Chapter 11 Evan
EVAN
With a sigh, Evan shut his laptop and sat back in the uncomfortable chair, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
He’d had a video call with his team back in San Francisco, and it had taken longer than he’d expected to wrap things up.
He was tired and on edge after a night of not sleeping and a morning of tense family interactions and trying to put out fires thousands of miles away.
All he wanted was to lie down, or at the very least to keep working until Reign’s immediate problems were solved.
But Evan knew he needed to go downstairs and see what his family was doing, even though the thought was not appealing at all.
He’d been gone a few hours. They’d probably said terrible things to Mia, and she’d be ready to get on the next plane home.
And he wouldn’t be able to blame her. After all, he had abandoned her, and his family could be very snide when they wanted to be.
Sighing and rubbing his aching eyes again, Evan stood and stretched.
Then, slowly, he went downstairs, dragging his feet as he went.
He had a headache. He was hungry. He didn’t want to be here, and he felt terrible about having left Mia alone with his family.
It had been a mistake to bring her. He should have put up with his family’s usual passive-aggressive comments about his love life and been done with it.
At the front desk, he smiled at the receptionist, who directed him downstairs. “They’re in the cellar,” he explained. “They’re having a wine-tasting and cooking lesson.”
“Thank you,” Evan said. He descended into the kitchens, the warmth of the day turning pleasantly cool.
To his surprise, he heard music, singing, laughter, and the clanking of pots and pans coming from behind the kitchen door.
Maybe there was another event here and he was hearing the noises from that, because he had never heard such laughter, much less singing, from his own family.
He nudged the door open, and his eyes widened.
His whole extended family was in the kitchen wearing monogrammed aprons smeared with tomato sauce and flour.
His aunt Tabitha was holding a wooden spoon and singing into it as her sons, Evan’s cousins, clapped a rhythm in tune with the song that was playing.
She had a surprisingly good voice. His parents were standing shoulder to shoulder, laughing, as they tried to decide if a strand of linguine was appropriately cooked or not.
Luka was feeding Sarah a spoonful of tomato sauce from a bubbling pot.
In the corner, a few of his other cousins leaned against a table, drinking wine.
In the middle of it all stood Mia, who was scooping fragrant, fresh pesto from a blender as she laughed with his parents over the linguine.
“See, this one seems too chewy,” Arthur was saying.
“I think that’s called al dente, dear,” Ellen replied.
“Well, try it with some pesto,” Mia suggested, holding out the blender. “Maybe that’ll help.”
Ellen scooped a piece of linguine through the sauce and popped it into her mouth.
“That’ll do. Thanks, Mia.”
Evan had to do a double-take. Was she really getting along with his family? And was his mom really listening to her? Just then, Mia looked up and spotted him. She hurried over, and he saw tomato sauce on her apron and a streak of flour on her forehead. She was grinning.
“Evan, you made it!”
“I had a call, and—”
“Well, you’re here now.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the kitchen to her workstation. “You have to try what we’ve made!”
The song ended, and everyone paused to applaud Tabitha.
“Thank you, thank you,” she said as she bowed.
“I never knew you could sing,” Arther said, beckoning her over.
“You never asked.” Tabitha winked and sauntered back to her own workstation. Evan felt like he’d stepped into a parallel universe. He hadn’t known she could sing, either.
“What did you do to them?” he whispered to Mia as she scooped up a spoonful of pesto and handed it to him by the handle. Their fingers brushed, and he tried to ignore the tingling sensation from the small contact.
She shrugged, grinning. “Some secrets need to stay secret. But I will say that the wine helped. A lot. Now, try this.”
Evan put the spoon into his mouth and nodded approvingly. The pesto was fresh, fragrant, and just the right amount of cheesy.
“Delicious.”
“I helped make it,” Mia said with a grin.
“Helped being the operative word,” Luka added, laughing.
“Hey, I was super helpful.” Mia put her hands on her hips, her tone mock-serious.
“Sure, you were. Though I was the real MVP of the cooking class.” Luka winked, and she leaned across the counter to punch his arm. “Try the sauce now, Bro.”
“This is our real masterpiece,” Sarah put in. “I never knew I could be so great at cooking.” She flicked her hair, making everyone laugh.
“Well, you were definitely here when the cooking happened,” Mia teased.
