Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(8)

Eli also sat with him on those Sundays and yelled just as loudly about football as he did about foodies. He’d played ball in high school and in college. Now, he was working in a cubicle at an investment company in Augusta, Maine, hoping to make his finance degree worthwhile.

As Theo came in, pulled a large mug down from one of the open cupboards and made himself a cup of coffee, Eli looked over his shoulder. “Morning, Dad.”

“Morning. Cinnamon rolls?”

“Nah. Crumb cake. And herb and brie omelet.”

“Wow. You stay here long enough, I’m going to gain fifty pounds.” One thing he still had to work out about being in Paris was how to work out. He’d be fifty in August. He knew he looked considerably younger, but staying fit was a big reason for that, and he was vain enough to be worried about skidding toward visible age.

“Want to talk to you about that.”

While Eli poured the eggy concoction into a skillet heated on the range, Theo took his coffee to the table at the side of the room. “What’s up, E.?”

Without turning from his work at the skillet, Eli answered with a question. “How long can I stay?”

He and Jordan had arrived three—no, four—days earlier, for a two-week vacation. Or so Theo had thought. “Don’t you need to get back to work?”

His son shrugged his wide shoulders. “Can I stay a while?”

Theo set his mug down and went to his son’s side. He laid his hand on his shoulder. “As long as I can, E. What’s going on?”

“Fucked up. I got fired.”

“Wow. I’m sorry. You want to talk about it?”

Again, he shrugged. “Not much to say. I missed something important, lost a client a boatload of cash—real money. There are no apologies or second chances when a multimillionaire is screaming for your head.” He picked up the skillet and tipped it, letting egg run to the sides of the pan.

“What can I do?” Knowing that his son wanted distance more than comfort, Theo dropped his hand and went back to the table.

“Let me hang out while I figure it out? I hated that job, anyway. Like you said, it was a mistake to pick a career for money. Mom would’ve kicked my ass when I changed majors.”

Theo laughed. “Yeah, she would have. Archeology is definitely more interesting than finance.”

Turning the fire down under the skillet, Eli opened the door to one of the wall ovens, and a thick rush of cinnamon scent billowed almost visibly into the room. Theo’s mouth watered.

Eli set the glass pan full of cinnamony goodness on the counter and closed the oven door. “It’s not like jobs in archeology open up every day. Or every year. I just didn’t want to end up working at the sporting goods store for the rest of my life.” He chuckled without humor. “But I’m never going to get an investment job again, so it looks like it’s retail for me, anyway.”

Theo got up and pulled plates and silverware from the cupboards. As he set the table, he asked, “What about food? You love this, what you’re doing right now. Be a chef. You could apply to the big school here, what’s it called—”

“Le Cordon Bleu, Dad. It’s pretty famous. And I bet I’d need to speak French a lot better than où est les toilettes.”

“It’s pronounced like a long ‘a,’ not ‘ehst.’”

Eli grinned as he brought the skillet over and slid a third of the enormous, fragrant omelet onto the plate in front of Theo. “My point exactly.”

Theo intended to rebut that with an argument that his embarrassingly rudimentary French had not yet impeded him; nearly everyone he encountered spoke far better English than he did French, and as far as he had seen, the reputation of Parisians as rude and supercilious had been vastly and unfairly overstated. But before he could, Jordan came into the room with a flourish.

“Bonjour, ma famille. C’est une très belle journée, n’est-ce pas?”

Jordan was so different from either Eli or Theo that people often expressed shock that they were not only related but by the closest possible blood. Both his sons had his blue eyes. Eli had his height and his rough, ruddy blondness. But Jordan took much more after Maggie. He was small—five-eight and slender—and had his mother’s fair, brunette coloring. At twenty, he was five years younger than Eli but seemed, in some ways, older. He was comfortable in his own skin. He knew what he wanted from life. Already.

He’d come out to his parents and brother when he was twelve years old. Just set his fork down on his plate at dinner one night and announced, “I’m gay. Thought you should know.”

No one had been surprised. He’d been playing with his mother’s makeup since he was two, fastidiously assembling and accessorizing his outfits since he was three, and none of his tastes in any regard were what one might call ‘macho.’ When he went to his brother’s football games, he watched the cheerleaders, but not for the reason the other boys were. He was critiquing their style and moves.

That night, Maggie had looked across the table at him, said, “Yep. Pass the rolls, would you?”

And exactly nothing had changed in their family, because they’d already known, and he’d never pretended to be anyone but Jordan.

Now, he was standing in the doorway with one hand high on the jamb and the other on his hip, wearing a gold and black brocade dressing gown and a jade green ascot, the pants of jade green silk pajamas underneath. His hair was styled in a perfect quiff, and his eyeliner was already in place. He certainly had a flair.