14. Evan
Evan
Tania is elbow-deep in flour when I walk into the kitchen.
“What’s happening here?”
She looks up, and her hair is tied back, her apron dusted white. “I’m making pies. For tomorrow.”
I tilt my head to the side. “We have a chef for that.”
“I know.” She dumps more flour onto the counter. “But the pies are for Thanksgiving. I want to make them, and you’re helping.”
Callum walks into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. “Helping with what?”
“Pie.” Tania points to an apron hanging on the hook. “Put that on.”
He stares at it, then looks back at her. “I don’t bake.”
“You do now.” She tosses him the apron.
He catches it one-handed, grinning. “I love it when you’re bossy.”
Tania winks at him.
She tosses me the other apron, and both Callum and I resign ourselves to baking Thanksgiving desserts.
We’re standing at the counter, three of us shoulder to shoulder, and Tania’s already mixing butter and flour with her hands.
“Apple and pumpkin,” she announces. “Two of each. So we need four crusts.”
“Four pies?” I ask. “Who will be at dinner? I thought it was you, Ben, your mom, and the three of us.”
Tania looks up. “Six people. Four pies.”
“That’s a lot of pies for six people.”
Callum leans against the counter. “I could eat a whole pie.”
“See?” Tania gestures at him with the wooden spoon. “And Ben will want leftovers. We will want leftovers. That’s why it’s always good to make extra. It’s better to have too much than not enough.”
Callum and I exchange a look.
I let out a small laugh. “Four pies it is.”
Callum picks up the bag of flour. “How hard can it be?”
“Don’t!” I try to grab it from him.
Too late. He dumps half the bag onto the counter, and there’s a white cloud everywhere. I cough. Tania shrieks and covers her face.
When the air clears, we’re all covered.
Callum’s hair. My shirt. Tania’s forearms.
She stares at him, then starts laughing. “Oh my God.”
Callum looks down at himself, covered head to toe in white powder. He brushes at his shirt, making it worse. But he’s smiling.
I’m trying to wipe flour off my face, but it’s everywhere. “We need to clean this up before we do anything else.”
Tania’s already grabbing paper towels. “The counter first. Then we can start over.”
I grab the vacuum.
We spend the next five minutes cleaning up and wiping down surfaces. Callum shakes flour out of his hair over the sink. I brush off my shirt and arms. Tania damps a towel and wipes the counter until it’s clean again.
“Okay.” She surveys the damage. “New rule. I measure the flour.”
Callum holds up both hands. “I’m not going to argue with that.”
She walks us through it. How to cut the butter into the flour. How much water to add. How to know when the dough is ready.
I follow her instructions. Callum ignores half of them.
“You’re supposed to keep it cold,” Tania tells him, watching him knead the dough too long.
“It will still taste good.”
“It won’t be the right texture. You need to stop overworking it.”
He keeps kneading, fighting a smile. “What if I don’t?”
She grabs his wrists. “Stop. Please. I don’t want to ruin the pie. This is important to me.”
Their hands freeze mid-motion. Hers on his. Flour smudged across both of them.
Callum’s grin fades. It’s not gone, but it’s different.
“Okay, Red.”
She releases him and then kisses his cheek.
His hand comes up and touches the spot where her lips were.
I’m watching this happen while my own dough sits forgotten under my palms. Watching Callum—who never stops moving, never stays still—take instruction from her without argument.
He’s doing it again, backing down for her.
It’s something he never does for anyone else. He cares about what she cares about. And I love that she brings that out in him.
Tania divides the dough into four pieces and wraps them. “These need to chill for an hour.”
“An hour?” Callum frowns.
“Patience.” She slides them into the fridge. “We’ll make the filling while we wait.”
We move to the stove. Tania peels apples while I measure sugar and cinnamon. Callum’s in charge of opening the canned pumpkin, which he manages to do without destroying the kitchen.
The smell hits when the apples start cooking, sweet and sharp, like every Thanksgiving I remember before Mom died.
I don’t think about her much anymore. It’s easier not to.
Tania stirs the apples, and steam rises around her face. “Did you guys do this growing up? Big Thanksgiving dinners?”
