Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(28)

Don't get me wrong, I was well past over that by then. People get divorced and remarry. But he did it in a hurry. My dad and Carmen married after a three-month engagement, then they gave Cory and me a little sister, Audrey, about eleven months later. They gave us two actually, Audrey and Morgan. Audrey was seventeen and wild, where Morgan was sixteen, shy and quiet. They were both good girls and I loved them as much as I loved Cory, even if we didn't share the same mom. It's funny how things like that work out.

I opened the door to my mom's house with the key I'd never part with and yelled, “Mom!? It's your favorite son and I'm hungry.”

“Cory is that you?” she yelled back as I saw her round the hall into the foyer where I was standing. We're twins, but she knew my voice. She just liked teasing me. “Cory, you look like hell,” she said sheepishly, laughed, then complimented herself. “That was a good one.”

“How long have you been waiting to use that?” I pretended to be wounded and placed my hand over my heart. “That hurts, Mom.”

“Oh you poor baby. If you visited your old mom more, I wouldn't forget what you looked like. Come here.” My mom was the picture of graceful aging. She was about five foot five and in great shape. That day, she wore cargo shorts and a tank top covered in dirt. Her tan made her long, wavy, silver hair seem even more polished. Her blue eyes sparkled as she leaned up to kiss me on the cheek. “I'd hug you but I'm mucky. I've been out back harassing the plants.”

I wrapped both of my arms around her anyway and picked her up. She protested and hit my shoulders telling me to put her down. “Casey, you'll get dirty. Knock it off,” she scolded through her contradicting giggles. I placed a kiss on her head when I put her back on her feet. She was the mom to twin boys and used to being manhandled by us.

“I flew in this morning and decided to stop by before I headed home,” I told her as we walked into the kitchen where she immediately started washing her hands to make me something to eat. I didn't expect her to, but telling her not to was a losing battle.

“Well, I'm glad you did. I've missed you. You're a busy man these days. I'll probably never get that shed painted now.” She opened the fridge, knowing exactly what I was after. She didn't like pastrami, but it was always in there. I wondered how much she threw away when I didn't show up for a few weeks. “Provolone and mustard? You want me to slice a tomato?”

“No tomato. That's fine.”

“I just brought one in. It's no trouble.” She looked expectantly at me, proud of her garden and wanting me to eat something she'd harvested. I was like that with my brews. The look in her eyes was easy to read. It said, “Eat the tomato, I grew it just for you.”

“Actually, that sounds really good.” She smiled, prideful.

“So what’s new, baby boy? Where did you fly in from again?” She busied herself with making the sandwich and I waited patiently on the barstool opposite her.

“Phoenix. Marc has me traveling a lot more since we've been so busy. We're actually buying the warehouse across from our building now. It's crazy.”

“How exciting.”

“Yeah, it's pretty awesome. He said that we're hiring a few more people, too. Ten, I think, for now.” She nodded, listening.

Marc's dad started Bay Beer Brewing Co. about fifteen years earlier, and had been slowly gaining clout. I didn't know what would happen to it if—when—Marc decided to retire. I was sure he'd leave it to Aly, but she wouldn't know what to do with it. I'd been thinking of talking to him about possibly buying into it somehow. I just needed to do it the right way since I wasn't family, and wasn't planning on becoming family either. Marc and I were pretty close, though, and he knew how much I loved it.

“That's great news,” she said and took a plate from the cupboard and sliced the sandwich in half, then passed it across the bar.

“So, I've been doing a lot of the traveling over the past couple of weeks. I'm actually doing a pretty good job selling.”

“Of course you are. Look at you. That face. Your charisma. You know everything there is to know about that brewery. I'm excited for you.”

“I kind of want to own it. Or part of it. Someday. I don't know. I need to talk to him about it more.” I bit into the pastrami sandwich and closed my eyes. There's nothing like a sandwich made by your mom. She had a secret to making them taste better than I did and we used the same shit. Moms.