“You’re one to talk!” Sarah laughed. Luka held out a spoonful of the tomato sauce, which Evan tried. He nodded.
“That’s great, too.”
“Too right it is.” Luka put his arm around Sarah. “Now, no more working, little bro. You have to come to the next event.”
“You really do,” Mia put in. Evan looked between their enthusiastic faces, and any possibility of getting something done today drifted away.
“What is it?” he asked grudgingly.
“Dinner!” Sarah said.
“Okay, I think I can make time for that,” Evan said, smiling. He did have to eat, anyway.
“But first, you have to make up for not being here during most of the cooking part,” Mia said.
“What do you want me to do?”
The others exchanged a glance. “Let’s see. I think you should wash all the dishes,” Mia said.
Evan’s eyes widened as he looked around at the piles and piles of dirty dishes all over the kitchen. Everyone burst into laughter.
“No, no, how about you cut the bread?” Sarah suggested. “We’re supposed to finish up by making a bruschetta appetizer.”
“I can do that,” Evan told her. He found a wooden cutting board, a knife, and a loaf of fresh Tuscan sourdough.
“Wait!” Mia threaded to the other side of the kitchen and returned moments later with an apron, which she passed over his head. Her hands brushed against his lower back as she knotted the ties, and Evan was all too aware of her touch. “We all have matching aprons, and you need one too.”
“Now can I start?” Evan asked, grinning.
“Nope.” Sarah took a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and pressed it onto Evan’s apron. “Okay, now you match the rest of us, so now you can start.”
“Good work.” Mia held up a hand to high-five Sarah, who slapped it.
“Thanks.”
As Evan sliced the bread, he found himself marveling that this could really be his family.
They weren’t the kind of jokey, friendly family who told each other everything and had boisterous, fun-filled gatherings.
They were more the kind of people who made stilted conversation about work and mutual acquaintances before escaping off to their own rooms.
Now, around him, his parents were joking with Luka about some kind of sauce-based incident while Sarah fetched everyone another round of wine. Evan paused his work to take a sip of the wine, which was earthy and rich.
“What do you think?” he asked Mia, holding up the empty glass.
“I have absolutely no idea.” She giggled. “But I know this is pretty fun.”
“Thank you for putting up with all this,” Evan added quietly, leaning a little closer. He smelled her perfume, something with notes of jasmine, along with the scent of basil and tomatoes. Up close, he could see the streak of flour on her forehead and was tempted to wipe it away with his thumb.
“It’s actually been fun.” Mia grinned, stepping back. “Now, get back to work. We have bread to slice!”
Within about ten more minutes, the last of the cooking was finished.
The chefs who’d been overseeing the cooking lesson came around, offering praise and some feedback, then they moved the food upstairs for an early dinner on the patio outside the villa.
All sixteen members of the extended Hirst family gathered around a long wooden table decorated with fresh flowers and beautiful blue dishes.
The sun began to set, casting the sky in dusky blues.
As they settled in, Evan looked around at the dishes.
All the cooking groups seemed to have made the same thing: two kinds of pasta, one with tomato sauce and the other with pesto, and a bruschetta appetizer.
There were also bowls of salad and fried arancini, as well as more wine, which had been provided by the chefs.
“I’m willing to bet that our pesto pasta is the best,” one of Evan’s cousins piped up. “Everyone, give it a try, and you’ll see.”
“I wouldn’t be so confident,” Luka replied, holding up his own bowl of pesto pasta. “We have a secret ingredient in ours. And it’s definitely the best.” He gave a stern look around the table. “Definitely.”
“And what might the secret ingredient be?” Arthur asked. “Because I was right there, and I don’t know anything about it.”
“Busted!” one of Evan’s uncles called. Everyone laughed. Again, Evan could hardly believe that this was happening. They were joking with each other as though they were all friends, not family.
“Okay, okay,” Mia said, patting the air with both hands. “We can solve this fairly. Everyone, take a little bit of each of the pesto pastas, and we’ll have a competition.”
Evan winced. No way his family was going to go for that. Instead of the silence he’d expected, though, there were cheers and shouts of approval as the pasta bowls traveled around the table — as well as a little smack talk, mostly from Luka.
“You’re really a miracle worker,” Evan whispered to Mia. She winked, brushing her hair behind her ear.
