I stopped myself from doing it, willing myself into bed instead, but the longing was still there. But not that night. I finally had some time when I didn’t have responsibilities and urgent needs pressing in around me, and I could actually have one of those coveted lazy summer nights. And I fully intended on absorbing every minute of it. Grabbing the tray of food I’d put together, I carried it outside onto my deck, then down the large staircase that led to my lawn. Despite not being able to spend much time in it, it was entirely possible my backyard was actually my favorite feature of my house. A lot of time, energy, and money went into creating the exact space I wanted, so when I did get the time to enjoy it, it was everything I could want.
That included the massive stone fire pit surrounded by large custom-created log benches and stools. They reminded me of the camping trips my family used to take when I was younger. My brothers and I would sit around the fire for as long as our parents let us, roasting anything we could figure out how to impale on the end of a stick or stuff into a sandwich maker. While we ate scorched hot dogs and stuck our fingers together with the remnants of s’mores, we told increasingly disturbing ghost stories with the singular goal of scaring the hell out of each other. There was the ongoing challenge to see which one would sneak up closer to the fire to get in more of the light, which would turn on their flashlight first, and which would try to make enough “accidental” noise to lure our parents out of the tent to stop the story.
This pit was a bit more sophisticated than the ring we built from whatever rocks we could find scattered around in the woods, and I rarely had to worry about critters scurrying out of the logs when they lit. Our snacks had gotten less messy and were usually accompanied by beer. We hadn’t told ghost stories in years. But the spirit and sentiment were still there.
My brothers and parents were already sitting around the blazing bonfire. My father occasionally prodded the logs, sending cascades of sparks up into the darkening sky.
“Here we go,” I said. “A few more things to dig into.”
My youngest brother stared at the tray as I set it down.
“Seriously? We’re going to make snakes?” he asked. “Are you sure you’re the oldest brother?”
“I hate when you call them that,” my mother said, shuddering. “I never hear the whole sentence, and it always gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
My brother Nick lifted up from the seat beside Darren and grabbed one of the pieces of dough stretched out on a plate in the middle of the tray.
“What are you talking about, Darren? These things are delicious,” he said.
They were nothing more than canned biscuit dough wrapped around the end of a stick and roasted over the fire until done, then rolled in butter, but they were always a favorite treat on those long-ago camping trips. Cheap and fast, they were an easy way for my parents to feed their brood of four boys, and because they could be dipped in either cinnamon sugar or salt once buttered, they pleased everybody. As we got a little older, we’d graduated to adding garlic or sometimes chili powder to the savory ones, but the cinnamon sugar option was left untouched, a sacred part of summer.
Unless you were Darren and thought you were too grown-up in all of your twenty-three years to wrap a piece of biscuit dough around a stick and shove it in a fire. Too bad for him. I’d eat a can of biscuits’ worth myself. I grabbed my own piece of dough and got it toasting, taking a draw of my beer as I did. All in all, I was feeling pretty good about life in general. My racing company was doing well. My bank account was nicely full and getting more so every day. I had my house, my brothers, my parents, my friends.
“Are you seeing anyone special?” my mother asked.
Shit.
And then there was that.
I took another long sip of my beer and looked at the bottle to determine if there was enough left in it to get me through the rest of the conversation or if I’d need another.
“No,” I answered after determining I could carry through.
“Are you seeing anyone at all?” she asked.
“No. I’ve been really busy. Not exactly a lot of time to devote to dating,” I said.
“That’s a shame. You really need to meet someone, Quentin. A nice woman who will understand your career and appreciate your lifestyle. Someone to come home to at night and take care of you.”
And I was officially wrong about the beer. Getting up, I downed the last of the bottle in my hand and headed over to the cooler to select another. A quick snap with the opener mounted on the table removed the cap, and I headed back to my bench.
“Not interested right now, Mom,” I said.
“But why?” she asked, her eyes wide as if she couldn’t possibly grasp what I was telling her.
It gave me a flicker of guilt. Just a flicker. Not enough to change my stance.
“You know what happened with Victoria,” I said.
My brothers groaned, remembering my disastrous last relationship far too well.
“She wasn’t right for you,” Mom relented. “But there has to be someone out there who won’t be like her.”
“And maybe one day I’ll find her,” I said. “For now, I’m good with living the single life.”
The truth was, I hadn’t had very much luck with women. It seemed the ones I encountered were far more interested in my money than they were in me as a person. Anyone could have been attached to the other end of the bank card as long as the women got to be the ones to swipe it. I’d been burned more than once, and I’d officially gotten it out of my system. That type of relationship had no appeal to me, and I’d much rather just focus on the single life.
Not that it was really settling. My life was far from boring and even further from empty. Full of family and work, it kept me running most of the time. And I was fine with that.
Mom was merciful in letting the conversation drop before I made much more of a dent in the beer cooler. The same couldn’t be said for Darren. For all his scoffing over the biscuit dough, he roasted at least six of them and stuffed himself with hot dogs and s’mores on top of it. With nearly every bite he took a swig or two of beer, and by the time my parents were ready to leave for the night, he was feeling no pain. The four of us brothers hung out around the fire for another hour, giving the alcohol enough time to soak into every fiber of his being, join up with more that he downed during that hour, and render him a mess.
“Let me get the guest room ready for him,” I told Vince and Nick as we watched Darren dance around the fire to one of his favorite songs. “No need for him to try to leave tonight.”
“Well, at least you can say you throw a good party,” Nick said.
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh as I headed up the stairs back onto the deck. “Nothing says party hard like your mother grilling you about why you don’t have a nice wife and a gaggle of babies.”
“I don’t think she mentioned a gaggle of babies,” Vince pointed out.
“Not in words,” I said, turning around to face them and using two fingers to swirl melodramatic circles in front of my eyes. “I saw it in her eyes.”
I left my laughing brothers and went to the guest room to make sure it had everything Darren would need to crash there that night. After adding a bottle of water to the nightstand, I went back down to help Nick get him upstairs. We yanked off his shoes and jeans, rolled him into the bed, and covered him up. I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of my drunk baby brother drooling on the pillow before turning off the light and heading out of the room. That would make a fun addition to the family group chat the next day.