Page 10 of Audiophile

He shrugs, but a muscle ticks in his jaw. “Responded to a call. Thirty-year-old woman. Her mother was there. She pushed her daughter not to take antidepressants because she didn’t believe in them.” Tommy wipes his face on his arm. “We got there too late.”

Tommy hates hugs, but we both need one. I stand up to wrap my arms around him—my little brother who is stronger than me. “I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t be too late for you,” Tommy whispers against my hair. “I don’t want to come home to find you that way.”

I squeeze him tight, guilt eating through my chest. I need to do better by him. “You’re not going to. If it gets that bad, I’ll tell you.”

Tommy snorts. “Will you? You’re as stubborn as the rest of us. You stayed with that asshole longer than you should have, and I’m convinced you stuck it out solely to evade my, ‘I told you so.’”

“Hey!” I play at shoving him away, trying to lighten the mood. “Don’t carry that around. I stayed for my own reasons. Come on—I’ll keep you from burning the chicken.”

“I’m not gonna burn the chicken,” he grumbles, pushing my shoulder, and we put the sad conversation to bed.

“Oh please, Ma cooks every meal for herbaby. When’s the last time you made dinner?” I ask as he thunders down the stairs. I’m competitive enough that I chase after him.

“You know I lived on my own for two years, right?” he asks.

I touch the refrigerator a half-second after him, the same finish line from when we were kids. Guess I wasn’t the only one racing. “Then why are you still such a Mama’s boy?”

“Because she loves it,” Tommy shoots back. “You have the same thing with Pops.”

“Whatever.” I can’t deny it. Tommy is named after him, but Papa and I are the closest. Silla’s hardly a full year older than me, but Livi and Tommy are twins. The seven-year gap between us as kids wasa line in the sand—they got more time with Ma, while Silla and I got more time with Papa. I didn’t mind the tradeoff.

Dinner with Tommy is strange, as our schedules hardly ever overlap. We sit at the island, since the table is too big for two, and manage some sense of normalcy by ribbing each other throughout the meal.

“What’s happening on the girlfriend front?” I ask, though it makes me just as bad as Zia Carla.

Tommy brushes me off. “I’m not ready to commit. Things are good right now.”

“How many girls do you have on rotation?”

“Three.” Tommy grins, and I cuff him on the back of his head. “Jesus! They know the deal. Nothing serious.”

“Do they know about each other?” Tommy’s eye twitches. “Ach, Tommaso! You can’t do that to them!”

“God, you sound exactly like Ma,” he complains. “They know it’s not exclusive.”

“For one of the smartest guys out there, you don’t use your brain. Stop thinking with your dick and pick one,” I demand. “Even if it’s not serious. Can you imagine what Mama would say if you got three girls pregnant at the same time?”

Tommy’s face turns white. “I’m smarter than that. No glove, no love.”

“And if that fails?” I give him a pointed look. “It happens more often than they say.”

He groans and shoves a hand through his black curls. “Can’t let me have any fun, can you? I’ll text Annamaria and break it off.”

“Good. And the other girl, too. You knew exactly who you weren’t going to choose, which means you should’ve done this a long time ago. Don’t do it again. Got it?”

Tommy at least has enough conscience to grimace. “Are you trying to prove you’re older, after what I said upstairs?”

“If you’re being an idiot you’re going to get called out no matter how old you are.”

“Understood.” Tommy salutes me as he puts his dish in the sink in an attempt to shut the conversation down. He allowed me to do that earlier, so I offer him the same compassion. Tommy is already bounding up the stairs before I see that he left all the dishes for me.

“Tommaso,” I grumble. “You’re lucky I love you.”

After the kitchen is clean, I crawl into bed and turn on the ambient noise of a thunderstorm. Hours pass while I toss and turn.

Each time I close my eyes, I see the man in the grocery store: his amber eyes, his grin, his laugh.

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