My Favorite Half-Night Stand(36)

“Well, I like them both,” I say, “but I feel weird about dating them both in person because I’ve never really worked that way.”

“So just ask Daisy out already,” Millie says with vinegar on her lips.

“I like Catherine a lot, though,” I say. “She’s funny and we interact a lot more. It’s hard to find funny.”

Millie gapes at me, offended. “Excuse you! I am hilarious, you dark stain on humanity.”

“I am forever calling my brother that, from this day forward.”

All attention sweeps to the door to the living room, and a hush falls over the group as we all take in Rayme in unison. My little sister has always had a flair for exotic outfits, but right now she’s wearing a loose-fitting sequined tank top and . . . I’m not even sure whether the bottom half qualifies as a skirt.

“Rayme, what on earth? It’s forty degrees outside,” I say, probably too loudly.

My sister is trying to kill Ed and Alex.

Or win over Chris.

“Wow,” Alex says, tongue rolled out all the way to the floor.

“Alex, close your face,” I say. “Rayme, go put some clothes on.”

I think she’s coming in for a hug, but she veers over to Millie instead, throwing an annoyed “Excuse me?” over her shoulder.

“Are you trying to murder them?” I point to Drooling Thing 1 and Drooling Thing 2.

She hugs Ed next and the contact turns him into a bright red statue, his arms stiff at his sides.

Millie gives me a reproachful glare but doesn’t say anything. We both know my sister can fight her own battles.

“They are grown-ass men,” Rayme says. “If they can’t handle a skirt, they shouldn’t be out in public.”

In response, Alex throws his arms wide for her, and gives her the Latin-lover dimpled smile. Rayme approaches with understandable caution.

“Where the hell is Mom?” I ask. She would have my back here.

Millie twists, glancing out the kitchen window overlooking the expansive backyard. “Talking to your dad and Chris. She went out for a few tomatoes, and I think caught them on their way back.” Squinting, she adds, “I think they were smoking pipes.”

My parents, everyone: pipe-smoking hippies.

“Like hookah?” Ed comes alive.

“Like Sherlock Holmes,” Rayme says with a laugh, and he goes still again under her attention.

Everyone from outside comes in, and indeed the cool air that blows in carries the warm spice of pipe tobacco. All smiles, and without taking a break in their conversation, Dad and Chris each grab a beer, walk toward the dining room, and don’t spare any of us a glance. Rayme pouts, and Millie catches my eye. I try to think back on my sister’s interactions with Chris from more than a year ago, but I swear even when she was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, I didn’t see Rayme as a human who would go on dates. Just like I’ll always be twenty in my head, she’ll always be fourteen and gangly, a young horse that hasn’t grown into her limbs yet.

She follows Dad and Chris, Alex and Ed follow Rayme, and Millie helps Mom get dinner onto the table. I try to help, but they eventually shoo me away because apparently stealing bites of food isn’t helpful.

My parents have an enormous farm table stretching most of the length of the dining room. The room, which is far longer than it is wide, has an expansive window overlooking the rolling hills of our family vineyard, and is easily the most spectacular view in the house, other than the one from their bedroom, which has the same view, just from higher up. Tonight, Mom has decorated the length of the table with a garland of flowers snaking around and between simple white candles. Ed sits down in front of his full place setting like he’s at the White House: eyes wide, hands unsure where to land.

“Ed,” Millie says, noticing it, too. “What’s with you? It’s like you’ve never seen flatware before.”

Ed picks up a salad fork. “Growing up, we felt fancy if we put the plates on the TV trays.”

Thankfully, Mom manages to swallow her sympathetic gasp. Instead, she says, “We’re just here celebrating Reid’s birthday this weekend, nothing too fancy for us. James, would you like to say a few words?”

We all swing our eyes to Dad, who looks at her like she’s suggested he stand up and break-dance for us. “Sure. Uh, happy birthday, Reid. Thirty-one is . . . a good age.”

“He’s turning thirty-two,” Millie says with a grin.

Dad lifts his wineglass to her in thanks. “Also a good age. And . . . let’s hope for more rain, and that we can pull those soil nitrogen levels back up this spring, eh?” With that, Dad reaches for the platter of ribs.

“There’s your birthday wish,” my sister says with an amusing tilt of her head.

To be fair, my father is not the most gifted orator. He does much better when he’s coaxing miracles out of the earth.

“So tell me about this dating app thing,” my mom says.

Rayme is visibly delighted. “Dating app? What? I definitely need to hear this.”

“It’s not that Grind Up I read about, is it?” Mom adds.

My eyes go wide as I look at them both from across the table. “First of all, Grindr is for gay men. So, no. And which of my dear friends here told you about any of this so I may properly thank them later . . . ?”