It only took ten minutes to walk from her flat to his, and it made him wonder why they hadn’t been all thetime running into each other at the shops in addition to seeing each other at work. But they each had their separate routines, he supposed, and they hadn’t often overlapped.
No matter. Now he knew each turn to take him to her home and had an open invitation to join her for dinner, which still flabbergasted him.
How could he possibly be so fortunate?
Or maybe notsofortunate. When he opened his own door after gathering his post—there was a package from Tandri, praise the Lord—he saw a light on that he’d turned out that morning and smelled fish frying. He toed off his shoes and deposited his things in their places as Enja darted out of his bedroom to come give his legs a purring cuddle in welcome, wondering which of his brothers had let himself in this time. It wouldn’t be Mother cooking—she’d known he was eating at Tatiana’s again.
As for why one of his brothers—Dalmar, he saw as he moved toward the kitchen with the cat in his arms—wascooking... “This is a first.”
Ulric was the tallest by an inch, but Dalmar didn’t need that extra inch to come across as a giant. He was still six foot five, broad enough to fill the doorframeshe had to duck through, and solid muscle from his days spent hauling gear. He looked over his shoulder in a silent greeting.
Well,greetingwould be stretching the meaning of the word. But in acknowledgment, anyway.
Anders leaned into the doorframe, letting Enja jump down when she squirmed for freedom. “I do thank you for making me dinner, but I’ve already eaten.” Which was good, because that fish looked more than a little burnt on one side. He’d have a fine time gettingthatreek out in a season when he couldn’t exactly open the windows.
Even Enja agreed—she ran back out of the kitchen instead of leaping onto the counter to investigate the fish, one of her favorite treats.
Dalmar grunted. “Not for you.”
“I... see.” Except he didn’t. “And you’re cooking your own dinner, presumably, in my kitchen... why?”
His brother’s shoulders bunched up. “Because Kristin told me I wasn’t welcome to eat at myownhome, and our mother took her side, and I wasn’t about to go to Ulric’s or Ram’s and have them harangue me.”
Kristin had...? Anders moved into the kitchen and elbowed his brother aside. “Let me help. You in akitchen is about as natural as a polar bear in the tropics.” He risked a glance up the five inches to his brother’s face. “Want to talk about it?”
He wouldn’t. He never did. Dalmar wasn’t the talking kind—he was the doing kind.
Which was why Anders nearly dropped the spatula when his brother sagged against the workbench and let out a long sigh. “I really put my foot in it this time.”
Play it cool,he told himself.Don’t scare him away.He turned down the heat on the stove—no wonder one side had burned, but no way had it cooked through yet—and kept his gaze on the pan instead of Dalmar’s face. “What happened?”
Even so, he caught his brother’s wince in his peripheral vision. “Garri, he... he came home from school—last day before break, you know—all excited. The school had been holding a contest. Short stories—Christmas stories. His won. Not just his class or his grade, but out of the whole school.”
Well he couldn’t not look over at that news, any more than he could restrain his smile. “That’s wonderful! He must have been so proud of himself.”
Dalmar, he couldn’t help but notice, winced again. “Yeah... he was. And his mother was.” He fell silent.
It said plenty. Anders gusted out a breath. “Dalmar. What did you say?”
His brother straightened, contrition turning into anger on his face. Ah,thiswas the Dalmar he knew. He waved a brawny arm. “What was Isupposedto say? The boy is ten years old—ten! And already, he’s too smart, too clever. Ten years old, and I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time. Bad enough I have to feel the idiot aroundyou, but my own boy?”
“Wait, you...?” Anders turned the stove down a bit more so that he could turn to face Dalmar fully. “You are not anidiot, you idiot.” Yes, he heard himself. “Other than when you act this way. Where do you think Garri got his intelligence?”
“Fromyou!” He roared it like an accusation.
Not that it wasthatsort of accusation. Anders rolled his eyes. “We’re a clever family—all of us. We just focus it on different things. I like words. Ulric likes numbers. Ram likes nature. You like machines. If you don’t understand what I say half the time, we’re even. When you ramble on about engines, my eyes glaze over. So stop being a coward and let your son be who he wants to be.”
Dalmar went still. Well, other than that pulsing vein in his temple. “What did you just call me?”
Anders smiled, even though he knew very well it would infuriate his brother. Always had, always would. “If you don’t want to be called a coward, stop acting like one. You can brave the fiercest storm, the wiliest rival—you don’t even cower at the thought of German U-boats! But the thought of your son being more like me than you? That terrifies you.” He added a dollop of butter to the pan and then put on the lid. Faced the giant down. Lifted his chin. “Is it such a bad thing, Dal? To be like me? Do you hate me so much?”
He expected a roar. A sneer. An insult. Instead, his brother deflated, going so far as to sink onto one of the chairs that he always dwarfed. “Nowyou’rebeing an idiot. I’m prouder of you than—I don’t know. You’d have the words, but I don’t, and that’s the irony of the thing.”
“See there?” He pointed. “You know what irony is. Three points. Idiots wouldn’t know that.”
Was that actually a breath of laughter that puffed from his lips, or another grunt? Hard to tell, sometimes, with Dalmar. He reached up and rubbed at that bulging vein in his temple. “I don’t know how to bea father to him.” His voice had gone soft, low, uncertain. “Apparently I’ve done a lousy-enough job being a brother to you, if you honestly think I don’t crow over your every book to everyone I know. The teasing, the prodding, the insults—those work with Ul and Ram. They work with Johann and Hans,” he said of Garri’s younger brothers. “I know how to talk to them about the things they care about. But Garri? He comes home talking about books I’ve never even heard of. About scientific stuff that means nothing to me. Aboutart.”
On another day, in another conversation, the way he sneeredartwould have made Anders bristle. But just now, it made him choke on a laugh. “Notart. The horror.”
