The Art of Romance (21 page)

“It’s a proud declaration of my nerdhood. You know those tribal or barbed-wire armbands that people get around their upper arm? Well, mine looks like that, but it’s actually Schrödinger’s equation for a single particle with potential energy.” He held the door open for Dylan. “Everyone in my study group freshman year chose a different piece of the equation to get as an armband.”

“And the tattoo artist was able to do it for you?”

Tyler grinned his goofy grin and pushed his glasses up. “It’s a tattoo place just off the MIT campus. You should
see
some of the photos of their work that they have hanging on their walls.”

Dinner was even more uncomfortable than the outdoor session. The publicist—Clipboard Lady—had them change into the colored polo shirts they’d been instructed to bring (Mother had Spencer trade shirts with Pax, since the short-sleeved blue polo didn’t quite cover the bottom of Spencer’s tattoo), and once again, they were instructed to talk and laugh and pretend like they were having a good time.

Dylan was about good-timed out. And as to dinner—by the time they were actually allowed to put a bite in their mouths for the video shoot, it was so cold as to be inedible. After that came working and laughing and talking in the kitchen while Mother washed the dishes.

All four of them watched this very closely, since it was something they’d never seen her do before.

“I think that’s a wrap on the boys.” The publicist consulted her clipboard. “Yes, thanks Grace’s sons. That’s all we need from you.”

“Hallelujah,” Pax murmured. “I’m starving.”

Dylan nodded. His stomach had been rumbling—loudly—for the past hour. They grabbed their white shirts and jackets and fled before anyone could decide they were still needed for something more.

“Where are we going to eat?” Tyler asked as soon as the kitchen door closed behind them.

Dylan checked the time on his cell phone. “It’s after seven thirty. What’s close?”

“And fast,” Tyler added. “I don’t know if I can wait on a sit-down place. But I don’t want fast food either.”

Pax responded after they all climbed in and Dylan got the engine—and the heater—started. “What about Whitt’s Barbecue? We can pick it up and take it back to Gramps and Perty’s and watch movies or something.”

“That’s perfect. I haven’t had Whitt’s in ages.” Spencer blocked Dylan’s view of the parking courtyard through the rearview mirror as he struggled back into his sweatshirt.

“I think they close at eight, so we’ll need to hurry. It’s just out on Highway 70S—so take a left at the end of Harding Place, and it’ll be almost immediately on the right.” Pax zipped up his jacket before putting on his seat belt.

Dylan navigated back out to the road carefully. Even with the low fixtures lighting the edges of the driveways, the dark was almost absolute under the low, tight overhang of trees.

As the last customers of the night, they got their order from the drive-thru barbecue place quickly. Pax made Dylan wait until he’d checked to make sure they’d gotten everything, and Dylan had to knock on the pickup window to get the tub of spicy sauce. Getting home without that would have been a travesty.

“Drive fast, bro.” Spencer leaned forward and drew in a deep breath through his nose. “I don’t think I can stand smelling that but not eating it for too long.”

Less than fifteen minutes later, he pulled up beside the side porch that led into Perty’s kitchen.

The food came out of the white paper bags as soon as they got to the table. Pax retrieved paper plates from one of the overhead cabinets near the stove and four glasses from another. Dylan took the glasses and filled them with ice from the fancy, stainless-steel refrigerator.

With no need for talking, they began the process of building their sandwiches. Dylan soaked the tops of the three hamburger buns with the hot, vinegar-based sauce and the bottoms with the mild. Then he piled on the pulled pork, followed by coleslaw and more hot sauce. He set the tops of the buns on the sandwiches and squished them down with the palm of his hand.

Pouring himself a glass of Whitt’s iced tea—so sweet, some said, it could be used for pancake syrup—he sat down, tucked a napkin into the collar of his blue polo shirt, and shoved as much of his first sandwich into his mouth as he could.

“I thought y’all were having dinner at your parents’ house.”

They all looked up at Perty, cheeks bulging. Dylan cleared his bite first. “We didn’t get much to eat.”

Spencer gulped down his bite, stood, and hugged their grandmother. “Hey, Perty. Sorry I didn’t come in and say hi when we got here.”

She kissed his cheek then pushed him back toward his chair. “I raised two boys of my own. I know you forget everything when you’re hungry.” She picked up a piece of meat that had fallen onto Spencer’s plate and ate it. “And you know even I can never pass up Whitt’s.”

“Want a sandwich?” Tyler reached for the bag of buns, which still had four left after they’d all fixed three sandwiches to start with.

“No, Gramps and I ate at church a little while ago.” She went around the table and gave the rest of them a kiss on the cheek as well. “What do you boys have planned for the rest of the night?”

“We thought we might watch movies.”

“Feel free to use the game room up on your floor. Even if it weren’t two floors above our bedroom, we made sure to have everything soundproofed when we remodeled the house.” She went into the kitchen, filled a large ceramic mug with water, and stuck it in the microwave.

Dylan finished his first sandwich and started on the second.

Gramps came in. Spencer choked down the huge bite he’d just taken and stood to greet their grandfather.

With their nightly mugs of hot tea, Gramps and Perty said good night and left them to their own devices.

After his third sandwich, Dylan leaned back and finished off his glass of tea. Tyler, now starting his fourth, pushed the bag containing the three remaining buns toward him.

“I think I’ll save my extra sandwich for breakfast in the morning.” He threw the several wadded napkins he’d used onto his plate.

“Sounds like a plan.” Spencer laced his fingers over his abdomen. “So…movies? Oh—how about
A Christmas Story?
I haven’t watched that one yet this year.” He looked at Dylan and cuffed him on the shoulder. “Watching that together every year just hasn’t been the same without you.”

Dylan returned his brother’s gesture. “Hey, thanks for getting my back with Mother earlier.”

