Page 94 of Power Play

There was a stuffed lobster in a case that was very weird, especially since we were supposed to rub it for luck. Tess refused, so Kit did it for her.

We took a booth by the window and Tess went to work on the kids’ paper menu with the cup of crayons our server dropped off.

Kit looked over the menu but I didn’t bother. “You know what you’re getting?” she asked.

“Eggs over easy, bacon, wheat toast, home fries and chocolate chip pancakes and a piece of blueberry pie as an appetizer.”

Kit gaped at me.

“I know, it’s hard work keeping this figure,” I said, running a hand down my stomach.

Tess and Kit ordered a spinach and feta omelet to split with toast and home fries and I convinced them both to get a piece of pie.

Tess got chocolate cream.

“Awesome,” I said, reaching over to high five her.

Kit got coconut cream.

“You’re a monster,” I said, making Tess laugh.

The bell over the door jingled and Nick walked in by himself. He wore his navy blue coveralls and a baseball cap.

Shit. I couldn’t hide. I was a pro hockey player and it wasn’t in my nature. So when our eyes caught across the room, I shrugged as if to say – sorry man, didn’t know you’d be here. He stopped for a second like he might turn around and leave, which seemed a little childish to me, but this was his town. His diner.

He’d made it clear I was not invited.

I waited to see what he was going to do. Ignore me was the obvious choice. But to my surprise, Nick walked over and stood at the edge of the table glaring at me. I had one of those time warp moments that I had with Wyatt sometimes, like when he was a grown man and he said something or made an expression like he did when he was ten. I felt myself slip back in time to when we were kids and then back to the adult versions of us. It always felt like a kind of magic. A trick I had with my brother.

Here it was again. But instead of the past, it was like a doubled version of my older brother. A tiny taste, without having experienced it, of what it might be like to have two older brothers.

“Shit,” I said on a gusty laugh, feeling like I’d really missed out on something, and I was sad all over again. “You are glaring at me just like Wyatt does.”

Nick looked up at the ceiling and then back down at us. He was obviously chewing his tongue. If he was going to cuss me out again, I really didn’t want him to do it in front of Tess. I was just about to say something when he forced an extremely awkward smile across his face.

“My dad said I was a little out of line the other day,” Nick said. “The playing dirty thing.”

“You kidding?” I joked. “Wyatt threatened me with a bat every day of my life for three years. I know about playing dirty.”

“Still,” he said. “I was raised better than that.” He looked at me pointedly as if to make it clear he’d been raised by Antony Renard and his wife, and I had no argument to make with that.

“Antony seems like a really good guy.”

“The best,” he said. “And my mom is even better.”

“Moms usually are,” Tess said, doing the word search on her table mat.

“What did you order?” Nick asked.

“Pie!” Tess answered, looking up with delight. “For breakfast.”

“Pie for breakfast? What? Is it your birthday?” Nick teased.

“No, my birthday was last January, this is just ‘cause we’re on vacation,” Tess explained.

“Do you want to join us?” Kit asked.

Right. Because that was the cool thing to do. I could have kissed her I was so grateful. She said it with the right amount of kindness and interest, without it being desperate, like it would have sounded had I done it.

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