Lila is on his other side, pressed close, her small hand resting on his forearm like that’s its default setting. Clay’s across from me, Nash next to him, already reaching for the mashed potatoes. Boone’s at the far end, and Maggie has claimed the head of the table as a general surveying her troops.
“Pass the beef,” Nash says.
“I will if you sit still for two seconds,” Maggie snaps, swatting his hand with the serving spoon. “We have a guest.”
“I’m not a guest,” I protest quickly, flushing. “I mean, I’m literally a guest, but you don’t have to… uh… rein in the savages on my account.”
Nash looks wounded. “Savages? I am deeply offended.”
“You should be deeply seated,” Clay mutters. “Sit. You’re going to tip your chair again.”
“That happened one time,” Nash says.
“Three,” Maggie corrects without looking at him. “I have the dent in the drywall to prove it.”
Lila giggles. Ellie, perched between Boone and Rose, picks up on the mood and adds her own sound effects. Some kind of horse neigh laugh hybrid that makes Wyatt squeal in his bouncer.
I can feel my mouth tipping up. I can’t help it. This table buzzes with the kind of madness that used to make me plant myself here as often as my mom would let me. It feels the same and completely different all at once.
“Here you go, sweetheart.” Rose nudges the biscuit basket toward me, her hazel eyes bright and kind. “Mom made the good ones. Extra butter.”
Maggie sniffs. “They’re all good ones.”
“They’re exceptionally good ones tonight,” Rose amends quickly.
“Flattery will get you an extra,” Maggie says, a little hint of pleased in it.
I take a biscuit, the warm, buttery weight of it solid in my hand, and tear it open. Steam curls up, carrying the smell of yeast and comfort. My stomach growls, loud enough for Lila to glance up at me, eyes wide and delighted.
“You’re hungry,” she says, as if she’s just solved a mystery.
“Starving,” I admit. “Your Nana is a wizard.”
“Like in the book?” she asks. “With the horse that can fly?”
“Exactly like that,” I say. “Only her magic is butter.”
Dallas huffs a little laugh beside me, the sound low and under his breath. My awareness of him spikes, sharpened by how close we are. His shoulder is maybe three inches from mine. Four, if I’m being generous. I can feel warmth rolling off him. He’s his own personal space heater.
“Don’t inflate her ego,” Clay says around a mouthful of green beans.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Maggie fires back. “You’re going to choke, and I don’t have the time or patience to perform the Heimlich on a grown man.”
“She says that,” Nash confides to me in a stage whisper as he passes the mashed potatoes our way, “but she’d totally do it.”
“Not if she saw how much food you cram in there at once,” Clay says. “She’d let nature take its course.”
“Keep it up, and I’ll let nature take its course on your laundry,” Maggie says. “See how you like your jeans standing up on their own.”
There’s more laughter, another swirl of passing dishes. I reach for the bowl of mashed potatoes at the same time Dallas does.
Our fingers brush.
It’s barely a touch. The whisper of his skin against mine, knuckles bumping knuckles, the back of his hand grazing my wrist. Tiny. Nothing. An accident.
My heart slams against my ribs like someone flipped a panic switch.
Heat shoots from that point of contact up my arm, across my chest, down my spine. Ridiculous. It’s a hand. I’ve touched his hands before. We’ve shared gloves. Passed reins. Dug the same splinter out of each other’s fingers with a disinfected needle and grit.
