Processing could happen later, when he was back in his life and no longer the number one threat to my sanity.
Pops crushed some garlic with the flat side of a knife, a move I’d never quite mastered, but his worried gaze kept flicking to my face.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “I promise.”
Gavin ran into the kitchen, his eyes bright and smile wide. “Pops, I just saw the first oriole in the backyard!”
“Oh baby, did you get a picture on my phone?”
Gavin nodded and turned the screen around so Pops could check it out.
He held the phone away from him. “Nice one, buddy. Add it to the folder.”
“Okay.”
He took off toward the backyard, and Pops chuckled under his breath. “What I’d give for a tenth of that energy.”
“No kidding.”
“Honey, you’re not even thirty. Don’t talk to me about feeling old and tired until you’re past fifty.”
I scrunched my nose. “I feel like I’m going to be an old lady by the time I turn forty. I’ll have a kid in college.” My mouth fell open as that realization hit. “Oh God, I’ll have a kidoutof college when I turn forty. What the hell will I do with myself when he’s gone?”
Pops interrupted the maternal spiral with a deep laugh. “Maybe you’ll be married and have more kids by then.”
“Doubtful. Unless the perfect man literally drops out of the sky and into my lap, I’m not looking for any kind of relationship.” I eyed the way he kept adding spices to the sauce. “I’ve got enough men stressing me out, thank you.”
Pops took another taste and nodded approvingly. “I know you don’t mean me.”
Gavin yelled from the other room, “Mom, does Sharpie come off if someone accidentally colored on the walls?”
Pops chuckled. I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.
“It’s just a little touch-up paint,” he said. “Now, come on. You set the table and let’s eat.”
Chapter Eight
Archer
“This steak is overcooked.” My father set down his fork and knife with slow, purposeful movements. Without trying it, he’d sliced into the middle, the vivid red of the expensive meat clearly visible even across the table. Medium rare, the way his was always prepared. “Hundreds of dollars a pound and our chef doesn’t even know how to properly prepare Kobe beef. It’s embarrassing.”
My knife hovered in the air, just above my own cut of meat, which was cooked to a textbook medium—seared on the outside and pink on the inside—exactly how I liked it.
Analise glanced in my direction, but we didn’t hold eye contact for long. She managed a tiny eye roll and shoved a spear of broccolini in her mouth. There was no steak on her plate. She’d been a vegetarian for about two years.
She’d never admitted it out loud, but I was increasingly certain she’d forgone eating meat in equal measure about not wanting to eat animals, and because it pissed him off.
Both Evans children, all in all, were a great disappointment to my father.
The entire life he’d built was a disappointment to our mother, too, which was why she’d packed her shit and left when Analise was two. Turned out, he didn’t earn quite enough to keep her happy, and raisingchildren—even by proxy, with the help of two nannies—was just a bit too messy for her.
No doubt if she’d been here, she’d have been bitching about the $200-a-pound steak too.
Instead of reacting immediately, I adjusted my grip on the fork and watched with satisfaction as the knife cut through with hardly any effort. When the steak was in my mouth, practically melting as I chewed, I sat back in my seat and let out a contented groan. The sound was obscenely loud in the uncomfortably quiet formal dining room.
Father sighed quietly but didn’t comment.
I hated this room. The ostentatious crystal chandelier. The giant table for twelve, even though it was hardly ever more than just us three. The walls of this place only ever saw polite veneer and better faking than a porn star’s bedroom.