Callum stirs the filling. “Mom used to cook. The whole thing. Turkey, stuffing, pies.”
“She made us help,” I add. “We were terrible at it.”
Tania smiles. “I can imagine.”
My brow furrows. “I miss her.”
“Mom died when we were fourteen.” Callum doesn’t look at either of us when he says this out loud.
Tania goes still. “I was at the funeral,” she offers quietly. “I remember.”
“It was a long time ago.” I reach past her to grab the vanilla extract. “Fifteen years.”
She turns the burner off and looks at us. Ready to listen if we want to talk. Ready to let it go if we don’t.
Callum breaks first. “Everything changed after.”
“How?”
He picks up a dish towel and twists it between his hands. “Dad got worse. Stricter. More rules.”
I stir the apples. Doing something with my hands helps. “He was always like that. But after Mom, it was all he had left.”
Tania’s eyes move between us. “How did that affect you guys?”
Callum tosses the towel onto the counter. “Dad tried to control everything after she died. So I stopped listening to him. To anyone.” His fingers drum against the counter. “Just did what I wanted and dealt with the fallout later.”
There it is—the thing he never says out loud.
Tania doesn’t flinch. “And you?” She’s looking at me now.
I pour the vanilla and watch it swirl through the hot apples. “Dad and Silas were always tense. Callum was always fighting. I learned to smooth things over. Crack jokes. Keep everyone from killing each other. Keep it from getting too dark.”
The kitchen goes quiet except for the sound of the apples bubbling on the stove.
I’ve never said that before. Not to anyone.
“Shit.” Callum scrubs a hand down his face. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”
Tania sets down the spoon, and her hand finds my forearm.
“You’re still doing it.” Her fingers tighten on my arm briefly before releasing. “Deflecting. Pacifying. Being the peacemaker.”
“Losing parents is hard, whether it’s through death or something else.” She turns back to the stove and adds nutmeg to the pumpkin mixture. “My dad left when I was two.”
Callum straightens.
“I don’t remember him. Ben barely remembers him.” She stirs the pumpkin filling. “But I remember my mom working constantly. Two jobs. Sometimes three.”
“Your house always felt warm, though.” I watch her make the filling. “Even when she wasn’t there.”
Tania glances at me. “You remember that?”
“We were there all the time with Ben.” I lean against the counter. “She’d leave snacks out for us and notes on the fridge. Your house never felt empty.”
“No.” She adds more cinnamon to the filling. “She made sure of that.”
“But?” Callum asks.
She tastes the filling and adjusts the spice. “But everything felt conditional. The house was faculty housing, and school was free because she worked there. If something went wrong, we’d lose it all.”
Callum moves closer. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Don’t I?” She sets the spoon down. “Silas is sticking to the contract. Ben doesn’t know. This whole thing is temporary, even if we are having fun right now.”
The timer goes off. The dough is ready.
Tania pulls it from the fridge, and we roll out the crusts. Callum’s is uneven. Mine is too thick. Hers is perfect.
She doesn’t criticize, though. She just shows us how to fix it.
We work in silence for a while—flour on the counter, crusts taking shape, and the smell of apples and pumpkin filling the kitchen.
Tania fits the crusts into the pie tins, we pour in the filling, and she shows us how to crimp the edges and weave the lattice top for the apple pies.
Callum’s fingers are clumsy, and he curses under his breath.
“Here.” Tania covers his hand with hers, guiding. “Like this.”
He lets her, and I watch them. Her hands are on his. His body leans into hers without thinking. He’s following her directions.
The pies go into the oven. Tania sets the timer and leans back against the counter, streaked with flour, hair falling out of the tie.
She lets out a contented sigh. “That was fun.”
“Yeah.” I’m covered in flour, too.
So is Callum. We’re a mess.
“I like this.” Tania tilts her head slightly. “Being with you both like this.”
Callum brushes flour off her cheek. “Yeah, Red. Me too.”
I should say something. Crack a joke. Lighten the mood.
But I don’t, because I don’t want it lighter. I want it exactly like this.