“Classic middle child,” Raylan says with a little smile.
“You’re probably the oldest.” I sniff. He reminds me of Callum and Dante—competent and responsible.
“Yeah,” Raylan admits. “But I’m not the biggest. My little brother Grady’s got me beat. He was six foot in seventh grade, and he hasn’t stopped growing since.”
I’ve heard Raylan mention his siblings before. Always with a tone of affection.
“What’s he like?” I ask.
“A lot like me, but with worse judgment. He was always getting into trouble growing up, and not much has changed. His wife settled him down a bit—they’ve got a couple kids now. He’s the hardest worker I know. Does the job of four men on the ranch.”
“What about your sister?”
“She’s smart as hell, and good with the horses. But she gets bored easy. And she’s got a temper. Not with animals, just people.”
I like listening to Raylan’s description. His voice is so warm and animated, anything he says comes alive.
“And your mom?” I ask.
“She’s kind,” Raylan says simply. “She always made us feel like we were the most important thing in the world. But she made us work our asses off too, so that was good for us. If we ever quit a job before the last little bit of it was done . . . that was the one way to really piss her off.”
I want to ask about Raylan’s father, too, but I know from comments he made in passing that his dad is dead. It doesn’t seem right to bring him up. Especially since Raylan hasn’t mentioned any specifics. I don’t know if they were close or estranged, or what killed him.
“What’s the ranch like?” I ask instead.
“Depends. You like horses?” Raylan says.
“I’ve never touched a horse in my life,” I admit. “I’ve never even seen one up close. I guess that makes me a city slicker or whatever.”
“A greenhorn,” Raylan says, grinning. “Or a tenderfoot.”
“I don’t know if I like any of those.”
“Maybe just a girl who loves Chicago, then,” Raylan says.
We’ve gotten in the car and we’re back at my place before I realize it. Raylan is telling me stories about the ranch. He’s easy to talk to, and even easier to listen to.
Raylan starts cooking while we’re still chatting, and despite the fact that I hate cooking, he ropes me into chopping carrots for him.
“I’m shit at this,” I warn him.
“That’s because you’re holding the knife wrong.”
He comes around behind me and puts his hands over mine. His hand is slightly rough, and very warm.
“You gotta rock the blade like this,” he says, showing me how to rock the chef’s knife so it slices through the carrot in uniform discs, without sending the pieces rolling wildly in every direction.
Raylan smells nice—not like expensive cologne, like Josh. Just like soap and laundry detergent and clean cotton. There’s something natural about him that I like. He doesn’t put product in his hair—it’s soft and messy. He rarely shaves, and he’s got calluses on his hands. But all that seems exotic to me, compared to the tanned and coiffed men I usually date. Raylan is masculine in a different way—by not giving a damn about his clothes or his car or his social status.
As usual, when I notice something appealing about him, I feel an equal compulsion to pull away.
“I’ve got it,” I say, taking control of the knife myself.
“Alright.” Raylan goes back to browning meat, well-seasoned with salt, pepper, onion, and garlic.
He cooks us pasta with tomato sauce made from scratch. It doesn’t look that hard when he does it, though I doubt I could replicate any of it. It’s delicious as hell, though. The right blend of rich, spicy, tart, and fragrant.
“Who taught you to cook?” I ask him.
“Everybody,” he says. “My grandpa, grandma, mom, dad, people I’ve met on my travels . . . it’s the universal language. Everybody likes food that tastes good. You can bond with anybody over a good meal.”
I guess that’s true. Even Raylan and I seem to get along when we’re eating together.
Raylan probably gets along with everyone, though.
I thought he was just a typical cocky soldier-type when I first met him. But he actually has a very calming presence. He knows when to talk and when not to. When to just have a companionable silence. He’s not always trying to fill the air with nonsense.
After dinner, we go sit out on the balcony attached to my living room. We look out over the city lights—the other high rises, each with their individual boxes of light representing offices and apartments, each containing some other person living their life. The streams of cars on the roads below are the same—each one carrying a person to their own individual destination. To them, what they’re doing is the most important thing in the world. To us, it’s just another light bobbing down the road, the same as all the others.
Usually that thought would make me feel isolated and insignificant. But tonight I think most of those people are probably going home to somebody—maybe to make pasta or watch a movie. And even if those activities are mundane, they’re peaceful and happy.
“Do you see your little sister much?” Raylan asks me out of nowhere.
“Nessa?”
“Yeah.”
“I do, actually,” I tell him. “I meet her for lunch. Sometimes I go see what she’s working on at her dance studio—she’s a choreographer.”
“Dante told me what happened with her husband—with the Polish Mafia.”
Nessa met Mikolaj when he kidnapped her. We were in conflict with the Polish Mafia at the time. In what I first thought was Stockholm Syndrome, Nessa and Miko developed feelings for each other. He let her go, which almost cost him control of his men and his own life. Nessa went back to him and they married.
“Do you know what’s funny?” I say to Raylan.
“What?”
“I actually like Miko.”
Raylan laughs. “You do?”
“Yes. I mean, don’t get me wrong—he’s intense. But he’s smart and ruthless, and devoted to Nessa.”
“What’s Nessa like?” Raylan asks me.
“Everybody who meets her loves her. She’s kind—like your mom, I guess. She’s always been that way. Even when she was little, she couldn’t stand to see anybody sad. She’d share anything with you.”
I pause, thinking.
“Sometimes she used to annoy me, because she could be childish, too. Too passive, too gentle, too eager to please my parents. Maybe I was jealous. She’s so likable and I know I’m . . . ”
“What?” Raylan says.
“A lot,” I say.
Raylan laughs.
“But anyway, she grew up, moving out of my parents’ house, getting married. She’s always been creative, and she’s been making these ballets that are just wild and gorgeous. I don’t know shit about dance, but they really are beautiful. And I respect that. I don’t know—maybe it was just both of us getting older. But we seem to have more to talk about now.”
“I feel that way, too,” Raylan says. “With my siblings.”