Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,12

me.

I put the glass down in time to pick up my son, squeeze him tight, and revel in the fact he still came running to me. I could still pick him up, smell his hair. There was a ticking time bomb on this whole deal. Sure, Ryder still let me hug him and kissed my cheek when I dropped him off at school, but nothing like when we was Jax’s age.

“Hey, little man,” I said, setting him down. “Did you miss me?”

He held his finger and thumb barely apart. “Just a little.”

Cue the emotional punch in the stomach. “Oh, is my little boy growing up and getting too cool for his mother?”

“First, I’m a young man, not a boy,” he said. “Second, I’m definitely cool, but I’ll never be too cool for my mom. I’ll even let you live with me when I get my place in L.A. after I sell my first screenplay, of course.”

Alexis hid her smile behind her glass and I bit my lip to stop mine.

Ryder walked into the room, glancing up from his phone.

“Did you hear that, Ryder, or were you too busy sending ab photos to Jake?” I asked sweetly.

My oldest rolled his eyes at this statement, far too used to me saying such things and no longer even trying to fight me on them. No fun. “Hear what? That we’re finally getting you into the mental institution I emailed?”

I smiled at him. “No, your little brother is planning on moving me to L.A. to live with him when he’s a rich and famous screenwriter. You’re going to have to get creative if you want that coveted favorite son title.”

He snatched a carrot from the board Alexis was chopping them on. “Totally okay with being number two. Less responsibility,” he replied dryly.

I shrugged. “Okay, well I’d remember such things with a birthday coming up.”

All teasing lightness left my son’s eyes at the mention of his birthday. “Mom, we don’t have to do anything.”

Alexis paused her rhythmic chopping at my son’s tone. The pain in it.

I moved to face my son. I had to look up at him now. My hands clenched his strong neck. “Your birth is something I want to celebrate. Your dad would’ve wanted that too. And I’m not about to hire some washed up nineties band to perform in the backyard like the other mothers at Black Mountain do, but we’ll have some pizza. I’ll even let you drink a beer.” I winked.

He chuckled. The sound was forced, and I hated that. “Okay, Mom, but you know that Dad’s been sneaking me beer since I turned fifteen.”

Of course I knew that. It was my idea.

I frowned and stepped back. “Well, of course I didn’t know about it. A good mother would’ve definitely put a stop to that.”

Ryder reached forward to squeeze my hand. “Not good. Great.”

The lie spoken by my eldest was so convincing that I might’ve believed it had I known better.

I knew better.

“I wish he’d cheated on me,” I said, sipping my second glass of wine.

We’d had our dinner, then sat down to watch an episode of Schitt’s Creek together before Ryder left for his boyfriend’s place and Jax tucked himself into bed with an Ernest Hemingway book.

My sister raised her brows, regarding me over the rim of her first glass. She drank to enjoy the fifty-dollar bottle, I drank to numb myself. I barely tasted it. Would’ve been completely okay with ten-dollar crap. But people who drank a lot of cheap wine were more likely to be considered alcoholics whereas people who consumed expensive stuff were connoisseurs. Or European.

“You wish David had cheated on you?” Alexis asked. She had yet to mention when she was going back to Chicago, to her boring boyfriend, her life. Since she was a website designer—a very successful one at that—she could work from anywhere, and I loved that but didn’t want to keep her here just because she was worried I was going to hang myself from a shower rod and turn my children into orphans.

I’d never do that to them.

Or myself.

I was much too narcissistic to kill myself. Wallowing seemed to be more my speed.

I nodded at my sister. “Yes. I wish that some mistress had crawled out of the woodwork after he died, presenting his love child. Or I’d found something incriminating on his computer. Something to make me hate him. It would be much easier to get over him dying if I hated him.”

Alexis softened her gaze in the