Chapter 18 #2
When I glanced at Teller, I caught the shit-starting sparkle in his eye. My tension slowly drained. “You mean it’ll be a best-selling book about to be on shelves all over the nation? A book with a little flavor?”
Teller lifted a shoulder, the shine in his gaze growing. “You don’t need to flavor perfection.”
“I’ve never been a boring guy,” I countered, distinctly aware of how much I was enjoying the casual interplay.
“Maybe we should ask Wynter,” Summer said, as much of a troublemaker as Teller.
I reclined in my chair, mashed potatoes forgotten. “Well?” I asked Wynn.
Her eyes widened. Was that a bad sign?
“Oh, uh, I mean…” She winced. “You do work all the time. And you live in the distillery.”
“Is that allowed?” Tate asked, incredulous. “A residence under the same roof as a distillery? The regulations are pretty fu—darn tight.”
“It was tricky, and it took a few years to get approval.” I would’ve lived in the loft anyway.
Fuck regulations. But if I wanted a place for people to come to work every day, I couldn’t flaunt regulations.
“The way the old mine was built, it was like a series of additions. I kept that in mind during the remodel.”
“Always figuring out how to work around the rules and get what you want, Foster.” Just when I’d thought Tate had meant it as a dig, he shot a playful glare at Wynn. “Just like someone else I know.”
She fake gasped. “I resemble that remark.”
Laughter filled the table until Tate bugged Junie about the record deal she was working on. After we were done eating, and everyone was vacating their chairs, I started gathering plates.
Mae put her hand on my arm. I hadn’t realized she was right next to me. “Let’s get a drink and go out on the porch.”
I’d meant to help clean up, but I wouldn’t argue with Mae. The porch was the quiet area. If Mae was on the porch with a kid, no one else would be allowed out until she was done.
At the edge of the dining room, Mae went to a wooden bar about four feet tall, the top lined with bottles. I’d gotten the idea for my office from this. She withdrew two glasses from a bottom cupboard and poured two fingers of a Copper Summit bottle I didn’t recognize.
She handed me a glass with a sad glint in her eyes. “Darin’s special barrel, just for us.”
I dropped my chin. This family had a way of making me feel like so much a part of them, a lifeline for the next moment when I was back to being a kid with no real home.
On the porch, we were surrounded by uncharacteristically humid air and the sound of frogs and crickets. I’d had a hard time adjusting to the sound of the city after I first left Montana. Part of the reason why it’d been so important for me to live at Foster House.
Mae sat in a wooden rocking chair I doubted was from a big box store. Darin and Mae went out of their way to support local crafters. She gestured to the one on the other side of a small round table. “Have a seat.” She took a sip and slowly rocked.
I did the same. Smooth notes of vanilla, oak, and caramel caressed my tongue.
No one would think Montana could make better bourbon than Kentucky, the birthplace of bourbon, where the weather was perfect for production because the drink was literally a product of the Kentucky environment.
Maybe I was partial, and no bourbon anywhere would measure up to a Bailey-made product in the heart of Montana. Either way, the shit was good.
“How’s it really going?” She pinned me with her direct gaze. “Do you still talk to—”
“Apologies, Mae. But remember what Chance learned?”
She smiled, pride in her eyes. “I always admired the limits you set for yourself. You needed them.”
Grateful for her understanding and surprised at the intensity of my desire to tell her anyway, I answered her first question. “I’m fine. I really am.”
She rocked, the soft brush of wood against wood mingling with nature sounds. “What are your hobbies?”
“I love what I do.”
She gave me that sharp look. The undercurrent of sadness was new, and likely permanent.
I’d never embraced my empathy, but I let it out tonight.
I felt for Mae. “Do you really?” she asked.
“It’s not just a way out, and you don’t work all the time because you have to show everyone what a good kid you are? ”
“I never cared about proving I was a decent person.”
“Not really.” She took another sip. “Unless it was to someone you cared about. We saw that. You wanted the boys to see you were a good worker and that you’d never hurt the girls. You wouldn’t tell them, but you wanted them to be smart enough to see it. And they did.”
I latched on to the sound of her steady rocking. For a guy who’d been invisible much of his life, it was unnerving to be seen.
She tapped a finger against her glass. “Darin saw it. It was easy. You were a bundle of chaotic, defensive energy, but you kept it in a cloud around you. You lashed out verbally, but only as needed. You never instigated, you waited. The boys still see it, or you wouldn’t be under the roof.”
“I really am sorry about Darin, Mae.” I didn’t say it to distract from what she was saying. When I’d first called her, she’d been so surprised, so delighted, my condolences weren’t more than perfunctory.
“I am, too,” she said quietly. “But you know, if he had to die, I’m glad it happened like this.
He even said it. The long months of feeling like shit, being sick from chemo, he said he’d gladly suffer if it gave the kids time to process his loss.
If it’d make the funeral a time to celebrate and reflect on all the good memories and bond over having been his kids, he’d gladly bear the burden.
It’s, uh…” She inhaled a shuddering breath.
“It’s why he did chemo when his chances were so low.
He was okay with dying, he wasn’t okay with dying quickly. ”
Goddamn. The burn was back, but instead of my chest, the pain went from my head down to my toes. He hadn’t been my parent, not really, but Darin had been one of the very few adults in my life who’d truly cared. To use Mae’s words, I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t been.
Was this what Wynn had been hiding from? I would’ve moved her out of her city apartment and into my loft to keep her from being by herself with this loss.
“He was a good man,” I said roughly.
“He was.” Rock, rock, rock. She stared into the distance where the sun had sunk below the horizon and thick, building clouds blocked its fading rays. “Looks like rain tonight,” she murmured and gave me a sidelong glance. “Judging from the humidity, might even storm.”