“Good thing we were just friends,” I say before I can stop myself.
Silence drops around the table like someone hit mute. I mentally smack myself.Great. Real smooth.
“I mean,” I fumble. “Sorry. I’m not… very filtered right now.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Clay mutters, but there’s not much heat in it. More… wary resignation.
Maggie clears her throat.
“Your mama doing all right?” she asks. “She still out by the lake road?”
Relief floods me at the change of subject. “Yeah,” I say. “She’s okay. Her knees bother her more now, but she loves that little house. She’s been painting in her spare time. Really badly, but she loves it.” I smile, just a little. “She’s got this whole wall of terrible yellow sunflowers I kind of adore.”
“Charlotte still in school?” Boone asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Fashion design. She’s in Austin now. She’s good at it. Really good.” Pride swells in my chest, cutting through the anxiety. “She made my rehearsal dinner dress. The one thing about the wedding I actually liked.”
“Bet it was something,” Nash says.
“It was,” I say, and then grief blindsides me.
Grief for a dress I’ll probably never wear again, for a sister who wasn’t there to see it, for a version of yesterday where I walked down that aisle and became someone I’m so, so glad I’m not going to be.
Tears prick my eyes. I blink them away hard and stare down at my plate.
“Faith,” Maggie says quietly. “We don’t have to talk about any of that right now. You hear me? You’re here. That’s enough for today.”
I nod, throat tight.
“Okay,” I manage.
For a while, I just listen.
To Ellie, telling Lila about the time Santa “almost” got caught in the chimney. To Nash, staging a dramatic reading of the toy instructions. To Rose and Boone gently teasing each other about who snores louder. To Clay, complaining about the bulls on thecircuit this year, and Maggie telling him he can always stay home and get a “real job” if he’s so offended. To Dallas’s low murmur as he leans down to answer some question Lila whispers to him.
That last one gets under my skin the most.
He is different with her.
It’s subtle, but obvious if you know him. The edges of him are softer when he looks at her, even as his shoulders stay broad and tense. He watches everything, ready to step in if anyone or anything gets too close to hurting her, but he’s also gentle.
He adjusts the way she holds her fork with an absent thumb. He wipes a bit of syrup off her chin with a practiced swipe. When she leans back against him, his hand comes up to rest over her ribs, anchoring her there.
It’s a shock, seeing my childhood best friend as a father.
I don’t know if I will ever get used to it.
CHAPTER SIX
Dallas
December 25th
By the timethe sun drops behind the ridge, I feel I’ve lived three whole days inside one.
Christmas Day always wears me out—the cooking, the gifts, the family noise—but this year it’s different. Because every time I turned around, I felt myself checking the hall, or listening for a door, or looking for a flash of curly hair in my peripheral vision.
Faith Ross has been in my house all day, and I’ve spent every hour pretending it hasn’t gotten under my skin.
