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LIAM
Hope Pizza is buzzing with the midday lunch crowd, Monday being our two for one slice day that attracts nearly every employee and worker in a twenty-mile radius.
Because who doesn’t want a free slice of pizza to start the week?
Chatter hits my ears as I push through the front door with a crate of sauce jars in my hands. Mom stands at the takeout counter talking to two of her best friends from high school, nearly fifty years of friendship between them. I whistle through my teeth to get her attention, then blow her a kiss. I hear Mrs. Hankins, the blonde best friend who once pulled eight cactus thorns out of my arm after her son and I got into trouble on her property, tell my mother that I’m one of the good ones.
If only they knew.
Not that I am particularly bad, and I am one hell of a mama’s boy, but if any of those women suspected I tried to seduce my high school teacher when I was a student, they’d keel over. Not to mention that I made her see stars in the stacks of her grandmother’s closed-down bookshop, which most of them probably frequented for paperbacks when it was still open.
Fuck, I can’t stop thinking about Gabrielle, even when the situation has zero to do with her. The feel of her skin and the sound of her noises haunt me days later, even though she’s avoided being seen in town since we slept together. I know because I’ve walked out of the way to pass her condo and the bookshop most every day, and there has been no sign of her.
Shit, I’m turning into a man possessed—either that or a creepy stalker.
The smell of something sweet hits my nose as I burst through the kitchen, another whir of noise hitting my ears but one more pleasing than all the conversation out in the dining room. If I have to be out in public, I prefer to be relegated to the kitchen so I can knead dough or mix sauce without having to talk to the residents of my hometown.
“What’re you making?” I kiss Nonna on the cheek as I pass her, dropping the crate of new sauces on the kitchen butcher block counter.
“Tiramisu,” she answers, turning on the industrial mixer Dad bought her years ago.
My grandmother doesn’t stay out of the kitchen for long. Not since her husband and my greatest confidant passed. I suppose going home only reminds her of who and what is no longer there.
I cringe and stick out my tongue. “Gross.”
“Are these the arrabbiata I requested?” Evan interrupts us as he pushes through the dining room doors and raps a knuckle on the sauce jars.
I nod. “Yes, your highness. Just as you requested. Extra spicy.”
He rubs his hands together and grabs an apron off a hook. “Good, I’ve had this spicy fish pasta on my mind for a week waiting for these and I need to make it to see if I want it on tonight’s menu.”
When Evan gets a dish idea, he doesn’t rest until it’s made and perfected. The guy is a hair-brained culinary genius.
“Because I’m making his least favorite dessert,” Nonna chimes in.
Evan chuckles. “I don’t understand how you don’t like tiramisu, it’s fucking delicious. Especially Nonna’s.”
“Watch your mouth, but thank you,” my grandmother scolds him.
“I like alcohol, and I like dessert. I don’t, however, like them together.” I shrug because this is my one sticking point on the food we serve at Hope Pizza.
“Your Nonno would be rolling in his grave.” Nonna makes the sign of the cross and chuckles.
“He always tried to shove that cake down Liam’s throat and it made it worth getting a purple nurple after laughing at it.” Evan’s eyes mock me.
“You were and are a little shit.” I point my finger at him, but there’s no heat behind my words.
My little brother and I definitely have the most animosity between us, the kind that is normal with siblings. But where Patrick and Alana understand me, were similar in that they never really left Hope Crest, Evan and I couldn’t be more different if we tried. We’re eight years apart, have completely opposite personalities, and have never bonded much with the age difference. I have a friendship with my other siblings, whereas Evan was too little when I first graduated and tried out college, and then he was caught up in the culinary world for the last seven years and not even living in our hometown.
While we clearly love each other, it’s a weird dynamic trying to see how we fit into each other’s lives. Especially since Dad hasn’t named a new owner for the restaurant. I know my siblings don’t really want the title and it will probably fall to me out of default of being the oldest. But then Evan came home to take his head chef spot, and it seems like he wants to be the successor. Which doesn’t sit right with me.
On the one hand, I want to own and run this place about as much as I want to electrocute myself. It’s a headache, a hassle, and I’d have to spend nearly all my time indoors. I don’t like to schmooze people or work with a staff, and I’m not nearly as skilled a chef as Dad or Evan.
But on the other hand, I am the eldest. This restaurant is my lifeblood; it’s supposed to fall to me to keep it running and successful. I’m supposed to helm it one day, to take on the responsibilities my father and his father-in-law had before him. A tiny part of me, the egotistical prick who can’t stand losing to his little brother, is too prideful to admit that Evan would be the better choice.
Maybe it’s how he took confident command the day he returned to town. Evan returned from the West Coast like the prodigal son, ready to take control of the ship and turn the journey into a more amazing feat than anyone had before. He revamped the menu, changed our techniques, implemented new processes, and overall left his mark on the kitchen in a mere year of being the head chef. Evan did something I could never seem to do because I didn’t have the passion.
My passion is out on the farm, in the fields, and everyone knows it. Yes, I am content and happy with my everyday job, but a small part of me wants to be the heir Mom and Dad planned on the day they first had me. Giving that up, or coming to terms with it, has proved difficult.
