Page 4 of Release Me

“Swearing in your mother’s house,” he tisks playfully, dogging my steps the way he always did when we were kids. He thought being the same size as me meant he could go everywhere I went. When he surpassed me in height and weight, it wasn’t a thought anymore, it was a hard truth only he abided by. “Thought you knew better than that.”

I roll my eyes. “Grow up, Luca.”

“Is that all we’re gonna get from you today? Three word sentences and a permanent scowl?”

“You can have my foot up your ass too, if you’d like.”

“Sebastian Adler! Watch your mouth.” My mother’s admonishment reaches my ears before my feet carry me into the kitchen where she’s mixing a vinaigrette to dress the salad in the bowl in front of her and wearing an apron that says ‘Kiss the Cook.’ Her umber skin is covered in a fine sheen of sweat that tells me the meal she’s made is as extravagant as she is beautiful. I round the counter while Luca drops down in a seat on the other side of the island and wrap my arms around my mother, not caring about the way the wild cloud of salt and pepper curls on her head tickle my face. She hums softly but continues her work, pouring the dressing over the greens while offering her cheek up for me to kiss.

“Sorry for cursing, Mom,” I murmur against the side of her face, breathing in her scent. She smells like she always smell, like home and this kitchen she insists on cooking every meal in even though she could easily afford to hire a full time chef and kitchen staff.

“No, you’re not. You’re just sorry I heard you.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

She shoos me away with a laugh, urging me to take a seat at the counter next to Luca’s annoying ass. He’s on his phone now, scrolling through social media. It takes me a second to realize that all the photos on the feed he’s looking through belong to the same woman.

“New girlfriend?” I ask, making a show of appearing interested.

I’m really not. Luca is always on the hunt for someone new. He goes through women faster than my rooftop restaurant goes through servers. In the year since I hired my cousin Vince to manage the restaurant, our turnover rate has more than doubled. Usually, I don’t work with family, but I hired him because my aunt Adrienne—Mom’s twin sister—asked me to help Vince out after he moved back home from California. Since he had experience managing restaurants, at least according to his resume, I took him on, hoping him running the rooftop would create less problems for me, not more.

Since I brought him on, there have been a slew of server resignations leading to repeated searches to replace the people we lost. I’m over it, and although Adrienne is my favorite aunt, I will happily fire her son if I find out he’s the one fucking with my bottom line.

Luca closes the app immediately, throwing me an annoyed look. “Mind your business.”

“Weren’t you just in my business like five seconds ago?”

“I was commenting on your lack of punctuality, not asking questions about your personal life.”

Mom gives an exasperated sigh. “Are you two going to bicker all afternoon?”

I punch Luca in the shoulder, laughing when he winces. “Nope. We’ll be on our best behavior.” I hold up two of my fingers in a gesture that’s half salute and half surrender. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a scout,” Andreas says as he enters the kitchen through the patio doors that lead to the back yard. Of all three Adler brothers, Andreas is the quietest. He’s also the smartest, in that nerdy, bookish way that’s revered in the academic world he’s chosen to sink his teeth into. People are always impressed when they hear he’s the youngest department chair at New Haven University, but when I look at him all I see is the kid who lost his two front teeth on Sunday night and participated in a spelling bee on Monday morning, lisping his way to victory one snaggle toothed smile at a time.

“Tell that to the picture of me in a Cub Scout’s uniform that’s in the living room.”

Andreas rolls his eyes, planting his palms on the edge of the island closest to me. “You attended one meeting and never earned a badge.”

“But I did take the Scout Oath.”

“You read it off a piece of paper they sent home with you,” Luca says. “I don’t think that counts.”

“Sure it does.”

Before either of my brothers can respond, footsteps start to ring out in the hall. The long, heavy strides are ones I know like the back of my hand. I grew up listening for them, training myself to know what they sound like coming from any direction, on any surface. Not because I feared the man whose presence they foretold, but because I knew the moment he entered the room the clock would start ticking, counting down the minutes, or sometimes seconds, before he had to move on to the next thing. The next meeting, the next business trip, the next problem that would demand his attention and take him away from me.

On instinct, my spine straightens and my thoughts start to race. I sift through everything that’s happened since last week’s lunch when I saw him, trying to find something worthy of the fleeting moment I’ll have where his attention is all on me. The only thing that comes to mind is Nadia Hendrix. No matter how many times I push the image of her away, she keeps coming back in vivid detail I didn’t process in the moment but my brain is desperate to recall now. The deep hue of her ebony skin. The satin, black perfection of the long tresses hanging down her back and over her shoulder, flirting with the lines of the button-up that was slightly too big for her. A detail that makes me wonder how she’d look in clothes tailored specifically for the lines of her slim, but curvy frame.

When my father walks into the room, I’m trying to think about anything but how tall she is. How when she bumped into me the top of her head had come to my collar bone and when she looked up at me with those eyes, she barely had to tilt her head back at all. I’m failing.

“You boys should be helping your mother with lunch, not sitting around bickering while she does all the work.” Everett Adler doesn’t speak, he booms. His voice is a clap of thunder that inspires action. A strike of lightening that calls stillness in any form complacency and warns you that complacent is the worst thing you can be in this world. So before he’s even done talking, Luca, Andreas and I are moving, grabbing bowls, serving platters and whatever else is waiting to make its way to the table while Dad walks over to Mom and gives her a kiss on the lips.

I’ve always been under the impression that my parents are in love, but the sight of them kissing is rare. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen them engage in public displays of affection, and I won’t need all of my fingers to do it. My mother’s giggles follow me and my brothers to the dining room, and we all share a look laced with the same confusion.

“Are they really making out in the middle of the day like teenagers?” Andreas asks, his clean shaven face crumpling into a frown.

“It’s called being in love, you should try it some time, Dre.” This smart remark comes from the final Adler sibling and the only daughter. We all turn to see our little sister Zoe sauntering into the dining room with nothing in her hands except a phone. Typical. Dad has always had a soft spot for her, which means she doesn’t have to lift a manicured finger if she doesn’t want to, and the only time she appears to want to is when she’s doing hair down at her salon.

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