“This is Will,” I say. “He’s Jess’s brother.”
“Right…” By the discomfort in her tone, I know she must have heardsomething.Who knows what in this town. “I’ve heard about you.”
Will keeps his expression steady, something I know has taken him months to perfect, but the corner of his mouth creeps up. “All good things, I’m sure.” Beside me, Addie makes a sound that would be a laugh if she hadn’t stifled it, and I can’t help but smile, directing it to Karen instead of the man it’s for.
“Would you like to join us?” I offer, because it feels rude not to.
“Are you sure?” she asks, already grabbing a chair from an empty table nearby, and Tyler doing the same, sitting beside Ollie.
Will picks up his menu again, even though I thought he’d already decided on his meal.
Tyler and Ollie immediately get sucked into a game on Tyler’s phone, taking turns better than I would have assumed, leaving the adult side of the table to talk amongst themselves.
Karen asks Addie about school, her friends, and where she plans to go to college when she graduates in the spring. She remembers things I’ve told her, asks her about her art, and follows along well when Addie rambles about her current project.
She’s great at this.
I knew she would be.
“So you’ve been doing some work on Nolan’s practice?” she asks Will, who hasn’t said a word since she sat down.
“Yep.”
“That’s wonderful. It’s good to have something to keep busy.” A small pause, heard around the entire table. “To stay out of trouble.”
I reach for my water and hope that Will doesn’t make a scene when he meets her eyes, a crease to his brows that I don’t like.Beside me, Addie is still, waiting for the explosion the same way I am.
But it doesn’t come.
He looks back down at the menu, and Karen turns like nothing is wrong, angling her body toward me. “Did you ever call the specialist about your shoulder? You mentioned it was bothering you the other night.”
“Oh. No, I keep forgetting.”
“Nolan,” she chides, exasperated by my forgetfulness, but she’s still smiling, and her hand is resting on my forearm. Across the table, I hear Will put his menu down too hard.
Karen orders the chicken quesadilla and asks me to try it when it comes, holding a piece up to my mouth. I allow her to put it in my mouth, even though discomfort is prickling at my neck, at the thought of who might be watching this.
My kids.
Will.
I can feel him through the entire meal, watching us. Every time Karen’s body makes contact with mine. Every time she laughs at something I say. I don’t see him take a single bite of his food.
When the tension of sitting between Karen and Will gets to be too much, I excuse myself to the bathroom. Skipping the stall, I head straight for the sink, running cold water over my hands, dragging it over my face that’s been flushed since I got here.
I’m in the middle of giving myself a sad excuse for a pep talk when the door to the bathroom opens. But I don’t look up until I hear the lock turn. “Will—”
“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”
“What?”
“Your shoulder.” His eyes land somewhere around my shoulder, while I look at him in the mirror, confused aboutwhere this is going, the water still running beside me. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh. It’s nothing.” I turn off the water, waving a hand. “An old injury. It flares up sometimes when it’s cold.”
“You never mentioned it.”
“I didn’t think you would care.”
