Shallow River

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, and then I swish it around my mouth as a reminder of what I’ll be tasting for the next week if I talk back.

“I’m sorry. I just want this dinner to go smoothly for you. I know how much Mako stresses you out.”

And me.

My A/C finally kicks in just as more sweat breaks across my forehead. I’ve never thought I’d have to worry about Mako saying anything to Ryan until now. What if Ryan gets under his skin and he tells Ryan I stayed at his house for a week in retaliation? If I didn’t already know that it’s the good people that die young, I’d bet money that Ryan would have a heart attack right then and there.

Ryan’s silent for a moment. “Just make the meatloaf and have it ready by six. Don’t burn it. Don’t be late. Just do something right for once. Can you manage that?” he asks, his voice dark and condescending.

Swish, swish.

“Yes,” I choke out.

He hangs up the phone without further comment. We’re fighting again. The corners of my lips tug down as guilt assaults me. I hate when Ryan is upset with me.

First, I oogle his brother and allow him into my personal space. Then, I complain about him not informing me of tonight sooner instead of realizing Ryan is swamped with work right now.

I’d get mad at me, too.

My foot presses on the gas harder. Tonight needs to be perfect.

“DINNER IS READY,” I call from the dining room. I set out the meatloaf and crisp asparagus on the ten-foot table in our outrageously formal dining room and laid out our best China. I’ve no idea where Ryan got it from, but it’s pretty so I don’t care.

Ryan and Mako have been in the living room poring over their case. All I’ve heard this entire time is Mako's underhanded jabs and Ryan's condescending remarks.

They hate each other and neither of them bother to hide it.

They both enter the dining room, their eyebrows drawn and jawlines tense. Mako stops before his chair, staring down at the meatloaf with a blank face. An evil smirk flashes across Ryan's face.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Ryan’s being petty.

Mako’s hands tighten around the back of the chair until his knuckles turn white. If he wasn’t wearing a long-sleeved button up shirt, even his tattoos wouldn’t be able to cover up the veins pulsing in his arms. Calmly, Mako pulls out his chair and sits down, his eyes never straying from the apparently offending food. If I didn’t know any better, the meatloaf grew a mouth and is currently talking shit to Mako.

Ryan sits at the head of the table, while I sit on his left and Mako seated on his right, directly across from me.

“Did you make this?” he asks, his voice strained as he lifts his darkened green eyes to me. My breath stalls in my chest. While his face is arranged carefully into a blank mask, his eyes are glistening emeralds, ripe with anger.

I figured being forced to eat food you don’t like would annoy him, but the tension rolling off of him is potent and suffocating. I don’t understand his reaction, but I’d love to figure it out. The curiosity in me burns to know why meatloaf would make him so angry.

“Yes,” I answer. “Homemade,” I tack on, as if that’ll make it more appealing.

He swallows and picks up his fork. Quietly, he takes his first bite. And then another. And another. He’s several bites in before I realize Ryan and I just watching him with morbid fascination. Well, I am, at least. Ryan is watching him with a sick sense of satisfaction.

For the first time, I want to smack Ryan for the way he’s treating his brother.

That feeling scares me. I love Ryan. I should be on his side no matter what.

Maybe he feels this way because Mako did something really bad to Ryan when they were kids. Maybe he beat him up badly. Hurt him somehow. There has to be a good reason, and I need to remember that.

I eat my own food, proud of how good it tastes. This is the one good thing that came from having a shitty childhood strife with starvation and desperation. Once I had the means to cook, I immersed myself in it. I cooked so much; I had to donate ninety-eight percent of it to homeless shelters because there was so much food.

I perfected cooking, and it’s something Ryan’s always praised me for. Something I was always really proud of.

I glance up to see Mako visibly force another bite down. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Clearly, he just doesn’t like meatloaf. But I don’t like someone eating my food and not enjoying it. It makes me feel like I’m covered in oil.

Ryan lets out a soft moan. I look over to see him roll his eyes to the back of his head.

So it’s okay when he does it.