Page 129

Jude’s lips twitch.

“You think this is funny?”

“Little bit.”

“Asshole.”

His smirk grows as he gets out of the truck.

I take a deep breath before opening my door, but Jude is already there by the time I do. He holds out his hand, and I stare at it for a second before taking it.

“Can still go home,” he says quietly.

I look toward the house.

Damiano talked about this place so many times that I built it in my head years ago. The big Hawthorne house, Sunday dinners, Lily cooking enough food for a small army while Josh manned the grill, brothers arguing over absolutely nothing and somehow turning everything into a competition.

I promised him I would try.

“No.” I squeeze Jude’s hand once before letting go. “I want to go.”

He nods like that’s all he needed to hear.

Instead of taking me toward the front porch, he leads me around the side of the house, and the farther we walk, the louder everything gets.

Laughter. Music. The clink of glasses and silverware. A child squealing somewhere ahead of us while two men argue loudly enough that I catch something about cheating and those were absolutely the rules.

Then we round the corner.

And I stop.

“Wow.”

The back of the Hawthorne house opens onto a wide, covered wraparound porch, but tonight everyone has spilled out into the yard. A long wooden table sits beneath the shade of the porch, covered with bowls, platters, pitchers of sweet tea and more food than any sane number of people could possibly eat. Mason jars filled with wildflowers are scattered between the dishes, and strings of warm lights hang above the table, waiting for the sun to go down.

The July sun hangs low over the ranch, turning the fields beyond the yard gold, and horses graze behind the white fences in the distance. Someone has music playing through a speaker, not loud enough to drown out the voices, although I’m starting to think nothing on earth could drown out this family.

A little girl runs barefoot through the grass, laughing as a man chases her with something in his hand, while another man stands near the grill beside Josh, who I recognize immediately.

Some of them I’ve met, others I’ve only seen in pictures.

I’ve heard stories.

So many stories.

My chest tightens.

This is it.

This is the Sunday dinner Damiano talked about.

“Nora!”

Lily spots me from the porch, and whatever chance I had of quietly easing myself into this disappears instantly.

“She’s here!”

Every damn head turns toward me.