The Firefly Cafe (Billionaire Brothers, #1)(7)

“He’s at a rough age.” Dylan shrugged, sympathetic and pragmatic at once. “You’re an easy target for all those hormones and emotions rocketing around his system, because you’re the one who’s here for him. Believe me, when I was his age, I was sure everything would be better if my older brothers would just come home and pay attention to me. It’s only now, looking back, that I see how wrong I was. And boy, do I regret being such a jackass to people who were doing their best to look after me.”

“So you’re saying to wait it out, and in ten years Matty will realize I wasn’t a crappy mother, after all?” Penny laughed, and was surprised to notice that the belly-twisting tension of yet another fight with her son had almost completely dissolved. “I actually feel better. You delivered on the sage advice, after all!”

He laughed. “Well, I was once a teenage boy. I know how they think. I wasn’t so different from your son, in a lot of ways.” The smile slid off his face and those blue eyes turned serious. Speaking carefully, as if unsure how much to tell, Dylan said, “I was younger than Matt when I lost my father. Both my parents, actually.”

“I’m so sorry,” Penny croaked around the sudden lump in her throat. It was her worst nightmare: that something would happen to her, and Matty would be left all alone.

He shrugged. “I was lucky—my brothers and I had relatives who took us in, and they were wonderful. It could have been a lot worse. But I remember how it felt to be that age and looking around me to try to see what kind of man I wanted to be.”

“That’s a huge part of why I left my husband,” Penny said, the truth pouring out of her. “Because I didn’t want Matty to look up to him as an example of how to be a man.”

“I get that. Having no male role model is way better than having a bad one. Maybe I was lucky my brothers weren’t around more when I was a kid. I can’t imagine what I would have learned from them. My middle brother is a genius, but a total workaholic loner. And my oldest brother—well. I guess he could’ve taught me how to close off all emotion and go through life like a machine while trying to control everyone around me. Nah, I was better off making it up as I went along.”

He snorted as if to say he was still making it up, and was pretty sure he was getting it wrong. Penny wanted to hug him so badly, she had to sit on her hands to keep from reaching out. “It seems to me like you did a pretty good job with that.”

Dylan tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck, then shrugged again. “I made a lot of mistakes. Wasted a lot of years drinking too much and pretending to be the life of the party, like that would make up for the fact that I was drifting without a purpose.”

“What changed?”

His gaze shifted to the side for a second, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “I got a job. I’ve always been lucky. But my point here is that Matt’s lucky, too. He has you.”

Distracted from her curiosity about this brief glimpse into Dylan’s past, Penny sighed and rested her aching head on one hand. “Matt’s not going to learn a lot about how to be a man from me. And all he learned from his father was how to be a bully.”

In the pause before Dylan turned around, Penny tasted the sour anger of her own words on the back of her tongue. She swallowed it down.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “That probably sounds pretty bitter.”

“Don’t apologize.” Bracing his hands on the counter, Dylan stretched his legs out, all long lines and lean muscle. “Seems like you’ve got plenty of cause for bitterness.”

“Maybe, but I don’t have to give in to it.” Dredging up a smile, Penny stood and smoothed down her skirt. Yuck, she was still wearing her stale, maple syrup and strawberry jam–stained uniform. “I’m going to run upstairs and change out of this. Thanks for listening. And hey, if you haven’t made other plans—and if you can stand to spend any more time than you have to with a sullen teenaged boy—you’re welcome to join us for dinner.”


Dylan crouched to pluck a wrench out of the plastic sack of tools at his feet. “I don’t have any plans at all. Thanks for the invite.”

The way he said it, head ducked and eyes hidden, set off Penny’s radar. “Did the Harringtons arrange for a place for you to stay?” she asked slowly.

A dull red flush suffused the back of his neck. “Not exactly.”

Righteous indignation turned her voice sharp. “I can’t believe they sent you to do a job without making sure you were taken care of! The lack of consideration—”

“It’s fine,” he interrupted hastily. “There must be a hotel around here where I can get a room.”

“On an island this size? Bless your heart. No. You’d have to take the ferry over to Winter Harbor, which would be a pointless waste of time. You’ll stay with us. We have more than enough space here—I’ll make up one of the guest rooms.”

When Dylan looked up and met her eye, a distinct twinkle had taken over for whatever embarrassment he’d felt. “People don’t say ‘no’ to you very often, do they?”

Penny shrugged. “I’m a mom. And I deal with the lunch rush at the Firefly Café every day. The only way to get through it in one piece is to maintain total, unflappable confidence at all times.”