The Fix Is In (Torus Intercession 4)

“And mushrooms and olives, please.”

“Okay,” she assured me, smiling.

“So mushrooms on pizza is good but in tea is bad,” Benji teased me.

“That shouldn’t even be something that needs clarification,” I assured him.

“Hello,” Sian snapped at me.

Returning my focus to her, I smiled wide. “When my brothers asked me did I know about the house, I lied my fuckin’ ass off, yeah? I mean, I was her favorite, they shouldn’t have expected any different, but whatever,” I was dismissive. “Now, my grandmother on my father’s side, my gran, she loves all of us the same, God bless her, but my nana, my mother’s mother, yeah, I was the one.”

Sian and Benji were probably wondering why the full-blown explanation about things they likely cared nothing about, but I was big on communication, and if either of them heard me talk about my “grandmother” later on or observed me talking to her on the phone, they would’ve been confused, as I’d just said she passed. And yeah, you had to count on people to be able to make intuitive leaps, but for others, every little thing had to be spelled out. I tended to err on the side of caution.

“Go on,” Sian encouraged me.

“But see, since you’re asking me about a cup, that’s a small thing, so I’m just gonna tell you the truth.”

“I don’t think I even care anymore,” she grumbled.

“I do,” Benji chimed in, leaning on the counter, smiling at me. “I’m intrigued now.”

“The cup ain’t doin’ it for me,” I told her. “This whole sgraffito thing you’ve got going on here is way too busy.”

“Okay, then,” she snapped. “That’s fine.”

“See, I like clean lines and stuff that’s simple. All the things in my kitchen were made by my sister-in-law Nozomi. She’s a professional potter. She has a shop in Lincoln Park in Chicago, as well as a website and an Etsy shop.”

“Oh,” she said, perking up, “I’m on Etsy. Can I see?”

“Sure, go get your phone.”

When she left the kitchen, Benji chuckled.

“What?”

“You’re driving her crazy, not liking her mug,” Benji informed me, and I noticed that he wiped the half-and-half carton down with a sponge before he replaced it in the refrigerator. He then went around the kitchen, straightening.

“You want me out of here?” I asked, because the tidying around me was the same thing my brother Cormac did whenever I, or anyone, for that matter, was over.

“No, it’s fine. You’re fine.”

I nodded, and Sian was back with her phone. I gave her the shop name, Jimmyrig Studio, and she looked it up.

“Holy fuckballs, Shaw,” she growled at me as I sipped one of the best tea blends I’d ever tasted. Whatever the secret ingredients were, I needed to get it out of her. “She has seventy-four thousand sales on here. I can’t even—I am so not there.”

“Yeah, but she’s been at it for five years. How long’ve you been doing yours?”

“Not nearly as long, but this isn’t the only place she sells stuff, and she has this many sales? That’s insane.”

“But it’s her main business. She sells entire place settings, and all those pieces are individual, so that’s gonna add up.”

She nodded, looking at all the beautiful work my sister did. “You’re so right about her style. Her pottery is clean and absolutely gorgeous.”

“But that’s not your thing, and that’s okay. And this tea is awesome.”

Her eyes lifted from her phone to my face. “Really?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at me.

“Nozomi says that you have to focus on one thing and do that the very best you can. Her thing is creating useable everyday pieces for your home. She doesn’t make installation pieces or sculptures or frou-frou vases. She makes stuff to bake in, serve from, and eat and drink from. That’s it. Simple.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s one thing. You do too many, you get scattered.”

“That’s true,” she agreed softly.

“I protect people, and I’m good at that one thing.”

“I suspect you’re good at a lot of things,” she assured me.

Shrugging, I smiled at her. “But I focus on one, just like my sister.”

She nodded slowly. “You know, I was wondering, with the baby coming, if I should concentrate all my time and energy on the Etsy shop and make a change.”

“Like maybe just make tea and the mugs for the tea to go in?”

“Yes. Exactly,” she whispered.

“And what’s-his-name, with the pub,” I teased her, grinning as I took another sip of the amazing blend. “Maybe he could help too.”

“Maybe,” she breathed out, not looking at me, her eyes back on the screen of my sister-in-law’s shop as though she was trying to find answers there. She looked like she was putting things together that had either not occurred to her before, or had, but now, suddenly, made sense.

“Okay, so we’re a no-go on the pizza,” Delly announced. “With the rain, apparently everyone had the same idea for lunch. But I have an idea.” She cackled suddenly. “Oh yeah. Yeah, I do.”