Page 13 of Hot Shot
A wife he seems to hate.
A daughter he hasn’t mentioned.
A family there is no evidence ever existed in his life.
Why are there no pictures around? If he was grieving their loss, wouldn’t he have something to look at? He did when he lost his mother. Had pictures of her everywhere in his apartment because he was afraid he might forget what she looked like.
There’s none of that here.
Dumping our dishes in the sink, I head back outside to work out how to turn off the heaters and lock up the house. It feels a little cold inside; I’ll have to find the house’s heat source and turn that up. Then again, the coolness might be from us coming in and out.
I find a set of switches labeled deck heaters and turn the ones on off. Securing the sliding glass door, I consider drawing the curtains across it to help warm things up but then I spot the thermostat and see Bran has got it set low.
I have to laugh at myself.
A few years ago, twenty degrees Celsius wouldn’t have made me blink but living in the south seems to have thinned my blood.
My brothers and father would have a field day with that. Mom would understand completely though. She was born and raised in Arizona and still complains about the cold of Canada and she’s lived here for over thirty years now.
I’ve got warm clothes and I brought the snuggly flannel pjs Mom got me last Christmas after listening to me complain one too many times about how cold it is getting out of bed in the mornings when I’m home.
I grin when I think about her matching pair and how Dad just rolled his eyes at us while my brothers groaned.
I never go home without them which is why I have them now. I can slip them on and go straight to bed after I clean up from dinner. I still alter the temp on the furnace, turning it up a few degrees.
Five to be exact.
Twenty-five seems far more comfortable than twenty.
When I finish loading the dishwasher and put away the loaf of bread Bran left out, I hunt around to see if I can find the fixings for hot chocolate. I’m not a tea drinker and the last thing I need is coffee right before bed.
I’m not surprised to find what I’m looking for. One of my most cherished memories of Bran’s mom is her hot chocolate and the nights she’d made it for us. We’d sit up late and talk, a hot cup, loaded with marshmallows, cradled in our hands.
His mother refused to make it any other way than with real chocolate. She’d buy blocks of it and shave it before stirring it into a pan of warming milk. I found a quicker way that doesn’t taste quite as good but it’s better than going without.
It seems Bran likes to make it the way his mother did because I find a container of shaved chocolate in the pantry right beside a packet of open marshmallows.
I know I shouldn’t, but I head toward the bedrooms. Tap lightly on Bran’s door.
I don’t expect an answer. I certainly don’t expect him to open the door in his underwear.
But one second I’m standing contemplating knocking again and the next I’m staring at a bare chest.
“I’m sorry.”
“Ah.” The sound hasn’t even finished leaving my lips when he’s talking again.
“I shouldn’t have yelled. Shouldn’t have stormed away. Shouldn’t have waited until you knocked to apologize.”
“Um…” I drag my gaze up to his. “That’s a lot of shouldn’ts.”
He scrubs a hand over his head and grips the back of his neck. “I keep making mistakes with you. With my life.”
“You can’t help the way you feel?—”
“But I can help the way I treat people no matter how I’m feeling.”
I don’t want to get into a bash-Bran session so I ask the question I knocked on his door for. “I’m making hot chocolate. Want a cup?”
