by Mia Malone
“That would be good. You only have one sister, you know,” I said and nudged him with my shoulder to indicate that I was joking, even though I actually wasn’t.
“I will,” he promised.
When we came back to the Mermaid house, Marlena had arrived and was waiting for us with an incredibly tense-looking Thea.
“Are we ready?” I asked chirpily, hoping that tensions would ease off during the short walk down to the Café.
God, I thought. Once they left, I’d sleep for a week straight.
Brody
Brody Baker had worked in a restaurant kitchen since he was twelve, which meant he’d cooked for forty years. He’d also worked in some pretty fucking spectacular places all over the world. He wasn’t the best chef there was, but he was a pretty damned good one.
He was also a pretty fucking frustrated one.
“I find that adding a pinch of nutmeg enhances the flavors of spinach,” Marlena drawled. “Not too much, though,” she said, and added with ridiculously phony cheekiness, “We wouldn't want to overdo it, would we?”
Jag made a choking sound and got a glare.
“Of course not,” Brody said blandly. “Thank you for the advice, I’m sure it will help me in the future.”
“You're welcome,” she said, not getting the sarcasm. “I'm known as an excellent cook.”
“So am I,” Brody couldn’t resist saying.
Marlena nodded and leaned in over the frying pan, but Brody ran out of patience with the girl and used a shoulder to block her.
“You should probably go back to the others,” he stated.
“Oh, there’s no need. They’re all busy admiring the infant.”
The infant?
“Handle shit here, Jag,” Brody ordered, didn’t wait for confirmation, and herded the annoying girl toward the group of people who had gathered just inside the door to admire baby Dot and give hugs to Thea. “I’d rather not have people in my kitchen when I work.”
“Hey, Grandpa,” Dorothea murmured when he approached and leaned over the stroller.
Brody scowled at his mother and wished they'd stop calling him that. Then he reached down to pick up the small bundle like he had done during the night when the tiny girl with the big lungs got hungry.
“There you are,” he murmured and settled the baby into the crook of his arm.
She opened her eyes widely and stared at him, or since she was only a few weeks old, what likely was the blurry shape of him.
Then she burped.
“You should hold her against your shoulder and pat her back after her meal,” Marlena informed Thea. “It will help her digestive system.”
“Marlena...” Joey murmured. “She probably knows that.”
“I do,” Thea said stiffly.
“Of course,” Marlena said. “I wasn't sure. It isn't easy for unwed mothers to get a grip on everything that needs to be done. There's so much to handle on your own, isn't there?”
Everyone froze, and Brody felt Marie suck in air next to him.
That fucking idiot girl, he thought as anger shot through him.
“Thea is doing just fine without your advice, Marlena,” he said firmly. “Since you are unwed and not a mother at all, I would imagine shutting the fuck up would be a good choice for you at this very moment.”
“I was just trying to help,” Marlena said calmly, completely unaffected by the harsh words. “My cousin had a baby six months ago.”
“Oh,” Marie said desperately. “How nice. Is it a boy or a girl?”
It was apparently a boy, and everyone started to talk about the differences between boys and girls, except Brody who walked over to the counter by the kitchen.
“Son, say hi to your niece.”
“Hey, Dot. Hey, Sis,” Jag said and gave Thea a grin.
Brody stared at him. Then he stared at Thea. And then at Jag again.
“You know each other?”
“We met over the years. Our mothers liked to get together and whine,” Thea said with a smirk, and added, “Hey, John.”
“The old man said fuck no to John,” Jag muttered, but he did it with a grin. “I’m apparently Jag.”
“Jag? But... Oh, clever, Dad,” Thea said. “I never understood why he got three names when I only got one.”
“You –”
Brody was still reeling from the fact that his exes met on what seemed to be a regular basis and wasn’t sure what to say.
“What’s wrong?” Marie asked, and put her small hand on his arm.
