Page 31 of Your Pace Or Mine

Even though I wasn’t expecting my half brother, I’m a little disappointed, though I likely would have made the same choice at his age. I barely made it here myself, but for different reasons. It was a hectic week with the official release of our new user agreement, not to mention a few late-night dates, and I was tempted to stay in and vegetate.

“You changed your hair.” I reach out to ruffle her short bob just to watch her frown at me.

“Yeah, I was tired of having to spend so much time with the curling iron trying to get some body,” she replies after swatting me away. She and Curtis got their father’s looks, so they don’t have dark curls like me. No one ever clocked us as siblings, which hurt when I was a kid.

“How’s your dad?” I ask.

Penny flinches. I guess it’s still an awkward subject. Raymond’s choice to move out a few years ago was quite abrupt. Though things have settled down now, Penny was pretty angry at him. She stopped talking to her father for a while, but they’ve come to an uneasy truce.

“Okay, I guess. I talked to him last week. He hasn’t been in touch?”

I scoff, then shake my head and she looks away, embarrassed. Raymond isn’t my father and never wanted to be. He obliged Mom by being somewhat involved as my stepfather while I was a kid, but when I moved out, it was clear he saw no reason to be in touch with me outside of family dinners. Then they divorced and he was gone from my life, like we’d never been family at all.

Penny and I go into the kitchen where I draw my mom into a hug, then hand her a bottle of wine. It looks like she’s been cooking all afternoon. A pot of soup is simmering on the stove. She hugs me distractedly and puts me to work with the salad spinner.

The three of us maintain a light conversation and catch up while we set the table and start dinner. For the second time in about a week, I find myself thinking how much of a lone ranger I’ve become and how nice it is to share a meal with people I love. This warm happy feeling lasts until halfway through our meal of roast chicken and butternut squash soup, when my mom goes into interrogation mode.

“So, kids,” she begins as though we are still children and not twenty-six and thirty-two. “How’s everyone’s love life?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her the same, but on second thought, I’d rather not know. Penelope and I lock eyes, mentally daring each other to go first.

She flinches first. “I was dating someone for a while, but it didn’t work out. She got a job in Edmonton, so that ended that.”

We make appropriate apologetic murmurs, but she waves us off. “It’s fine. We weren’t madly in love or anything, but I thought we were getting there. We didn’t want to do the long-distance thing, and I don’t want to move across the country.”

“I’m sorry, hon.” Mom pats my sister on the shoulder. Then she turns her stare onto me. “Sebastian?”

I roll my eyes like a teenager. “Mom, you know I don’t date.”

Not the way she means it, anyway.

She shakes her head. “You always say that—You’ll never settle down, blah blah blah, but you dated what’s-her-name, so I don’t believe you.”

She smiles smugly, even as my gut clenches at her reference to my only real ex-girlfriend. My sister’s eyes widen. We never talk about Brianna.

I keep my tone light as though I’m not still bothered by that disaster. “If anything, that experience convinced me I was right all along. I keep telling you not to expect a fairytale wedding in my future.”

I don’t know why I thought it would work with Brianna. We had a few wild hookups, and she convinced me a relationship wouldn’t change anything between us, that we’d keep having fun with no pressure. Famous last words.

My mom frowns at me, her eyes sad. I’m sure her next move will be to tell me how disappointing that is, so before she can get a word in, I add, “Plus you know us Rossi men are bad at love.”

My tone was light, but she sees through it. “Sebastian, your father isn’t bad at love. It’s a choice. He rushes in headfirst, then loses interest. That’s the way he is about everything—relationships, jobs, hobbies, parenting. Well, you know how he is as a father.”

I don’t react, but of course I know. When my biological father is in, he’s all in. He’s dad of the year, calling and emailing, promising to come to your ball games or band concerts. Then he finds a new girlfriend or a new venture that’s going to make him money, or he takes up a hobby, and he vanishes.

“I shouldn’t talk about your father that way, but it is what it is. Anyway, what I meant to say was that it’s heady to be in love, but it’s a choice to stick around after the first rush has faded. That’s where the real beauty is, and the real joy. That’s real love. Everything else is infatuation.”

But who’s to say I can hang in for that? Maybe I’ll be like Dad, not able to feign interest, and I can’t think of anything worse for a relationship than me pretending to stay invested because I don’t want to repeat that negative pattern. No thanks. I nod noncommittally and try to signal to Penny that this is the time to interrupt. She catches my glance and clanks her knife down on the plate.

Smooth, Penny. So smooth.

“Oh, oops, sorry!” she exclaims. “Sebastian, I saw on social media that you went for a run the other day. Did Ashley rope you into it?”

She must have seen it on my Instagram. I know she’s trying, but any mention of Ashley will likely pique my mom’s matchmaking instincts.

“It was kind of a dare, though I’d been meaning to try some time. I see these joggers running along the waterfront and thought it might be fun to try. I’ve run a few times now.”

On Monday morning, I found myself on the treadmill forcing my legs to do at least two and a half kilometers without a walk break. Maybe I was embarrassed having Ashley’s friends run circles around me and wanted to redeem myself. A few days later, I woke up early and did the same but ran a little longer. I haven’t ventured outside yet, but this afternoon I swung by a running store where some guy who’s run ten marathons got me to spend a small fortune on shoes and jackets and tights, which I remain dubious about. At least I won’t have to borrow clothes from Ashley if I ever join her group again.