Maggie Moves On(14)
His brother leaned back on his barstool, looking smug. “She finally wised up and met someone better than you?”
Silas gave a dry laugh. Razzing was the family’s second language. “Don’t forget that your love life is up next for scrutiny, Mikey. And no. But I might have finally met the one.”
“The one what?” Beneath Michael’s plaid, pressed button-downs lived the heart of a pragmatic man.
“Come on, man. The One. I heard wedding bells when I saw her for the first time.”
“You sure it wasn’t just low blood sugar, or maybe you were standing in front of the fire station?” Michael posited with a frown.
“Positive,” Silas said. “She’s funny without ever hitting a punch line. She didn’t freak when my dog barfed all over her porch, and I do mean all over. She’s crazy smart and wasn’t suckered in by my expert flirting. She works with her hands and works hard.” He thought back fondly to the dirt-streaked tank top. The light sheen of sweat on her skin. “If she hires Bitterroot, I get to spend the next few months asking her out while dazzling her with my dirty expertise.”
“Dating clients is a shit idea, and you know it,” the risk-averse Michael reminded him.
“You can’t expect me to follow rules when the potential future Mrs. Wright is on the line. Or maybe she’ll keep her maiden name. Or maybe we won’t even get married. We’ll be life partners like Oprah and Stedman.”
“How strong is that beer?” Michael asked, eyeing Silas’s glass.
“I’m not drunk. And I haven’t lost my damn mind. I just met someone who took one look at me and—you remember when Todd Whitecastle tackled you on the playground and the football knocked the wind right out of you?”
Michael winced. It had been the beginning and end of his attempt at being an elementary school jock. “A guy doesn’t forget that feeling.”
“It was like that,” Silas said.
His brother’s brown eyes widened behind his glasses. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” He nodded.
“So all that stuff Mama B has been saying about love and the right woman—”
“Person,” Silas interjected.
Michael smiled shyly into his wineglass. “Person. It might actually not be bullshit? I thought that was just so we didn’t let our hormones run amok in high school.”
“One day we’ll realize our mothers already know everything, and we could have just saved ourselves a hell of a lot of time by asking them,” Silas mused.
“Hey, Sy!” a bubbly brunette with a tiny nose stud and a UCLA sweatshirt said from the end of the bar. “Hi, Michael,” she purred, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
“Hey, Charisse,” Michael said, sounding awkward as hell.
“How’s it going?” Silas said with a wave.
She took her drink, a frothy orange something accessorized with fruit and an umbrella, and wandered off, shooting Michael a backward glance.
Silas slapped the bar between them. “You’ve got to do it, Mikey.”
“Do what?” Michael asked, feigning innocence.
“Pull the damn trigger,” he said into his beer.
“Well, if it isn’t our two favorite bachelors.” A voice so familiar it felt like his own came from behind them.
“Mama B and Mom,” Silas said, getting up to give both women a kiss on the cheek and a hug each. He’d seen his mom and stepdad yesterday and had lunch with Michael’s mom and his own dad the day before. But spontaneous run-ins around town still deserved a proper greeting.
“What are you boys up to?” Silas’s mom asked, her cheeks pink from the night air. Dr. Blaire Thomas had her blond hair pulled back in a low, sleek ponytail. She was bundled up in the green wool sweater she’d gotten on vacation in Ireland two years ago. Tall, angular, and always put together. It was part of what made the patients in her therapy practice so comfortable.
She made grabby hands toward Michael’s wine and took a sip.
“And what trigger are you telling my sweet baby boy to pull?” Mama B demanded. Breonna Wright wasn’t so much pulled together as always exploding outward. She was shorter, softer, brighter. She wore yellows and oranges and reds that popped against her dark skin. Her nails were always painted and never in any color that someone could call sedate. Her hair changed drastically every few months. This month she’d cut it in a taper, leaving longer, kinky curls tipped blond on top.
If Blaire was the person in the family you went to when you had a problem you couldn’t solve, Mama B was the one you went to with good news that needed celebrating.
Together the women had given Silas, Michael, and their sisters a foundation of unconditional love, healthy boundaries, and a deep, abiding fear of disappointing either one of them.
“Volleyball,” Silas and Michael said together.
“Mmm-hmm,” Blaire hummed, not believing it.
“Dirty liars. Both of you.” Mama B sniffed.
“What are two lovely ladies like you doing in a place like this?” Silas said, turning up the charm to avoid trouble.
“We’re meeting up with our girlfriends to talk about our sex lives,” Blaire teased. She raised a hand and waved across the patio to a raucous group of women clustered around a heater.