Then Thea shared the fucking weird fact that her mother had contacted Jag’s mother when Thea was ten, and how his children had met. This was also something Thea had not shared with him over the years, not even when he’d told her she had a brother.
“Mom said not to tell you, Dad, and it wasn’t often,” Thea said. “It wasn’t even every year, and it stopped ten years ago. I missed seeing my brother, but it was good to not have to hear them go on and on.”
“Go on about what?” Marie asked.
Brody had a fairly good idea what the two goddamned women had been talking about, which would be him.
“Dad,” Thea and Jag confirmed at the same time.
“Your exes met to discuss... you?” Marie breathed out, and the astonished look in her eyes made laughter bubble up his throat suddenly.
“Not sure discuss is the right word for what they did, babe,” he said and walked back to put the baby in the stroller.
Marie
I tried to process the absurd fact that Brody’s exes had met over the years to rehash their relationships with him, but I just didn’t get it. Once a marriage was over, it was over, wasn’t it? There wasn’t any need to hold a grudge. I could see how being in an abusive relationship would cause scars, but Brody wasn’t abusive, and I couldn’t for the life of me see him ever having been it either. He was who he was, and he’d steamroll you into whatever he wanted if you let him. He also used the f-bomb a lot, but that was just a word, so surely –
Then it hit me.
“They still love you,” I murmured and watched him adjust the blanket around Dot with large, gentle hands.
“Babe,” he snorted. “I was an asshole.”
“I wish you'd stop saying that. You're not an asshole,” I protested. Patrick muttered something which sounded suspiciously as if he disagreed with me and I gave him a glare. “He's not.”
“Marie,” Brody said with a sigh. “The exes got the twenty-something me, and that guy had an ego bigger than Canada, and a chip on his shoulder the same size, so he was an asshole in many ways. You got the older version, and he’s a lot more mellow.”
I stared at Brody and tried hard to not laugh right in his face. Mellow was so not a word I would have picked to describe him.
“Babe,” he said sternly, but I could see humor in his eyes. “Wish you wouldn’t have to work quite that hard at pushing back laughter.”
I was about to get up on my toes and give him a kiss when a loud squeal echoed through the Café.
“Don’t move! Someone; call nine-one-one!”
Everyone froze and turned toward Marlena who was pointing at Jag.
“What?” he asked.
“He's stealing cash from the register. I knew he would, with all those tattoos.” Her head swung around, and her angry eyes locked on Brody. “Your kitchen hand is committing a felony. Call the police,” she said imperiously.
I closed my eyes and wished that someone would appear with the news that they had invented time-travel, and I'd been chosen to try it out. I'd go back in time and make sure Marlena got admitted to a college my son didn't attend, for sure.
“Marlena, he’s –”
“I will call them,” she said in an infuriatingly patronizing voice, and Jools exploded.
“Touch your phone, and I will throw you out on your ass, missy.”
“What?”
“Marlena,” I intervened. “J
ag isn't stealing money. Look, there's a delivery.” I pointed at the wide-open back door, where a slack-jawed delivery guy stood with his hands raised as if fearing that the crazy girl would shoot him. “He's just paying for fish.”
“Crab,” Jag muttered.
“Seafood,” I compromised, and added, “Not that it matters.”
Jag’s face softened, but only marginally.
“Oh,” Marlena said. “Well, what was I supposed to think?”
“You were supposed to think that my son was paying for a delivery,” Brody rumbled.
Uh-oh. Brody was close to exploding, there was probably smoke coming from Jools' ears, and what the others were thinking, I didn't know, but I could guess. I was pretty sure they thought what I thought, which was that Marlena was a goddamned nightmarelena. And I’d had enough.
“Joey. Marlena,” I said calmly. “I suggest you take a walk to look at the town.” Then I took a deep breath and added, “After Marlena has apologized for her comments to both Thea and Jag.”
“I have nothing to apologize for,” Marlena snapped. “It was a misunderstanding.”
