Page 9 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

The attendant’s professional smile holds. Barely.

Bless her heart.

“And this,” Sophia says, turning me gently by the elbow, “is Uncle Maddox. Maddox St. James.”

Maddox St. James extends his hand and when his fingers close around mine I get goosebumps. Not the anxious kind. The other kind. The really inconvenient electric kind that start at my palm and travel all the way up my arm and settle somewhere in my sternum like they’ve decided to permanently relocate.

“Harper.” The way he says my name is easy and warm, like it fits comfortably in his mouth. “Sophia talks about you constantly.”

I smile. What I do not say is that Sophia has apparently never once mentioned that her ‘uncles’ aren’t the sweater vest wearing smoking a pipe reading classical novels types of uncles What I do not say is that Sophia has apparently never once mentioned either of these men in my direction, which is something she and I are going to discuss at length later, ideally with wine, ideally a lot of it. What I do not say is when were you born and how is it possible that you look like that in regular clothes. What I do not say is: you win, cloud being. I surrender. I’m drinking all the wine this summer and eating all the crackers.

“Sophia’s been known to leave out some key details,” I say instead, and I feel more than see Sophia make a face at me from my periphery.

“Godfathers,” Sophia says, circling back to manage the obvious question on my face. “Not technically uncles. But they’ve known my dad since before I was born and I’ve called them uncle since I could talk, so it stuck.” She says it the same way you’d explain that the sky is blue, simple and settled. “They’re basically always around. It’s just how it is.”

Godfathers.

I keep smiling. I am very committed to this smile. I am going to wear this smile until it becomes structural.

Internally, the universe and I are having a very direct conversation and the universe is winning by a significant margin.

The lounge doors open again and Lorenzo comes through first, Raphael a step behind him, and the temperature in the room shifts the way it does when a group of people who already know each other settle into the same space. Handshakes and shoulder grips and the easy shorthand of familiarity. Asher and Maddox clearly know both of them well, which tracks given that Lorenzo has worked for Sophia’s dad for years and Raphael apparently does too, hired as the in-house DJ for events at the vineyard.

The more I learn about Killian Thorne’s operation the more I feel like I’ve walked sideways into a very stylish small country and no one thought to brief me on the customs.

A staff member appears at the edge of the lounge and nods toward Sophia. The plane is ready.

Sophia claps once, delighted. Then she turns and locates the flight attendant, who has migrated to the edge of the group with the posture of a woman recalibrating her afternoon.

“Could you take a group photo?” Sophia holds her phone out with a smile bright enough to power the entire terminal. “I promised my dad proof of life before takeoff.”

The attendant takes the phone. Her smile is excellent. Immaculate, even. A masterclass in professionalism over circumstance.

We arrange ourselves in the loose, slightly chaotic way of a group that hasn’t quite figured out its spatial dynamic yet. Lorenzo pulls Sophia in by the waist. Raphael steps in on my left. Asher moves to my right and the sleeve of his shirt brushes my arm and I make a very deliberate decision not to have a reaction to that. Maddox settles in directly behind me close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off him and I make another very deliberate decision, this one requiring somewhat more effort.

The attendant counts to three. Takes the photo. Hands the phone back to Sophia with a smile that does not waver once.

She is a professional and she deserves a raise.

Sophia checks the photo, declares it acceptable, and starts moving toward the doors with Lorenzo. Raphael falls into step beside me, easy and natural, and puts his arm around my shoulders as we follow the group toward the jet. It’s friendly. Comfortable. The arm of a man who is being casually supportive about an idea without actually pushing it.

I glance back.

Asher and Maddox are a few steps behind us, bringing up the rear, and I catch both of their expressions in the same moment.

They’re looking at Raphael’s arm.

Not at me. At his arm. With the specific, controlled stillness of men who have something to say about what they’re looking at and are currently choosing not to say it.

It lasts maybe two seconds before Maddox’s gaze flicks to mine. He smiles like nothing happened, easy and unhurried, like I didn’t just catch him looking.

I face forward.

The tarmac stretches ahead of us and the jet waits at the end of it, gleaming and impossible, and I am flying to Bordeaux for the entire summer with Sophia’s godfathers and apparently zero functional self-preservation instincts.

I’m going to need so much wine.

So many crackers.