He mimicked my movements, studying my hands carefully before confidently filling wells on his own.
“Yes,” he sighed, “I can’t blame my parents. The pressure I put on myself they reciprocated, and vice versa. I think they saw how hard I was working and they wanted to support that, but it was hard to do that without pushing me a little harder than I was already pushing myself. It’s hard to know where the pressure started. I think it’s inherent, honestly.”
“In you?”
“In anything anyone craves. You want it to be perfect. No matter what it is. It just has to be ... the best. If it’s not, what the hell’s the point? There. Done.” Regan stood back with a victorious grin on his face.
I took the tin and slid it into the oven. “Well, in half an hour, we’ll find out if there’s a point to all of this.”
Turning around, I found Regan with an entire muffin in his mouth. One I’d taken out earlier.
“Oh,” he talked with a full mouth, “there’s definitely a point. These are delicious! Can I have another one?”
“Sure.” I grabbed my travel mug, filled it with coffee, and turned back around. “Grab a few and follow me back outside.”
Once we were outside, I locked the door and led Regan back across the street.
“I’m not jumping.” He sat on the rock wall and swung his legs over the edge.
“Ha. Ha. It’s not like I leapt to my death, or something. Dial it down a little.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, eating the muffins and sipping — or in his case, slurping — the coffee.
“These are gluten-free, too?” he asked after eating his third muffin.
“I told you, the whole bakery is.” I snatched a muffin before he ate them all.
“Why? Do you have celiac or something?”
“You know about that? I’m impressed.”
“I pay attention to news and shit.” He nudged his shoulder into mine as he laughed.
The more time I spent with him, the more my assumptions of him were stripped away. Is that how it worked? Would it work the same with me? I couldn’t decide right then if I wanted him to have his assumptions of me dismantled. Whatever they were.
“I don’t have celiac, but I know people who do. And, frankly, you just don’t need wheat for a number of reasons I don’t want to get into at eight o’clock on a weekend morning.”
Regan shrugged and continued slurping his coffee. Seriously, what was with that?
“Do you always drink your coffee like that?” I asked, clicking my tongue in irritation.
“Like what? With my mouth? Swallowing?”
I brought my cup to my lips and mimicked the slurping sound.
“That was a bit dramatic,” he scoffed.
“You’re right ... it was.” I raised my eyebrow at him and he lightly smacked my shoulder with the back of his hand.
“All right, all right. Sorry. I have no idea why I do that.”
“Has no one said anything about it to you before? It’s really quite offensive.” I laughed, setting my mug on the wall.
Regan went silent for a minute. When I looked over at him, he was staring at his hands. You’ve got to be kidding me.
I cleared my throat. “Rae?”
He nodded. “It’s okay.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Well, she died...” He winced through that whole sentence, nearly closing his eyes by the end of it.
I sighed, my window of distraction officially slamming shut. “Tell me.”
“We were out on a trail ride,” he started.
“No,” I cut in, “I don’t need to know about that. Tell me about her.”
I knew how hard it could be to talk about how people used to be, but for me, it provided a sense of comfort that the memories existed at all. I’d take the bad if I got to have all of the good that came before it.
I think.
“I don’t know if I can...”
In the span of my drift off into my thought process, I’d missed that Regan had taken down his hair and tucked it behind his ears, snapping the elastic around his wrist repeatedly.
“Just ... just tell me your favorite thing about her.” I leaned my shoulder into his and left it there. His muscles were tense. Hesitant.
He laughed sort of silently. “She came out of nowhere. Tiny, bossy, and full of certainties.”
“Certainties?” I tucked my knees into my chest.
“Yeah, she was filled with this stone-solid conviction. When she was passionate about something, she wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t in-your-face ... it was ... this quiet resolve. She was ferocious. She’d been through more than you and I both before I’d even met her.”
I doubted that, but let him continue with his story.
“I’ve been in love before, but with her...”
“You’ve been in love before?” I pulled my head back and scrunched my forehead.
He smiled. “Oh, of course. Love is great. Swept off your feet, and all of that? I love it. The first time I was in love was with Kylee Graham in seventh grade. She always wore flowery dresses, and I was certain I’d marry her.”
I bit my lip as I smiled. A thirteen-year-old Regan Kane, in love and making plans to marry. His cousin would consider such thoughts treasonous to the brotherhood of men.