“You actually do,” I said, not backing down. “You have been rude to them, and probably everyone else in here, but I'll let that slide. Jag and Thea deserve apologies, though.”
“Joseph,” Marlena barked out. “I don't deserve this treatment, and you know it. Talk to your mother.”
“Mom...” Joey said, and I saw in his eyes that he knew she was wrong, but he still tried to get me to cut her some slack. “It was a misunderstanding.”
“You should think about why there always are so many of those when it comes to her, Joey,” I said quietly. “And she should apologize.”
“You’re on their side and not mine?” my son asked hoarsely, and a burst of pain shot through me.
“Boy, don’t go there,” Brody murmured, but I talked over him.
“Joey, I’ll always be on your side. I love you so, so much. But she’s wrong. She’s way out of line, and it isn’t the first time.”
“We’re leaving,” Marlena stated and started pulling Joey toward the door.
“Mom, please,” he said, but let her drag him along.
“You’ll always be my son, and you’ll always be welcome in my home, no matter what you do. Marlena will have to apologize in a way that Jag and Thea accepts, and then we’ll see.”
“Joey,” Marlena snapped, and he looked at her for a long time, but then he turned back to me, and my eyes started burning.
I’d lost him again.
“I’ll call you in a few days,” he murmured, and then they walked away without looking back.
I stared at the door for a beat, but then I straightened my back and sucked in air.
“Okay,” I said. “Jag, I’m so sorry. She’s such a fool.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Thea...”
“Well, I am unwed, and I have no clue what I’m doing,” Thea said with a crooked smile. “She could have been nicer about it, but she wasn’t entirely wrong.”
It was sweet of her to try to comfort me, so I gave her a smile, but it felt wobbly, and I refused to look at Brody. I had tried my best to be a good mother, and he had by his own account been a shitty father, so why wasn't it his kids who behaved like spineless morons and brought harping, dull creatures into the family?
“I need a moment,” I murmured in the general direction of everyone.
When I had reached the end of the pier, I sat down and stared at the water. Brody sat down behind me, and his thighs on either side of mine were warm and strong. He wrapped me up in a tight embrace, and I sniffled.
“Told you,” he rumbled. “Kids are shit.”
“Not your kids,” I said. “I don’t know what happened. We had such a great time this morning, and we used to be close. And then he –”
“Babe,” Brody cut me off. “He had to leave. Nightmarelena wasn't going to stay, and we didn't want her to, so what was he going to do? Let her fend for herself? He had to go with her. He'll call you.”
I thought about that for a while and relaxed into his chest.
“You think so?”
“Yeah. He’s not a bad kid, Marie. He’s just young.”
“I tried to raise them to be independent. To be strong.”
“So why are you surprised when they won’t take your advice and start building lives of their own?”
Well, shit. I hadn’t seen it like that exactly.
“I should call Amelia.”
“That can wait a while.”
It could, so I relaxed into him, and we sat in silence while I processed what had happened.
“Don’t you have to go back to the café?” I asked after a while.
“Jools and Jag can handle it.”
“The king of tasteless grease and the prince of incompetence?” I asked, reminding him of words he'd roared when something had not gone as intended in his kitchen.
“Hopefully no one comes in at this time of the day.”
I started laughing and turned my head around to look at him.
“Let’s go back. We can’t have them poisoning the customers.”
“You good?”
My insides melted when I saw the look in his eyes. If I needed to stay, we'd stay on the dock, and he'd just let them fumble around in his restaurant, and it was a restaurant however many times he called it a café.
And just like that, I slid straight into love. It was unexpected, and a little scary, but the warm wash of it swept through me, so I smiled at him.
“I’m good, Brody,” I said. “Let’s go back.”
Chapter Twelve
Chopping carrots
Brody
Brody leaned against the fridge and watched his son cut carrots. Jag was cursing and sweating like a pig.
