Page 52 of Family Bonds: Alana & Brennan
He grabbed the bottle that he’d stuck back in the bag, then followed her up the stairs to the front door.
He handed his jacket over for her to hang up and then walked down the hall with her. To the left was a kitchen that must have flowed to the dining room. The other side was a living room and off of that was another massive family room surrounded by windows with an enormous stone fireplace, floor to the pitched ceiling.
She opened a cabinet and pulled down two wine glasses, then reached for the bottle, but he opened it again and poured it.
“As you know, this is my parents’ house.”
“I like it,” he said. “Touches of modern and rustic. Old and new.”
Lots of wood in the kitchen, but light tones. White counters and backsplash. It was something he’d pick out to go with the dark floors.
“They had a lot of work done to it ten years ago. They converted the sunroom into a four-season room when they updated the kitchen. They also remodeled the bathrooms. All the big things. My mother said if it was going to be done, it had to be done all at once, as she didn’t want to piecemeal it for years. It ended up taking almost a year anyway.”
“I’m sure on the island it did,” he said. “Do your parents visit often?”
“Not this time of year. In the summer they were here more. There are three bedrooms and two full baths upstairs. I use the den as my office when I’m working from home, but I’ve got no problem going into the office. I will admit that sometimes when I’m off site, it’s easier to just do some work here, then leave, then come home.”
“I’ve done that for years,” he said. “Just packing everything up and unpacking it and turning it on isn’t efficient if I can do the work home anyway. Though I don’t have that nice of a setup.”
She picked her glass up and moved toward the fireplace.
“It’s nice to sit out here.” She flipped a switch and the flames jumped up. “We’ve had some deep conversations tonight. How about we turn it into something fun?”
“We can do that,” he said. “What do you have in mind?”
She sat on the couch and he debated sitting next to her, but she patted the cushion. “I don’t want to shout at you across the room.”
“I wanted to be close to you anyway.”
He wanted to touch her, but she wasn’t giving off strong enough vibes for him to reach over and put her under his arm as he wanted.
“Good,” she said. “How about we say no exes and no work talk? Anything but that.”
“Works for me,” he said.
“This is silly. I saw this on TV. You draw questions out of a hat and answer them. Both of us. It can be funny or serious. Just to get to know the other person.”
“We can do that,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“Why do you look so shocked I agreed?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes you see these things on TV, but they’d never work in real life.”
He frowned. “They are only questions.”
She jumped up and ran to the front of the house, then came back with a pad and pen. “I’ll write five questions and you write five and we’ll mix them up and pull them out of a pile.”
“At least two of them have to be funny random questions.”
She nudged his elbow with hers. “I was going to say the same thing.”
Alana wrote her questions, then ripped the sheet off and handed the pad to him while she tore the paper and folded them.
After a few seconds, he did the same as her and had them in a pile on the table.
“You do the honors,” he said.
