"That's exactly what I tell him," Peggy said, gesturing at Adam, who raised his hands in surrender.
"I never said too much. I saida lot."
"Same thing."
My father had found Sawyer, which I'd been watching happen across the room like a slow-motion event I couldn't stop. Robert Calloway had three modes with men: suspicious, politely suspicious, and—apparently—enthusiastically asking questions about horses. Sawyer was answering all of them. Daniela was pretending to look at something on her phone six feet away and listening to every word.
I caught her eye. She looked back at her phone.
Gage pulled out my chair before I could reach it. Just—there, hand at the small of my back the way he always was. I sat. His hand stayed a second before he moved to his own seat, and I felt my mother clock it from across the table and file it away in the part of her brain that ran on hope and saint's candles.
Haven set a dish down and took the seat beside Wyatt. She said something to him, quiet, and he answered without looking at her, eyes on his plate, jaw slightly set. Haven looked at the side of his face for just a half-second longer than necessary before she reached for the bread.
I thought:that's going to be a whole thing.
"So," Adam said, settling in, looking at my father. "Robert. Millie tells us you're in insurance."
"Retired," my father said. "Thirty years and then I was done." He picked up his wine. "You ranch full time?"
"Mostly retired from that too. Gage runs it now." Adam glanced at Gage. "Runs it better than I did."
"That's not true," Gage said.
"It's a little true," Wyatt said.
Sawyer chuckled, shaking his head.
My mother leaned toward Peggy. "How long have they been like this?"
"Their whole lives," Peggy said pleasantly. "You stop noticing."
Dinner unfolded the way good dinners do—overlapping conversations, someone always talking, someone always laughing, food passing hand to hand until the table had that warm disordered look of a meal that was actually being eaten. My father and Sawyer had migrated to adjacent seats and were deep in something I'd lost track of. Daniela had somehow drifted two seats closer without appearing to move. Haven was asking my mother about San Antonio with the genuine curiosity of someone who'd grown up in a small town and foundcities fascinating, and my mother was answering the way she answered everything—thoroughly, with footnotes.
I ate and watched all of it and felt the thing in my chest that I didn't have a name for yet.
Under the table, Gage found my hand.
He didn't look at me. He was listening to something Adam was saying, expression even, completely present. But his fingers closed around mine and stayed there, and I felt it move through me—warm and certain and solid—and I thought:this is the table.
Not enough chairs. Both families squeezed in. Someone always talking. Someone always laughing.
This is exactly what I was making room for.
"Millie." My mother's voice, from across the table. I looked up. She was watching me with that expression—the one she got in church sometimes, or when she thought I wasn't looking at Christmas. "You look happy."
The table went briefly, coincidentally quiet.
Gage's hand tightened around mine.
"I am," I said.
My mother picked up her wine glass. Something moved across her face—relief, maybe, or the specific satisfaction of a woman who'd lit a lot of candles and watched them pay off.
She didn't say anything else. She didn't have to.
EIGHTEEN
Gage