“No problem.”

“Tyler’s got one, too.” Dylan turned to look directly across the table. “So, Pax, that just leaves you. Anything you want to tell us?”

“I thought about getting one once, but then my old car broke down and I had to buy a new one, so the money I would have spent on it went to the down payment.” He put the lids back onto the tubs of sauce.

“What would you have gotten?”

“Actually, it would have been a lot like Tyler’s—he’s the one who got me started thinking about it. It would have been Newton’s Third Law in Latin designed into an armband:
Actioni contrariam semper et œqualem esse reactionem
. For every action—”

“There is an equal and opposite reaction,” Dylan, Tyler, and Spencer finished the physics principle along with him.

Following his brothers up to the third floor where three guest bedrooms surrounded a bonus room housing several cushy chairs and sofas and a big-screen TV, Dylan thought about that Newtonian principle—and the Latin permanently etched in his own skin.

Every action created a consequence. But the wise man learned from the past and acted prudently in the present so he wouldn’t ruin his future.

And it seemed as if Someone had gone to great lengths to make sure Dylan had a chance to do just that.

Over the next few days, as Dylan spent time getting to know his brothers again—mostly over cutthroat video game competitions—the idea of actions creating consequences, of learning from the past to keep from blackening his future, made him run through every major decision, every choice, every turn he’d ever made. As he reviewed each one, he made a mental list of the consequences—and the lessons he should learn from them.

On Christmas Day, watching his parents sit back like beneficent royalty as their sons opened gifts of expensive wallets, sweaters, and ties, along with gift cards to a major electronics store, Dylan resigned himself to his position as the black sheep of the family.

When Mother determined it was time for the boys to exchange their gifts to each other, Dylan exchanged glances with his brothers. They all ended up looking at Spencer—who was, after all, Mother’s favorite.

“We decided this year that we’re all going to treat each other to dinner at the Stock-Yard Steakhouse instead of buying physical gifts. We don’t get to spend a lot of time together, and we all rarely get to eat out at a fancy restaurant like that.” Spencer’s no-nonsense tone invited no questions.

She rolled her eyes but did not argue.

Spencer took that as the sign to pull out their joint gifts for their parents. If Mother didn’t like the designer purse, she was a better actress than Dylan had ever imagined. And Dad got pretty excited over the digital golf scorekeeper, personalized golf balls, and monogrammed medallions that would attach to the end of his golf clubs so everyone would know whose they were. At least that’s what Spencer had told them when he ordered them.

The rest of the day, spent at Gramps and Perty’s house, was much merrier, especially with the addition of their father’s older, bachelor brother, Donald, who raised pashmina and cashmere goats on a farm near Bell Buckle, Tennessee. Like Dylan, Donny didn’t meet with the approval of Davis and Grace Paxton-Bradley, but he’d always been a favorite at family gatherings for the boys.

Though their parents flew up to Cleveland for the obligatory four-day visit to Mother’s parents the day after Christmas, Dylan and his brothers chose to save money and drive. And eighteen hours in the car with his brothers more than made up for the time they had to spend with Grandma and Grandpa Paxton and the rest of the Paxton family—who made Mother look humble and self-effacing in comparison. Every time he started to get upset over the way his grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins ignored or patronized him, Dylan rubbed his hand over the inside of his elbow.

From the past, the present acts prudently, to not blacken future actions
.

Until now, he’d always avoided making New Year’s resolutions, but as he and his brothers drove back to Nashville the day before New Year’s Eve, he vowed to himself that this next year would be the one in which he learned from the mistakes of the past so he could start building a better future.

S
e, here’s where I’m not sure the story is actually working for me anymore.”

Sassy paused and looked up from the box of kitchen items she was packing. “What do you mean? It sounds like a wonderful story.”

Caylor shrugged and reached for the stack of glass serving platters on a top shelf. “Well, after I got into it, I started realizing that Giovanni—the artist—may not be who I thought he was in the beginning.”

“Who’s he turning out to be?” Susan asked her daughter, stepping off the stepstool with an armful of plastic food-storage containers.

Sassy hoped she knew who the artist was—at least in real life, anyway—but she said nothing.

“I don’t know. I feel like there’s an identity, a part of himself, he’s keeping hidden. A secret past—something he’s done, something he’s created or painted in the past—that would totally change the way Isabella sees him if she ever found out. So he has to keep her from finding out. But somehow, she realizes what’s going on, realizes that whatever this thing is that he did in his past could put any hope of finding happiness together at risk—because if she reveals to him she knows his secret, she’ll be revealing a secret of her own….” Caylor’s voice drifted off, and her eyes took on that spaced-out look she got whenever one of her story ideas took over.

“But that sounds like just what you need to happen in a perfect romance. Lots of conflict. Leave us worried about if they’ll ever be able to work things out so that they can live happily ever after.” Sassy finished taping the box then wrote B
AKING
P
ANS AND
C
ASSEROLES
on the top and side with a black marker.

“What’s that?” Caylor turned around, and her eyes slowly refocused. “Oh, right. But I’m just not sure that Isabella will be able to understand or overcome whatever it is that Giovanni did in his past—nor he hers.”

Sassy handed Caylor the tape gun then patted her cheek. “You’ll figure out a way to give them a happy ending. You always do.”

But the worried expression didn’t leave her face. Sassy knew better than to push Caylor when she was in the development stage of a story idea—or when she was in the final throes of writing it later on down the line. Caylor simply needed time to think through and work out the details. A few days from now, Sassy was certain, Caylor would be euphoric over having figured out how to get her characters together at the end of the book.

Sage bounced into the room, long red hair swinging from a high ponytail. “What are y’all still doing in here packing? I thought you said we were supposed to be leaving for the Bradleys’ open house at two.”