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“Young man, put that camera away and sit down.”
Everly’s mother gestured to Logan and wagged her finger at the empty chair beside Everly.
Everly groaned, dropping her head in her hands.
Tonight was the last time filming with her family. They were supposed to be aiming for something celebratory, highlighting how much she’d accomplished over the past few weeks. All the changes and critique and self-reflection.
Sady had ordered them a fancy meal from a steak house two towns over and instructed Becca and Ellis to plate it family style, as if they’d worked together to make the whole thing from scratch. Which was exactly what Everly thought they’d done in previous seasons during the family dinner scenes, which only reinforced what Sady had said yesterday. So little about reality TV was actually real.
Everly peeked at Logan through the space between her fingers. “Mom, he’s working.”
“He can take a break and get to know your mother a little.” She heldout a bowl filled with the gnocchi left over from their cooking lesson. The one thing on the table any of them had cooked.
Everly accepted it and added some to her plate. “I think he’s gotten to know you pretty well over the past few weeks, given all the hours he’s had to film here.”
“Where are your brother and Becca with that wine?” Everly’s mother straightened her placemat. Everly had never seen her fidget this much. “Hand me your water. I’m parched.”
There was a cup of water, perfectly full, sitting right in front of her mother.
As Everly passed her glass over, her eyes slipped to the camera. Everyone watching would know who was behind it, so she saw no reason why she couldn’t give the guy she was dating a meaningful look when her family was being insufferable.
“Logan, why are you still standing there?” Everly’s mom watched him steadily over the rim of her glass.
“I’m back,” Ellis declared, bustling into the room with two bottles of wine and Becca, her hands full of stemware, in tow.
It was about damn time. If her brother couldn’t be a mom buffer, what use did he have?
He pointed at Logan. “Sit, man, and explain to me your intentions for my sister.”
Everly held out her hands in surrender. “You’re not helping.”
“Well, I’m not going to eat all this food in front of Logan while he’s starving,” Becca piped in.
“Et tu, Brute?”
Becca shrugged, a smirk crinkling her features.
“What if you marry him?” Ellis said. “And we were so rude. He’d never forgive us. Family dinners will be so awkward.”
Everly squawked. What the hell was her brother doing bringing upmarriage? Good god. She and Logan hadn’t even discussed being exclusive yet.
“Why doesn’t your boyfriend want to join us?” Everly’s mother asked with a frown.
Her family was trying to kill her. Murder by mortification. It better be a felony charge. “Oh.My.God. He’s not my boyfriend.” Her eyes cut to Logan’s face. “Right?” Her voice hitched at the end. Having a “define the relationship” talk in front of her whole family was not her most inspired choice, but now that the thought was in Everly’s head, she needed an answer. “No pressure,” she added with a wince. She didn’t want him to think he couldn’t be honest. “Wherever you are in this, I’m happy to be there, too.”
Logan’s gaze was a boulder. A rock. Something unbreakable. The weight of that stare pinned Everly to her seat.
“I’m all in,” he said softly.
Everly’s heart bashed against her ribs. For a second, she forgot they weren’t the only ones in the room as she took in his unmoving expression, the heat in his eyes. “Me too,” she whispered.
“Then sit down, for crying out loud.” Her mother’s shrill tone demolished the moment.
“Mom,” Everly groaned.
Logan laughed. “How about if I set the camera up for a few minutes and sit, then get back to work? I can’t have an entire segment of stationary shots, but a few are fine.”
Digging a tripod out of his equipment bag, he positioned the camera a few feet back from the head of the table and came to sit by Everly.