“It’s called classroom management,” she told him. “Now, if you don’t rate our pesto pasta as the winner, we are going to have problems.” She winked.
“Well, I wouldn’t want that.” Evan took a scoop of the pasta she’d handed him. Amazingly, she didn’t even seem upset about his month of silence or his abandoning her to his family’s clutches anymore. How she was seemingly able to have fun in any situation, Evan didn’t know, but he was impressed.
The pasta made by one of Evan’s uncles and his family won the first competition, but a second competition quickly broke out over the bruschetta and the tomato pasta.
More wine flowed as everyone took their favorites from the earlier tastings, and laughter filled the evening air.
The sky grew duskier overhead as long shadows stretched across the fields.
The air smelled like Italian food and fresh-cut vegetation.
“So, I thought you said you weren’t a good cook, but this is great,” Evan said as he took a bite of the bruschetta.
“I really can’t cook.” Mia chuckled. “I can barely boil water. But it was fun to try. How about you? Can you cook?”
“Not really,” Evan admitted. “I can just about boil water, too, but I’m much more adept at ordering food. I have a delivery service that sends me a week’s worth of meals every Monday.”
“Oof.” Mia shook her head. “You’re even worse than me. At least I make my own salads and pour my own cereal and stuff.”
“I pour my own cereal.” He winked. “I’m not so rich that I have a professional cereal pourer.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know.” Mia grinned. “You’re rich enough to fly private and do stuff like this.”
“Touché.” Evan raised his glass to her. “Anyway, I would have thought you’d like cooking.” He sipped his wine.
“Why?” Mia raised her eyebrows.
“Well, it has a lot of math in it. You know, three tomatoes, four cups of sugar, that kind of thing.”
“First, I don’t know what you’re making with that many tomatoes and that much sugar.
” Mia laughed. “And second, cooking and math are basically opposites, in my book. In math, you follow a process, and the right answer comes out. In cooking, even if you follow the recipe, things can go wrong, and you can end up with a burned mess.”
“Okay, then how about I say that cooking is like teaching?” Evan suggested. “Both involve an element of chaos and unpredictability.”
“Clearly, you haven’t been to one of my lessons. They aren’t that chaotic.” Mia winked. “But by that logic, you should like spending time with people, because your company focuses on project management and HR issues, which are basically people management. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“I like people,” Evan protested. At her look, he admitted, “Well, some people. But the reason I work on HR and project-management software is because it means less time with people.”
“Come on, though.” Mia gestured to his family, who were laughing and talking and passing food. “You have to admit that this is kind of fun.”
Evan swept his gaze across the people at the table and nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” He was enjoying his family, and this trip, more than he’d expected. A small part of him was even disappointed that he’d missed the cooking session.
“What are you two lovebirds chatting about?” Aunt Tabitha leaned across the table.
“Nothing, just work,” Evan said quickly.
“It’s all work with you, Evan.” She shook her head. “Loosen up a little. You’re on vacation, at your brother’s wedding, no less.” She glanced at Mia and winked. “And maybe you’ll be hearing wedding bells yourself, sooner or later.”
“Hey,” Evan said. He knew he should say more, but he wasn’t sure how to answer. He’d been ready to deal with his family’s usual accusations that he never brought a date and that he needed to work less, but suggesting that he was going to marry Mia soon was something new.
“That’s our business,” Mia said smoothly, smiling at Tabitha. “But if anything changes, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.” She winked. “Anyway, that was some beautiful singing earlier today. Have you ever taken lessons?”
“Oh, no.” Tabitha waved her off. “You flatter me, dear. Though I did always think I could have sung professionally…” She talked for a while about singing and her hobbies before pausing. “You know, Evan, your girlfriend is a real keeper.”
“I agree,” Evan said. He glanced at Mia, and something stirred in his chest. She wasn’t his, not in any sense of the word, but she was a keeper.
If they were actually dating, if Evan were willing to date anyone, he’d have lucked out.
As it was, though, Mia was nothing more than his partner in crime for this wedding, and not someone he could “keep.”
That was the agreement. So why did his heart sink at the thought that, after this wedding, he’d never see her again?
Maybe the month of distance he’d put between them hadn’t been enough.
He needed to pull back further. But it was going to be very difficult now that they were stuck together with his meddlesome family, while sharing a room, for a week.