Page 42 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"Ask who what?"

"You'll see." She wanders off before I can press her further, entirely too pleased with herself for someone holding a plate of mostly pie, and I file the comment away without fully understanding it, too busy scanning the crowd for a place to set my own dish down.

"That's the drumstick," Eli's saying, loud enough to carry. "The thigh's different. It's a whole separate muscle group."

"Is that right?" Sheriff Cole, a broad, unhurried man who looks like he's spent thirty years being mildly amused by this town, nods along with genuine interest. "You planning on being a vet or a butcher?"

"Probably a vet. Butchers don't get to keep the animals."

"Fair point."

I'm halfway through a conversation with Maggie about her granddaughter's soccer schedule when I hear Eli's voice cut through the general gym noise, clear and unbothered by volume in the specific way only an eight-year-old can manage.

"Rafe."

Rafe, a few feet away refilling his cup, turns. "Yeah, bud."

"Are you my mom's boyfriend?"

The gym doesn't go silent exactly, but it does that thing small towns do, where every conversation within earshot drops half a register and half the room gets suddenly interested in their plates. Dot's head snaps up so fast she nearly loses the spoon balanced on her turkey. Maggie goes very still beside me, coffee halfway to her mouth. Around us, maybe fifteen people are watching Rafe's face, waiting.

I open my mouth, some half-formed instinct to deflect on his behalf kicking in automatically, years of practice smoothing over exactly this kind of question before it can land anywhere dangerous. Nothing comes out fast enough.

Rafe doesn't even hesitate.

"Yeah," he says, plain and steady, like Eli asked him what time it is. "I am."

The word lands in the middle of that gym like a dropped plate, and for one full second nobody moves, like the whole room's waiting to see if he's going to take it back or soften it or turn it into a joke the way most adults would with an audience this size.

He doesn't. He just looks at Eli, calm and certain, like the truth of it costs him nothing at all to say out loud in front of an entire town.

"Cool," Eli says, entirely satisfied, and goes back to his turkey leg conversation with Sheriff Cole like he didn't just detonate a small, glorious bomb in the middle of Friendsgiving.

The gym doesn't stay quiet for long. Dot's the first one to recover, clapping her hands together once, sharp and delighted. "Well, it's about time somebody said it out loud."

"I told you," Gunny says, to absolutely nobody and everybody at once, raising his cup like he's accepting an award. "I called this months ago."

"You called it to me specifically, and I already knew," Maggie says. "That doesn't count as calling it."

"It counts. I'm putting it on the record."

The teasing spreads through the gym in that fast, good-natured way news travels through a room full of people who've known each other their whole lives, somebody two tables over saying "finally" loud enough to be heard, somebody else starting a slow clap that Rafe silences with one look that has absolutely no real authority behind it anymore. Sheriff Cole claps him on the shoulder on his way past for more turkey he probably shouldn't eat given what he now knows about Dot's oven situation. An older woman I recognize vaguely from the hardware store tells him, entirely unprompted, that she always thought he and I made a nice pair, watching us at the register that first week I started.

"Did you know?" I ask her, half laughing, unable to help myself.

"Sweetheart, everybody knew. We were just waiting for one of you to catch up." She pats my arm like she's delivering a diagnosis and moves off toward the dessert table, entirely satisfied with herself, leaving me standing there wondering exactly how long this town's been ahead of us on our own relationship.

Josie reappears at my side, empty plate now, looking extremely pleased with how the evening's turned out. "Told you."

"You knew Eli was going to ask that?"

"He's been planning it since the car ride over. He wanted to know before winter break because he's putting together a list for his teacher about his family, and he said it's easier to write down if he actually knows the answer." She says it so matter-of-factly, so entirely without drama, that it takes me a second to catch up to the size of what she just told me.

"A list for his teacher?"

"It's a whole assignment. Everybody has to bring in something about the people in their life." She shrugs, like this explains everything, and in a way it does. "He didn't want to guess wrong."

Rafe takes all of it with the kind of steady, faintly embarrassed grace of a man who spent years training for combat and somehow finds a gymnasium full of well-meaning teasing more disarming than actual gunfire. He doesn't run. He doesn't deflect. He just stands there, a little pink around the ears, letting the whole town have its moment at his expense because apparently that's a price he's decided is worth paying.