7. Callum
CHAPTER SEVEN
Callum
Sunday dinner at Dad’s is the only thing keeping me from completely losing my mind.
I pull my truck into the gravel driveway and cut the engine. For a moment, I just sit there, hands still gripping the steering wheel, staring at the house through the windshield.
The house sits about fifty yards back from the water, perched on the edge of the harbor where Dad kept his boat for thirty years.
The weathered gray shingles have seen decades of salt air and storms. The front porch sags slightly in the middle because Dad keeps saying he’ll fix it and never does.
Old fishing nets hang on the side of the house, decorative now, but they used to be the real deal.
String lights sway where Dad put them up last summer after Beckett, my youngest brother, said the place needed “ambiance,” whatever the hell that means.
It’s not much. Just a fishing shack that Dad converted into a house when he realized we needed more than one bedroom and a boat. A little lean-to with additions built over the years — a bedroom here, a bathroom there — as Dad figured out how to raise four boys on a fisherman’s salary.
But it’s home. It’s always been home.
I can hear them before I even get out of the truck.
Loud, obnoxious laughter fills the night air. The low rumble of Dad’s voice follows. Someone — probably Beckett — says something that makes Hayes groan. The sound of it pulls at a knot that’s been wound too tight for too long in my limbs.
My head drops forward until my forehead rests against the steering wheel. I close my eyes and just breathe.
Sunday dinner. Six o’clock. Every single week since I was old enough to remember. It’s the one constant in a life that’s felt like it’s been falling apart in slow motion lately.
I should want to be here. I always want to be here.
But tonight, I’m dreading it.
They’re going to ask. They always ask. And I don’t know how to explain what’s been happening this past week without losing my shit entirely.
Vivienne has been at my restaurant. Every. Single. Day.
She shows up at nine-thirty in the morning with her iPad and her blazer and that fucking composure that makes me want to scream.
She sits at her corner table by the window and takes notes.
Watches service. Talks to the staff. Chats with customers like she’s doing market research, which I guess she technically is. Asks a thousand questions.
She asks everyone questions.
Everyone except me.
We’ve barely spoken since that first day. When we need to communicate, we leave sticky notes on my desk in the back office. Yellow squares of paper with her neat handwriting asking about supplier contacts or reservations for the night or staffing schedules.
I respond in Sharpie, pressing too hard till it’s almost illegible, the ink bleeding through to whatever’s underneath.
Supplier list in filing cabinet. Second drawer.
Reservations tracked in system. Ask Frannie.
Staff schedules posted in kitchen. Check the board.
It’s ridiculous. We’re two adults, and we’re communicating like we’re in middle school and one of us has cooties.
But I can’t sit down with her and have a conversation like none of the past matters. Like she didn’t just disappear from my life without a word and seeing her every day doesn’t make me feel like I’m being slowly pulled apart.
So I avoid her. I come in early and leave late. I stay in the kitchen where she usually won’t follow. I time my breaks for when she’s talking to customers or Frannie has her cornered. I’ve become a ghost in my own restaurant.
And I’m so exhausted. I’m running on minutes of sleep a night, too much coffee, and anger that doesn’t have anywhere else to go but into the poor Sharpie in my office.
Roman keeps giving me looks. Cora keeps saying I look like shit. Even Frannie, who never shuts up, has been weirdly quiet around me.
They all know something’s wrong.
They just don’t know what.
Well. Except Wesley. I called him three days ago at two in the morning because I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t stop thinking and I needed to tell someone before I completely lost it.
I lift my head from the steering wheel and scrub my hands over my face. My eyes feel gritty. When I drop my hands, I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror.
I do look like shit. Dark circles under my eyes. Stubble that’s gone past five o’clock shadow into full-blown scruff, though at least the mustache still looks intentional. I definitely need a haircut.
I take a deep breath and grab the six-pack along with the bag of ingredients I picked up on the way.
Fresh herbs from the restaurant garden, the good olive oil from the local market, and the smoked salmon that Dad’s been asking about.
The one I get from the supplier in Seattle.
Not that garbage from the grocery store.
Showing up empty-handed to Sunday dinner is a cardinal sin in the Reid household, and even when I’m barely holding it together, I’m still a chef.
