Chapter 18 #2
He might have gone a little hard at the store this morning, knowing Penny was coming over.
He’d been so busy wondering what she might want to eat, he’d barely noticed the way the clerk—a woman probably close to his mom’s age—had looked him up and down like he might have stolen goods stashed in his hoodie.
“Turkey’s good.” Penny shuffled papers around for a moment before tsking. “We can’t put Neat Knit next to Light Up My Life, it’ll be a disaster.”
“Why not? And do you like mayo?”
“Yes to the mayo. And we have to separate them because Janice, who owns Neat Knit, is Noreen’s cousin’s ex and there’s some bad blood there.”
Zander dropped two pieces of sourdough in the toaster. “And Noreen is…”
“Noreen owns Light Up My Life. She sells candles with inspirational sayings on the containers, like Live, Laugh, Love and Dance Like No One Is Watching.”
“I see.” Zander worked on constructing the sandwich, hoping he was using the right amount of mayo and perfect leaves of lettuce, because he wanted Penny to really like this sandwich. “And Janice and Noreen’s cousin had a particularly bad parting?”
“Well.” Penny lowered her voice. “If you believe my mom’s telling of it, Janice’s husband, Antonio, suggested they open their marriage.
And when they did, Janice had a lot more takers than Antonio, and suddenly the arrangement didn’t look so good to him and he tried to shut it down.
But at that point, Janice was way happier.
And when she left him, his whole family kinda ganged up on her, including Noreen. ”
“Seriously?” Zander cut the sandwich down the middle and placed the triangles on an orange plate, then added a garnish of sliced strawberries. “All of this is happening in Sullivan’s Glen, and somehow I’m still a matter of public interest? I can’t hold a candle to Janice and Noreen.”
“Yes, but you’re new. Or new again. We small-town gossips love fresh blood.”
“Do you?” He slid the plate in front of her and dropped into a chair to her left. “What are the local gossips saying about me lately?”
Either it was his imagination, or Penny shifted his way a few inches. “Mostly they have questions for me. They seem to think I have some special insight.”
He lifted his brows. “I wonder why they’d think that?”
Under the table, Penny’s knee brushed against his, sending a jolt right up his thigh.
Less than twenty-four hours ago he’d had his fingers inside her, had left her looking obscene with her shirt pushed up to her neck as he finished on her pale skin. But this—their knees touching, the sandwich he’d made for her on the table—was deliciously intimate. Kitchen intimate, the best kind.
“And what do they want to know?”
“What you’re like now, what kind of father you are, why you’re back.” She hesitated, then looked at the table. “Why you didn’t come back sooner.”
“Ah.” He swallowed hard. “And what do you say?”
“That you’re a perfectly normal person, if a little stubborn.
” Penny’s eyes found his again. “That you seem like a great father. That you’re back to help your family, to sell the house.
” Her hand slid over his, so light on the backs of his knuckles that he barely felt it.
“And that I don’t know why you didn’t come back sooner, but I imagine you have your reasons, and that those are your business. ”
He was saved from having to respond to her generosity by Winter wandering into the room, eyes still on the screen of his device. Penny’s hand slipped away like a breeze.
“Hey, bud. Let’s put that down now, okay? You’re in a room with other humans.”
Winter hummed in response but didn’t look up, and he slumped into the chair across the table from Penny.
“Winter.”
Still not looking up, Winter answered with a gruff “What?”
Zander held back a wince. It burned each time his kid used that tone with him, like Zander was the enemy. “I asked you to put that down.”
“In a minute.”
“No.” He let out a long breath. “Now, please. You’re at the table with us. You know we don’t do screens at the table.”
“Unless it’s your screen,” his son mumbled. “Then it’s fine. Because you’re working.”
Each successful restaurant launch had come with greater demands for Zander’s attention, and he’d fallen into the bad pattern of returning emails and texts all the time. A pattern he was happy to disrupt with this break from work over the summer.
“Okay,” he said. “You made your point. Now put it away, or we’ll have to reassess how much gaming time you have each day.”
This, finally, got Winter to look up. “And then what am I supposed to do? Hang out with all the friends I don’t have here?”
It hit like a punch to Zander’s chest. “Hey, buddy, we can look for—”
“Forget it.” Winter stood, slamming the gaming device on the table, making the jar of flowers wobble. His hard, closed look made Zander ache. He could see how much his kid was trying to be tough, how much conflict brewed behind his eyes. It was like looking back in time into a mirror.
“I can see you need some space,” Zander said calmly. More calmly than any adult had ever spoken to him when he was being a pain in the ass, which wasn’t saying much. “Maybe you should take a break in your room. When you’re ready to come back down, I’ll make you some food.”
They stared at each other for a moment, but then Winter stormed out.
Zander let his face fall into his hands.
Penny—whom he’d shopped for and cut a sandwich into perfect triangles for because he was trying to show her that he was worth her time—had just watched him have another stupid fight with his kid.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said finally through a lump in his throat.
Penny’s voice was soft beside him. “Don’t worry about it. That’s normal family stuff.”
He looked up. “Is it? I think that’s half my problem. I don’t know what’s normal. I read books, and I talk to my therapist, but it’s like I’m making the map as I go, you know?”
She looked at him kindly, generously, and it only made him feel worse.
“I’ve pissed so many people off in my life, Penny. I’ve had grown men shout at me in the middle of a busy kitchen. I’ve had my own mom tell me I wasn’t much more than a drain on her bank account. But when Winter looks at me like that? Like he can’t stand me? It scares me so fucking much.”
Her hand covered his again, and this time Zander let himself flip his palm over and watch as she threaded her fingers through his.
“What scares you?”
“Mal swears this is all normal. I know logically she’s right.” He slowed his breathing to the rhythm of Penny’s thumb rubbing his knuckles. “I’m just so scared of him deciding I’m not worth it.”
Of Winter rejecting him the same way he’d cut off his mom and Papou.
Penny looked at him for a minute, then pulled her hand free and stood to move to the counter, where she started constructing a sandwich. He watched her build the layers, cut the whole thing into triangles, and pull a blue plate from the dish rack.
She lowered the plate in front of him and returned to her seat.
The sandwich was maybe the best thing he’d ever seen.
“When I tell the gossips you seem like a great dad, I mean it. You’re showing up for Winter, giving him the love you should have gotten more of yourself.
You can’t see into the future and know what your relationship will always look like, but you’re breaking patterns.
You’re creating something different for him than what you were given, and you should be proud of yourself. ”
Stunned, Zander blinked back the heat in his eyes. When he opened his mouth to say anything—Really? Thank you? What am I to you?—no words pressed through.
Penny smiled and nodded to the festival map. “Now eat something, and I’ll tell you why Carrie’s Homemade Jewelry can’t even be in the same row as Rasheed’s Ten-Minute Massage Stand.”
Zander cleared his throat. “All right. But if a juicy scandal isn’t involved, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.”