“Amateur.” He winks before rinsing his glass in the sink.
“I can’t believe you got me to do that.” Heading for the pantry, I grab an emergency pack of Double Stuf Oreos and pop one in my mouth to cancel out the whiskey taste. “Want one?”
I place the package on the counter and peel the top back all the way.
“When Carina and I were kids, we’d have a race and see who could ‘do a line’ the fastest,” I say.
“Do a line?” he asks.
“Yeah. A line of Oreos.”
“Let me guess, it was her idea?” he asks.
“One hundred percent.” I nudge the cookies towards him. “Come on. I know you eat, like, kale and egg white smoothies and this probably isn’t in your dietary guidelines, but don’t let me eat these alone or I will eat all of them.”
Examining the blue, white, and pink container, he reads the label. “Double … stuf. One F. That should be your first red flag right there. They can’t even spell stuff correctly.”
“They’re probably trying to be cute.”
“Or maybe the FDA wouldn’t let them call it ‘stuff’ because it didn’t meet their guidelines? So now they call it stuf with one f so they can get away with it?” he says. “Kind of like the word chocolatey.”
Brows narrowed, I say, “What’s wrong with chocolatey?”
“If a food says it’s chocolatey—with a y—that means there’s no real chocolate in it. Just chocolate flavor.”
“How do you know so much about this?”
“Years ago, this company wanted me to come out with a line of protein powders and meal replacement bars,” he says. “Would’ve been huge for me. Multi, multi millions of dollars on the line here. But since it would’ve been my name on the label, I started researching the ingredients and realized they were nothing but fillers and chemicals and the kinds of things that have no business going into the human body. It’s amazing, really, how they can take a shit product and package it in such a way that you think you’re buying something healthy. And then they price gouge you on top of it.”
I slide the cookies off the island and into the trash can.
“Thanks for the info, Fabian,” I say. “Now I’m going to have trust issues every time I go to the grocery store.”
“The more you know …” he winks.
“Maybe while you’re here, you can go through my pantry and throw out all the other Frankenfoods I’ve been deceived into thinking were acceptable to put into my body.”
“I’ll check the baby foods while I’m at it.”
I gasp. “Surely they wouldn’t poison babies, would they?”
The warmth of the scotch floods my body, a delayed reaction of sorts, and I brace myself on the island ledge. Without missing a beat, Fabian swoops in to steady me.
“You okay?” he asks. His hands are warm on my hips, and his body is all but pressed so close to mine I can smell the bleach from his t-shirt.
“Yeah.” I steady myself. “That shot just hit me all of a sudden.”
“Understandable for a rookie.”
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t always a rookie.”
“I imagine having a baby slows things down a bit.”
I realize now he hasn’t left my side, still anchored dangerously close to me, his eyes poring over every detail of my face as if he’s seeing it for the first time again.
“What’s … going on here?” I ask.
“Just looking at your facial features.”
“Okay, that’s not weird or anything.”
The side of his mouth lifts, flashing a dimple. “Just trying to determine which features of Lucia’s are yours and which are mine. It’s fascinating, these things. Genetics. So random yet so undeniable.”
“That’s why I went into the field,” I say. “It’s organized chaos with a paper trail. My favorite projects are the more mysterious ones, the families that aren’t super easy to map out. Love a good mystery—especially when it leads to a happy ending.”
I think of Fabian’s parents, whom he said he lost last year.
And the sister he wants nothing to do with.
“What were your parents like?” I ask, partly because I’m curious but also so I have something to share with Lucia when she’s older.
Raking his hand against his stubbled jaw, his gaze grows unfocused for a moment. “They were older when they had me. Early forties. I was a complete surprise, they said. My sister was their only child before that, and she was fifteen when I was born. Honestly, I hardly knew her. She got tangled up in the wrong crowd and was quite a handful from what I was told. I think they overcompensated with me, giving me all of their time and attention and energy, praying to God I didn’t turn out like her. Literally praying to God. I’ll never forget my mother lighting candles at church and begging the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to do something magnificent with me. That was the word she used. Magnificent.”