“You make breakfast, I make dinner,” he reminded her, popping the cap on his beer.
“It doesn’t seem fair you work all day and then come home and cook.”
He sucked some back, swallowed and shared, “I like cookin’.”
For her.
He liked cooking for her.
He didn’t share that distinction with Luci.
Her eyes were on his beer. “You’re not going to drink champagne with me, are you?”
“Nope.”
Her shining eyes came to his. “More for me.”
“Yup,” he said, went to her, kissed her nose and then walked through the living room, loped up the stairs and changed into jeans and a tee.
But he took his phone out before he walked back downstairs and made the call.
“Hey,” Sam greeted.
“Yo,” Hap replied. “Heard the news, daddio. Awesome.”
“Yeah.”
Hap also heard the smile in Sam’s voice.
It was gone when he continued, “Listen, brother . . .”
Hap listened but Sam didn’t say anything else.
So he prompted, “What?”
“Got about four hundred names written down, but I . . . Hap, buddy, I can’t get around it.”
“What?” Hap repeated.
“Now we know he’s a boy, we’re namin’ him Benjamin Travis.”
“Yeah you are.”
Sam was silent.
“Strong name,” Hap went on. “Didn’t know Ben, but Gordo would be fuck-ton honored, dude. Beside himself. And Luci’ll lose her shit, she’ll be so happy.”
“You’re cool?”
He sounded dubious.
Hap dipped his voice low. “Remember, Sam, I loved him too.”
A second’s hesitation, then, “Yeah.”
“I won’t tell Luciana. Should come from you.”
“Thanks, brother.”
“Happy for you, Sam. You and Kia. He’ll be beautiful.”
“Yeah.” Sam cleared his throat then said, “Kia’s still pissed you two aren’t gonna be here for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Mom isn’t too happy either.”
“Makin’ Luci Gramps’s brined bird and Gram’s mushroom sausage stuffing, Sam. No way Maris and Kia’d let me horn in to do that for Luce at your place. Though, like we told you last weekend, you’re all welcome here. We’ll have plenty.”
“My thoughts on the matter, even though my wife won’t get there with me because it’s all about family for her, is that you want your woman all to yourself.”
His grandfather’s brined turkey and his grandmother’s stuffing were the shit.
But yeah.
Sam knew where it was at.
“We’ll be back on Saturday.”
“Don’t bring leftovers. I nearly got a hernia carrying the bird Kia bought up the stairs. It’s like she thinks she’s gonna feed my whole team.”
Hap laughed.
Then he said, “Listen, bro, gotta go make dinner for my woman.”
“Let you go. See you this weekend?”
“Absolutely.”
“Later, brother.”
“Later, man.”
Hap disconnected and sucked in a deep breath.
He let it out and went downstairs to make dinner for his woman.
Hap walked in the back door and the first thing he saw was the Christmas tree in the living room.
Last weekend it had been Christmas trees-a-fuckin’-go-go.
On Saturday, her two trees. One, a huge, butt-ugly silver one that had white and clear (yeah, clear) ornaments in her living room that he gave her no end of shit about. One, an equally butt-ugly, but smaller and narrow gold one that had pink ornaments made entirely of feathers (yeah, feathers) in her bedroom that he also gave her no end of shit about.
Onto Sunday and his place, where they got a real tree and he dug out the box of decorations he hadn’t opened in forever.
The ornaments from Iowa he’d inherited from his grandparents.
Half the time Luce had been near tears, the other half bursting with excitement and Christmas cheer when he told stories as they unearthed the ornaments and they trimmed the tree.
Except for the near-tears parts, it had been the bomb.
And his tree, with its old, mismatched ornaments, was gorgeous.
He’d also bought some boughs so Luci could decorate his mantle, stringing them with lights, and nestling the new frames she’d bought in them.
She’d framed pix of his grandparents and pix of him with his grandparents that she dug out of the ones he showed her.
When she was with him, she had all day on her own and she liked to take long walks to keep fit, but other than that she didn’t have a lot to do but talk on the phone to her friends, clean his house (which she did), keep his larder stocked (which she did), do their laundry (something else she did) and shop.
But those pictures were her having the means to do something for him in a way she was clued in to how he’d feel about it.
It worked.
His house never felt like a home.
It wasn’t the tree.
It was Luci and those pictures.
So now it did.
It was when he smelled what he smelled that he turned his head to the right.
Luci was cooking.
“Luce, I do dinner,” he announced.
“Well hello to you too,” she replied from her place at the stove, shifting shit around in a skillet, steam swelling from a big pot on another burner.
He went to her, gave her a quick kiss, pulled not too far away and repeated. “Luciana, I do dinner.”
She gave him a fake pouty look.
It was cute.
“But Happy, I needed my mother’s spaghetti alla carbornara tonight. Needed it.”
He looked down at the chunks of pancetta frying in the pan and his stomach let it be known on the rare occasion he allowed her to cook, she cooked gen-you-wine eye-talian, and that shit was life.
“All right, baby,” he muttered and kissed her again. He turned to head out. “I’m gonna change. You cool with eating in front of the game?”
“When’s football season end again?” she asked his back.
“July,” he lied.
He looked over his shoulder at her and chuckled when he saw the expression of horror on her face.
“Tell me you’re kidding, George Cunningham,” she demanded to his departing back.
“February,” he answered.
“Grazie Dio.”
That made him chuckle again.
He went up and changed and came down again to find her draining pasta.
“Got a call from Massimo today,” she told him as he headed to the fridge for a beer.
On his way, Hap saw her wineglass mostly empty, so he detoured to fill it and asked, “Yeah?”
“He started his house thirty years ago. He’s decided to do a special show, in February. Fashion Week. I checked my phone and it doesn’t clash with your Super Bowl.”
He’d got his beer, popped the cap, and turned his hips to the counter and his attention to her.
“You tellin’ me you’re gonna go?”
She was dumping skillet contents into drained spaghetti in the big pot as she answered, “I’m telling you that I’d like us both to go as Massimo is featuring models from his entire career. The oldest is Siobhan. She’s fifty-two.”
“Fifty-two. Over the hill.”
She turned a glare at him.
He grinned at her and took a drag from his bottle.
“He wants me to walk. Will you go with me?”