Wine, Peaches, and New Family

“Oh, I didn’t know you were home,” T’monn said, surprised enough to stop short. L’tani bumped into her back with a soft oof, rubbing her shoulder where they collided.

“We smelled food,” L’tani added, truthful but a little weary around the eyes.

“There’s plenty,” Matt said, waving them toward chairs. He glanced at the salad and decided it needed more spinach—and the jar of spiced peaches from the top cupboard. The freezer door sighed; he took a mental note of the French vanilla he could pair with his bourbon cherries if anyone still had room by the end. Who was he kidding? These were V’ren women; they would have room.

He moved like he always did when a kitchen needed a captain—quiet, quick, everything within reach. Iron hissed at the touch of oil. Onions softened to sweetness, then liver soaked up the wine he’d splashed in without measuring. The kidneys, cleaned and scored, took the pan with a thump and a sizzle that smelled of butter, beer, and the day’s work. Plates were warmed on the back of the stove. He caught T’mari’s smile across the room and flicked a kiss off two fingers in return. L’tani’s face shuttered at that, and he felt it like a draft. He kept his hands busy and his mouth shut.

“To my new family,” he said, lifting his glass when the last curious noses had finished hovering over theirs.

T’monn tasted first. V’ren metabolisms burned through liquor like dry leaves; they drank for flavor, not fog. She closed her eyes, let it sit on her tongue. “This is…something new,” she murmured, as if picking a memory out of a drawer.

“There’s something floral,” L’tani said, the edge of tiredness easing as the scent rose. “Not sweet. Bright.”

“There is no label on the bottle,” T’mari observed, miffed on principle. She turned the glass, checking the meniscus like a professional she very much was not.

“I know,” Matt said, not pretending otherwise. “Didn’t see the need. I made exactly nine bottles of this last year. This is the last one.” He smiled without apology.

L’tani set her glass down carefully. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted, the words small and honest. She knew what it meant to be handed the end of something.

“To share in the last of a thing is its own honor,” T’monn said. The warmth traced a path down her throat and woke something she hadn’t felt since before L’tani was born—a brief flare behind the ribs. She tamped it down the way disciplined women do. Across the table, she caught Matthew noticing, the flick of his gaze and the fractional stillness of his hands. That, more than the heat in her blood, complicated matters.

“Please,” Matt said lightly, letting the moment move past. “Eat and enjoy.”

He brought the plates in with a practiced ease that made the table lean forward. Liver and onions with wine reduction sat next to thinly sliced heart stir-fried with matchstick ginger, carrots, and leaks. The star of this show was nothing less than beer-braised kidneys, browned and glossy, set on a peppery bed of arugula. A quick dressing—oil, vinegar, a breath of mustard—ribboned the greens. Chokecherries he’d pitted by the sink darkened the edges like stones from the creek. He slid the salad bowl down to T’monn, set a jar of spiced peaches within L’tani’s reach, and nudged a dish of onions, soft and gold, toward T’mari with a look that said he knew exactly who would steal them first.

Forks chimed. The first bite went quiet around the table, the way good food makes a room listen.

“Earthy,” T’monn said, surprised into a smile. “And clean.”

“It tastes like the day did,” T’mari decided. “Hot. Honest.”

“Different,” L’tani said, and then, braver, “Good.”

Matt sat last, not because he had to, but because he liked watching them take the first breath of dinner. Outside, rain began the slow conversation it had promised all afternoon, tapping at the windows, smoothing the blood off the truck. He topped off the glasses as they lowered, not enough to be pushy, just enough to keep the warmth even.

The jar of peaches opened with a soft pop. Someone laughed in the distance or maybe it was just the ancient house itself easing into the evening. Matt let his shoulders drop the last inch and watched his new family for a bit from the rim of his own wine glass.

He hadn’t seen the lightning, but heard the thunder report and knew the rain was coming in from the northwest. The truck would be well rinsed by morning, with nothing more than a ding to the front quarter panel.