He was also blindfolded.
“I hate you,” Jag grunted without slowing down even a little.
Brody grinned and remembered when he’d done the exact same practice a gazillion fucking years ago. He’d hated his boss from the bottom of his heart and had seriously thought about chopping the world-renowned chef into the fucking julienne he’d been ordered to produce.
“Yeah, yeah,” Brody grunted. “Channel that anger into the fucking carrots. Think about the nightmarelena if it helps you focus.”
The knife slowed down, and then Jag paused.
“Fucking hate her. Not for what she said about Thea and me. We can handle it. Fucking hate her for doing that to Marie.”
“Marie’s good,” Brody said. “Now get to it.”
As the boy started over, Brody watched and thought about the month that had passed since that disastrous weekend.
Joey had called as he promised, and it had been a short and uncomfortable conversation from what Brody could tell, but they had talked a few times since then. Amelia had pushed her visit even further into the future because of school assignments, going with her roommate to their place in fucking Aspen, and a visit to her aunt. Marie had told him with a shrug that she couldn’t force the girl to come, but he’d seen the disappointment on her face.
“Ouch,” Jag grunted, and Brody barked out laughter.
“Bad?” he asked and watched blood run over his son’s fingers.
“I’ll live,” Jag muttered.
He would, Brody thought.
The boy had settled into life in Bakersville with surprising ease. People had been stunned when they saw Jag, and Patrick had been teased mercilessly, which Brody found hilarious. It had passed, though, and now everyone treated Jag as if he'd always lived in the small town.
He still stayed in the studio above the Bar but was talking about moving, and to Jools home of all places. The old man lived alone in a big, old house, so he certainly had space, but Brody still wondered why the hell anyone would want to share space with the cantankerous old geezer.
“That’s enough,” Brody said when Jag cut h
is finger again. “You did good.”
Jag pulled off the bandana, and Brody felt pride rush through him when he saw that the boy immediately started poking around in the mess in front of him, surveying the juliennes to see what they looked like. He had numerous cuts on his hands, and some were still bleeding a little, but the only thing that mattered was the task he'd just completed.
“Chip of the old block,” Brody murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing. Wash your hands, put some Band-Aids on the cuts. You'll work with gloves for a few days.”
“Right,” Jag said.
Then they finished prepping the place, and since it was Saturday and the weather was nice, dealt with a steady stream of customers.
“Bisque,” Brody said to Jag and handed him a bowl. “Tempura cod.”
Jag added a plate of bread to the soup, a basket of hand-cut potato fries and a small bowl with lemon and dill flavored mayonnaise to the fish.
“Lobster soup and fish and chips ready for table four!” he called out and the woman sitting with her teenage daughter got up to get their food. “I’ll give you a hand with that,” Jag said and grinned as he sidestepped to avoid the towel Brody flicked out toward him.
“Bisque,” Brody grunted. “Tempura.”
“My old man is grumpy today,” Jag informed the woman, flashing that easy grin he’d inherited from his uncle. “Makes it a lot more fun to mess with him.”
“You are brave,” the woman said. “Not many would dare to mess with Brody Baker.”
“You know him?” Jag said, and Brody glanced at the woman.
She looked familiar, but he couldn't place where he might have met her, and since he suspected that she might be someone he'd either yelled at in a kitchen somewhere or possibly slept with, he quickly turned back to focus on the roll he was in the process of building.
“I have eaten his food,” the woman said. “Didn’t expect to find him here, though. We were driving around and saw the sign. It’s gorgeous.”
Brody heard Jag explain how they had renovated and how the Café had been Uncle Jools’, which was a story they’d told many times, so he stopped paying attention and put his creation under the grill. When the gruyere crust was golden, he plated it and looked out over the restaurant. Jools had replaced Jag at the table where the woman was laughing at something he said. The teenager was busy staring at Jag who bussed tables and then Brody found what he was looking for.
