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And it was funny, because it wasn’t the scene that interested her now. It was just being with him.
“There’s everybody,” he said. He gestured to the corner, and there was Hunter and Elsie, his brothers, Nelly, Charity.
“Wow. Everybody really is here.”
She hadn’t been here with Elsie since that night she had been here pining over Hunter.
What a funny memory.
What a strange thing to feel like you were living an entirely different life than the one you’d been living only a few months ago.
“Can I get you something?” Gus asked as he steered her over to the tables where everyone was sitting.
“Diet Coke?”
“Sure thing.”
She took a seat next to Elsie, leaving an empty space next to her for Gus.
“Wow. Gus is actually at Smokey’s. It’s a minor miracle,” Elsie said.
“No kidding,” Brody added. “Gus hasn’t come out with us since... If he ever has?”
“Oh. Well,” Alaina said. “He asked me if I wanted to come tonight.”
“Damn,” Lachlan said. “I had no idea how good marriage would be for him.”
“Here’s your soda,” Gus said, coming back to the table with a beer in his hand, and her drink in the other.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
And she looked around the table, and saw the couples touching each other casually, and she wanted to do the same with Gus. But so often she felt like he was a big, skittish horse. And if she put her hand on him wrong he might jump. Might spook.
So she put her hands on her cup, and swirled her straw.
It was a funny thing, to sit around this table, with people who were family now. By marriage. Even Elsie was her family by marriage.
And she tried to draw comfort from that, even as she felt the slight bit of distance between herself and Gus.
He had brought her out, so there was no point being churlish about it.
“I want you to finish telling me about Hunter,” Elsie said, brushing Hunter’s hair back from his face in a casual gesture that made Alaina’s stomach dip.
“Oh, sure,” Brody said, grinning wickedly. “But he’s the baby. So, you know he has issues.”
“Hey,” Hunter said. “At least being the baby issomething.”
Brody snorted. “Unremarkable?”
“You’re a dick,” Lachlan said.
“Yeah. But you knew that.”
“How about you?” Lach said to Brody. “Third oldest isn’t a thing.”
“But being the almost-baby is?” Brody shot back.
