Surprisingly it was Jake who decided to keep Chris company in the kitchen. He loved his baby bro, sure, in the way you do with family, but they had never been particularly close growing up and that gulf only seemed to grow wider since adulthood. Though college certainly seemed to be treating him well. Even with his muzzle buried in his phone Chris could tell his younger brother was in a particularly good mood. Or texting someone who put him in a good mood the way his thumbs were dancing across the screen.
Chris slid the first of his pies into the oven, pecan, checking his father's favorite off the list. Leaving pumpkin for Jake and apple for his mother. "Wonder what pie Mason likes.." He muttered to himself as he tested another prebaked crust, seeing if it was cool enough to accept some filling.
"He's a cherry pie fanatic." Chris blinked a few times and looked over to his brother who had looked up from his phone to dish out that bit of information. "He stops by the cafe for a slice pretty much every day. I think he might hit the diner up for one in the evenings, too."
"Cafe?" Chris asked, trying to think. "Oh! That new one by the hardware store?" When Jake nodded in confirmation. "Why do you know that?"
"I work there." Jake shrugged. "It's a good job and the boss doesn't mind if I do homework while it's slow." Chris simply nodded. Unlike Chris, Jake had stayed local for college, going to the state school that was just close enough to commute.
From the smell wafting off of the stove, the apples were just about ready to move into a pie crust, but he was distracted by his phone suddenly ringing where it sat on the counter. The image on the phone screen that popped up was not one Chris wanted to see, him and his.. well.. ex he guessed now side by side with the dog between them, looking way too happy. Why would he be calling? It didn't even register in his mind that the photo showed them both human. He just reached out and stabbed ignore with his finger, almost aggressively.
"Wasn't that..?" Jake started, only to go quiet at a glare from Chris. Well, quiet for a moment. "Trouble in paradise?"
"Shut up." Chris muttered, throwing a puff of white flour in Jake's direction, then turning to focus once more on getting his apple pie together.
"You know Mason is single." Jake said in the singsong voice he always used when he wanted to annoy his older brother. "He even asked about you when he was here helping dad with the gutters."
Chris almost fumbled the apple pie as he was bringing it over to the oven, only to shoot Jake another withering glare. God, that foxish face of his only made him look more mischievous than he normally did, especially with his ear twitching almost comically.
"C'mon, I know he was your big crush back in high school. You're single, he's single, now's your chance." Jake put down his phone, leaning forward over the kitchen table with his chin propped in his hand, devious smile across his muzzle.
"Don't be silly. He obviously wants to stay here and I have my... job.. back in the city." Chris stumbled slightly over that part as the memory of getting sacked flitted through his brain once more. "Besides, I'm hardly the busty cheerleader type he likes." Jake simply smiled as he picked his phone back up and went back to browsing or texting away. Jake was a weasel, even before he was a fox, way too clever for his own good and usually up on the town gossip well before anyone else. If he knew something, and Chris bet he did, it was gonna cost him to find out.
Chris winced as his headache flared for a moment, not that it had really gone away since the crash, but for a moment it spiked. He grabbed at his head for a moment, finding that strange lump again that felt... bigger? Or maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe he could ask Mason about it, he did say he worked as an EMT now.
Mom sense was on high alert though, and almost as soon as the headache began, Chris' mother was bustling into the kitchen, grabbing him by his head and peering into his eyes. "Are you alright? Should we drive you to the doctor?"
Honestly, the fussing was more annoying than the headache and he waved his mother off. "I'm fine, just a little.." He prodded the lump which didn't hurt, though it was hard as bone. He decided not to worry about it right now, especially as he heard his father call from the living room. "Leave the poor boy alone, Carol. He's a grown man, he'll let us know if he wants to go to the doctor."
"Oh!" Carol shot back, folding her arms over her chest. "Let us know? Like that time you walked around on a broken hoof for three days? I swear, the two of you. At least Jake takes after me." Chris actually recalled hearing about that incident while he was at college, though it had been a foot not a hoof. The very thought made his own foot suddenly feel a little cramped in his shoes.
"Leave me out of this." Jake said, holding up his hands and slipping out from behind the kitchen table to disappear into the living room with their dad.
Chris used the moment of distraction to try to change the subject. "Do we have any cherries?" He asked, earning a questioning glance from his mother.
"I think we have a bag in the freezer downstairs." Chris didn't wait for his mother to go back into mothering mode, instead dipping down into the basement after those cherries. Though it gave him some time alone to think, passing through the old hang out space he and his brother used to share as teens, though it was thoroughly Jake's space now, with his computer set up in one corner and his game consoles near that. Did Mason really ask about him?
Jake enjoyed teasing him sure, but he never outright lied. Not when he had a juicy tidbit to hold over someone, especially Chris. Oddly, when he thought of Mason it wasn't the dark hair hunk he was used to in high school but the husky he had met this morning and that he saw in his yearbook. Honestly, he thought the look fit him rather well, and weird as it might seem to think so, he might actually be cuter this way.
He opened the chest freezer and dug around for a moment, coming out with a bag of frozen cherries then froze himself as he looked at his hand. A few of his nails looked almost black. He didn't remember hurting his hands, nor had they bothered him all day. He prodded at one of his fingers and everything felt normal. Maybe he would go to the doctor.. tomorrow. He slammed the freezer shut and headed back for the stairs, putting his hand out of mind for now. It was a good thing he made some extra pie crust to get ready for the Christmas batch.