Page 114 of At First Smile
My eyebrows nearly shoot into my hairline. “What? Fiona’s has been your dream. Can’t you two share or?—”
“Layla’s pregnant.”
“You two have to work this out if she’s going to have your baby.”
“It’s not mine.”
The breath wooshes out of me. “Fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly.” He grabs a bowl of potatoes, an eerie calm masking his features.
My face twists with disbelief. “How? Who?”
“Our silent partner, Becket. Turns out his silence is all about keeping secrets. Like the fact he’s fucking my wife.”
It all clicks together. Becket, a childhood friend of Layla’s, partnered with them when they opened Fiona’s. With his MBA and their culinary experience, it appeared the perfect partnership. Still, Finn always raised an eyebrow at Layla’s closeness to Becket. The inside jokes. The lingering hugs. The way he insisted that Becket looked at her. We’d tease that his romance author brain simply saw love stories everywhere.
“God, that’s rough. I’m really sorry.”
Wordlessly he starts to whip the potatoes for the topping.
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Part of me just wants to pick up and leave. To start over somewhere, but…”
“But what?”
“Mam.”
I wave a dismissive hand. “Mam is fine. She doesn’t need anyone to take care of her. Not to mention, Finn is here. Christ, he’s a professor at the same university with her.”
“Same department,” he adds with a chuckle.
“He really is a mama’s boy.”
“Does our fresh start mean we can finally team up against Finn?”
“Fuck yes. I have years of pranks to get retribution for.”
Finn may have played referee and failed peacemaker, but he also took advantage. For years he enlisted one of us to mess with the other.
“The tables have turned.” Mischief glints in Gillian’s green eyes.
Happiness about a partnership with Gillian, even just for pranks, thrums through me. It means to truly be brothers in all the ways that matter. The ways that we’d not let ourselves be for far too long. We have so much time to make up for.
“Axel’s needs a new head chef,” I say, standing up straight. It’s a bit of a lie. We don’t have a head chef, per se, just a series of cooks that funnel in and out. Still…
“Do you want me to help you find one?”
“No. I want you to be it.”
His gaze jumps to mine. “Are you serious?”
“Like a heart attack.”
“We just—” he motions between us.
“I know… Even more reason. It’s a fresh start. For you. For us.”
