to get used to the idea of him spending time with Ella. He had no problems with that at all. It was the fact that he’d thrown everything he had at their budding romance. He’d been a better man for Amber than he’d ever dreamed he could be. If any one of his past flirtations or girlfriends could see how he’d grown and matured for Amber, she’d have questioned whether he was the same person and then immediately keeled over in a dead faint.
He was proud of himself for becoming stronger and more open in the last few months. More supportive and giving. More protective. Which was what Amber and every other person out there deserved.
But…what if his newfound growth and maturity weren’t enough? What if his very best wasn’t enough to knock Edward from his place of honor in Amber’s heart?
His stomach cramped with the possibility that he’d fail with this relationship the way he’d failed in so many other important areas of his life.
What the fuck did
he think he’d do then? He was no magician. It wasn’t as if he had any hats filled with rabbits on standby.
“We’re getting that figured out,” Sean told his mother, doing his best to keep his expression and voice untroubled. “You’ll be the first to know when we do.”
Mike stirred for the first time in a long time, clearing his throat and opening his mouth as he met Sean’s gaze.
Sean braced himself, his hopes doing a crash and burn.
Here it came.
“She seemed great, man.” Mike hesitated. Seemed to gather his words with great care. “But that’s a lot. Single mom. Little kid. Baby daddy.”
Sean immediately bristled.
Once, a million years ago, back when they were kids, their father was alive and Mike was only his beloved older brother rather than Sean’s unforgiving taskmaster and harshest critic, they’d been able to talk to each other. There’d been a buffer of good feelings between them that allowed them to give each other the benefit of the doubt. To trust each other and their motives.
But then Dad died and everything went sideways, including their ability to communicate and understand each other. Mike became the man of the house and Sean became the house fuck-up.
Twisted, sure, but everyone needed a role to play in the family drama.
And now, years later, Mike had a perfect career, salary, wife, home and child-to-be. Sean, meanwhile, couldn’t even twist his girlfriend’s arm into letting him see her kid occasionally. Worse, he seemed to have fallen madly in love with a woman who was still madly in love with her kid’s father. And he’d realized it on the same weekend as the soft opening of a restaurant that would cause his career to either sink or swim.
This was not, in short, the time for dealing with Mike’s bullshit.
“What’s your point?” Sean asked aggressively.
Serena and Dara exchanged worried looks, but all of Sean’s attention centered irrevocably on his brother and that infuriating faux concern of his.
Mike shrugged, keeping his tone mild and his gaze inscrutable. “Just that there are a lot of moving parts here. You seem to care about her. I’d hate to see you get hurt. Watch yourself.”
“I get it,” Sean said bitterly. “You think I can’t handle the situation. That I’m biting off way more than I can chew. Don’t tiptoe around it. That’s never been your style. Go ahead and say it. You expect me to fuck this up.”
“Sean,” their mother hissed, ever the voice of peace and conciliation.
“Nope,” Mike said, his jaw tightening the way it always tightened whenever Sean disappointed him, which was at every time they saw each other. “I’d hate to see you get hurt. That’s all I’m saying. If there were more, I’d say it.”
Sean was not mollified. “Why not try saying something supportive? For once. Why not lead with a compliment about the restaurant? Even if you don’t really mean it, couldn’t you think of one nice thing to say before you start in with how I’m going to screw things up? Couldn’t you say, Sean, all the stainless steel looks nice and shiny or some such? Before you start in with how I’m going to get my heart smashed?”
Mike looked startled and furious. “What? What are you even talking about?”
“Mike,” Dara said, moving closer to Mike and putting a restraining hand on his arm. “Calm down.”
But there was no calming down. Not for Sean. Not today.
“I’m talking about you standing there like the Grim Reaper with that same disapproving look on your face the whole time I’ve been showing you my restaurant,” Sean said, his voice bouncing off all the hard surfaces in the room and sounding harsher than he’d intended. “I’m talking about you not mustering up a single compliment about all my hard work and accomplishments. Mom and Dara can, boy, but not you. Can’t say I’m surprised. You never have shit to say to me unless it’s to tell me how I’m going to screw something up or have screwed something up. Same old Mike.”
Mike looked incredulous. “Can you give me a minute? I was taking it all in.”
Sean snorted and got up in Mike’s face, the better to sneer at him. “Sure you were.”
“You boys stop this!” Their mother edged between them and backed them each up a step. “This is Sean’s big weekend. Why can’t we leave all of this nastiness in the past? This is the first time we’ve been together as a family for years— ”
But now was not the time for peacekeeping. Now was the time for getting a few things off Sean’s chest, for once and for all.
“This is between Mike and me, Mom,” Sean said impatiently. “Matter of fact, why don’t you give us a minute? Wait out in the dining room.”