I climb out of the truck, the door creaking as it swings open, and head up the gravel path to the house. The porch creaks under my feet as I step onto it, the wood giving slightly under my weight. Dad really does need to fix it.
I stand there for a second, hand on the doorknob, and try to pull myself together.
Slowly, I turn the knob and push the door open.
The warmth hits me first. Then the smell — garlic and butter and probably way too much salt.
Dad has never met a dish he didn’t think needed more salt.
The living room is small and cluttered with the evidence of four grown men who still treat this place like their childhood home, even though we all have our own places now.
There’s fishing gear in the corner and Beckett’s wetsuit draped over a chair to dry.
A stack of blueprints on the coffee table that must be Hayes’s.
And there, in the middle of it all, is my family.
Dad is at the stove, stirring something in a pot with his back to me.
He’s wearing the usual Patrick Reid uniform of a flannel shirt, jeans worn soft from years of work, and bare feet because he refuses to wear shoes in the house.
His hair is more gray than black now, but he still moves with that easy confidence that comes from a lifetime of hard work.
Wesley is leaning against the counter, beer in hand. He sees me first and nods, his eyes taking me in with that quiet assessment he does. I can see him cataloging the exhaustion on my face and the tension in my shoulders. His brows furrow, but he doesn’t say anything.
Beckett is sprawled on the couch, his hair still damp from what was probably a sunset surf session. He grins when he sees me. “Cal! Finally. We were starting to think you bailed.”
“I’m ten minutes late,” I say, setting the beer on the counter, the bottles clinking together.
“Ten minutes is basically an hour in Dad years,” Hayes quips from the armchair. His laptop is open on the coffee table, but he closes it when I walk in, the motion deliberate. “He’s been checking his watch every five minutes.”
“I have not,” Dad says, not turning around. But I can hear the smile in his voice.
“You absolutely have,” all four of us say at the same time.
Dad turns, wooden spoon in hand, and gives us that look. The one that says I can’t believe I raised such heathens, but I love you anyway. “Whatever. Dinner’s almost ready. Wash your hands and set the table, please.”
We move like a well-oiled machine. Wesley grabs plates from the cabinet, the ceramic clinking softly as he stacks them.
Beckett unfolds himself from the couch to get silverware, his bare feet padding across the floor.
Hayes clears the dining table, gathering up more blueprints and stacking them carefully on the side table.
I head to the kitchen and set my bag down on the counter. “Dad, I brought your salmon,” I call out. “The good stuff.”
I move to the sink and turn on the tap, scrubbing my hands probably harder than necessary, watching the soap foam up and disappear down the drain.
“My favorite child!” Dad calls back before appearing next to me, his hand landing on my shoulder. “Hey, kiddo,” he says quietly.
I’m thirty-two years old. I haven’t been a kid in two decades. But when Dad calls me kiddo, I’m ten again.
“Hey, Dad.”
He studies my face, and I try so hard to hide the barely contained chaos that’s been living under my skin for a week. But I know he sees it. His thumb presses into my shoulder hard.
I meet his eyes, and the knot in my limbs loosens just a fraction more.
He squeezes my shoulder once, and I nod.
That’s all we need. He goes back to the stove, and I dry my hands on a dish towel before carefully laying it back on the counter.
“Alright, sit down. It’s ready,” Dad calls out, and we all move to the table like we’ve done a thousand times before.
The dining table is scarred wood, nicked and worn from years of family dinners, homework sessions, and late-night card games. It’s too small for five grown men, but we make it work.
I move to help Dad bring the food over. There’s a pot of something that smells like cioppino, a tomato and seafood stew, with steam rising from the surface. A loaf of rye bread that’s probably from Margo’s cafe on Main Street. A bowl of salad that looks like it came from a bag.
“You know I could have cooked.” It’s the same thing I say every Sunday.
Dad gives me the same look he always does, handing me the bread basket. “Everyone needs a break from work sometimes, Cal. Even chefs.”
“Cooking isn’t work when it’s for family.”
“Sit. Eat. Let someone else take care of you for once.”
It’s not worth arguing over. It never is.
Dad starts ladling cioppino into bowls, passing them around the table. The ceramic is hot when it reaches me, and I have to use both hands to take it from Hayes. Steam rises, carrying the smell of tomatoes and garlic and seafood.
“Alright. High and low. Who’s starting?”