Page 31 of Tiger Queen

“This is amazing!” I said after one bite. “And I’m not just saying that because I’m starving.”

“Anthony always was a solid cook,” David said.

The youngest Haines brother beamed. “Aw, it was nothing. Just whipped a few things together.”

David’s plate held only chicken and broccoli. “You should try the potatoes. They’re better than French fries.”

Jake snorted as if that was a joke.

“David doesn’t eat carbs,” Anthony explained. “Which is crazy since all the best foods in the world are carbs!”

“Really?”

David nodded. “I’m on the keto diet. Ketogenic. I get all of my calories from protein and fat.”

“Ice cream,” Anthony was saying to himself. “Rice, pasta. Bread! How can someone go without eating bread…”

“You’ve got a diet like a big cat,” I said. “All protein and fat.”

He popped a piece of chicken in his mouth. “And like the big cats, I have to supplement my diet with vitamins. But aside from that, humans eat too many carbs.”

“We need carbohydrates for energy,” I said with a frown.

“You’d be surprised,” David said. “Twenty or thirty carbs per day is plenty for most people, unless you’re an athlete or marathon runner.”

Hunched over his plate, Jake snorted. “That’s our older brother. Always finding ways to feel superior to everyone else.”

“I’m not telling anyone how to live their lives. Just explaining the macro breakdown that works for me.”

Jake rolled his eyes.

“You three are definitely brothers,” I said. “Not just because you bicker. You all look alike, too.”

“If you want to get technical,” Jake said, “I only share half my genes with them. Thank fuck.”

“Huh?”

“We’re half-brothers,” David explained curtly. “We shared the same father, but we were each from a different mother.”

“Oh. Where are your mothers, then?”

An awkward silence stretched, and I regretted asking the question.

“My mother’s a drug addict,” David said with the same tone as someone describing the weather. “Gave birth to me then split. Haven’t spoken to her in twenty years. Jake’s mom stuck around a little longer, but she joined a religious cult down in Puerto Rico.”

“The children of the rising light,” Jake said bitterly. “I get a card from her every fourteen months. On my birthday.”

“Every fourteen months?”

“Her cult keeps a different calendar than us,” Jake said dryly. “Apparently my birthday is the forty-third of nocturne, whatever the fuck that means.”

I turned to Anthony. “What about you?”

“Nothing as exciting as those two,” he replied with a smile. “Mom died in a car accident when I was a baby.”

I gasped. “Anthony!”

“Aw, you don’t have to react like that. I was less than a year old. I never even knew her.”

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