“I don’t think we should leave you alone,” Dara said, a protective hand on her baby bump.
Mike’s flinty gaze shifted to her for half a second before reverting to Sean. “We’ll be fine. Thanks.”
“But —”
“Thanks,” Mike repeated, a hint of a smile softening his eyes as he looked at Dara again.
Dara snapped her mouth shut and zeroed in on Sean. “I know Mike gives you good reason sometimes, but please don’t kill him with all the sharp new knives. As a favor to me. I’d rather not have to raise this baby by myself. Okay?”
Sean discovered, much to his annoyance, that he still possessed a soft spot for Dara. “I’ll try, beautiful. No promises.”
“Stop calling my wife beautiful,” Mike snapped, flaring up again.
“Fuck you,” Sean said without missing a beat. “Your wife is beautiful. She and I were friends and I called her beautiful long before she met you.”
Mike’s expression turned murderous. “Don’t you dare—”
“Don’t you dare act like I’m still the reason you two can’t make nice.” Dara tapped her index finger on Mike’s chest for emphasis, startling him into silence. Then she turned her blistering glare on Sean, who winced because he hadn’t realized that pregnant women could be so vicious. “I have nothing to do with this. You two need to work your own mess out and leave me out of it.”
Dara put her hands on her hips, surveyed the menfolk and nodded with grim satisfaction when she heard no dissent.
“Come on, Mom.” Dara linked an arm through Serena’s and steered her toward the dining room door. “Let’s let these idiots hash it out.”
Serena cast a final worried glance at her sons as the women left, the door swinging shut behind them.
Then Sean and Mike faced off in brittle relative silence.
“Listen, jackass,” Mike said, spiking the hostilities back up to level eleven as soon as they were gone. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your hearing, but you’re picking up words I never said.”
Honest to God, Mr. Perfect was a freaking maestro when it came to pushing Sean’s buttons. A regular Leonard Bernstein.
“That’s hard to do since the only thing coming out of your mouth all morning is that you think I’m going to screw up my relationship,” Sean snarled. “I definitely heard you say that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Maybe you didn’t actually say it, but you didn’t have to. You think I can’t read between your lines by now? You were thinking that I can’t handle the responsibility of a woman who has a kid. Weren’t you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
By that point, Sean didn’t even care what answers Mike gave. Sean had things to say and nothing was going to stop him.
“What the fuck do you know about my relationship? You haven’t been here this whole time. You haven’t seen how Amber and I bend over backward to communicate and to support each other. You haven’t seen how good we are together. You don’t know that I want the best for Amber and her daughter. You don’t know that I would do anything to make sure those two females are happy.”
“Sean—”
“I don’t know whether our relationship is going to work out in the end, but it if it falls apart it won’t be because I didn’t hold up my half of it. We clear? So why don’t you shut the fuck up and keep your judgmental
attitude to yourself. For once.”
To his astonishment, Mike held his hands up in an uncharacteristic gesture of surrender, leaned against the nearest steel table and waited for Sean to continue, brows raised.
Mike’s sudden passivity only served to fire Sean up more.
“And don’t stand there judging me. Looking at me like I’m a loser just because I’ve never been perfect like you. I don’t have a perfect life, okay? I wasn’t born under your lucky star. I’m never going to be like Mike. But you have no idea how hard I’ve been working on my career and my relationship. You have no idea how much I’ve grown since I flunked out of law school and you got the girl. So don’t stand there looking at me like I’m the idiot I once was. Because I’m not. And I don’t need your judgments.”
It took a few seconds for the lingering reverberations of Sean’s manic soliloquy to taper off, during which time Sean caught his breath and realized he’d really gone off the rails. That was what stress did to a person, he supposed. Still, he didn’t exactly make his own case for new growth and maturity when he ranted at his brother, who stood quietly watching with the peaceful serenity of the Dalai Lama.
“You done?” Mike asked when the silence became awkward and Sean’s cheeks burned worse than ever.
“Yeah.”
“Can I speak now? Tell you what I actually think now that you’ve given me your dramatic interpretation of what you think I’m thinking?”
Sean shrugged, beginning to feel sheepish. “Fine.”
Mike took a minute. Cleared his throat.
“I’ve been spending the morning thinking about how much you’ve grown and changed. How proud I am of you for figuring out what you want to do with your life and getting it done after the setbacks you’ve had. How proud Dad would have been of you. How sorry I am that he’s not here to see all this and that I was so hard on you in the past. I always tried to do my best by you and set a good example as your older brother, but my frustration ran out of control a lot of the time. Especially when Dara entered the picture.” Mike’s voice broke at the end, requiring him to take a beat before he continued. “Mostly I’ve been thinking how Amber will have to answer to me if she does anything to rock your boat when you’ve come this far and turned into such a good guy. That’s what I was thinking.”
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