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“Yes, buddy?”
“I’mhungwy.”
Leave it to a toddler to keep things real. As we chuckled around him, Mrs. Bryant played with his hair.
“Oh sweetheart, dinner will be ready in a minute.”
As she went back to the kitchen, Zach and Haley followed her, offering whatever help she needed. Gabe turned to me, a curious look on his adorable face and big, round, brown eyes.
“I don’t know you.”
Before we could find a response, he turned to Jackson. “Can I have a cookie?”
Jackson glanced at him with sharp eyes. “What’s Pawpaw’s rule?”
Gabe looked down, crestfallen, and I wanted to give him whatever he asked for. “No cookies beforewunch?”
“No. That’s your mother and Gamma’s rule. Pawpaw’s rule is, ‘If you get a cookie for you, you get a cookie for me.’”
Jackson winked Gabe’s sadness away, and the boy smiled brightly running toward the kitchen.
I looked around. It was an overload of sensations. Just like back in the living room, there were toys scattered on the porch and in the back yard. The smell from the kitchen was delicious and got me hungry. Their voices, even muffled, were comforting.
Zach announced dinner was ready, and we headed to the kitchen.
We sat at a big wooden table to eat, with unstopping chat. Ben sat to my left, and Gabe was perched on his high chair between my man and Mia, on whose lap Hugo leaned his head. Mrs. Bryant sat at the head of the table, while Jackson, Zach, and Haley were facing us, still leaving room for more people to join.
Dinner was pleasant, and even being the new face around, they didn’t make me feel self-conscious. They included me in their conversation without forcing me and let me be when I wanted to absorb everything.
“Gabe, you need to eat all the vegetables.”
“But I don’tnikebeets, Momma.”
“I know, honey, but you need it to be strong like Zach,” she draped her small hand on Zach’s arm, lingering a little too long, until she realized what she was doing, turning—ironically—beet red. “And Uncle Ben, of course. I’m gonna grab more lemonade for us.”
When she left to grab the juice, Ben and Mia acted fast. He picked one of the beets from Gabe’s plate, while Mia ate the other, gagging the whole time. She ran her index finger through the beets’ juices and rubbed them on Gabe’s lips.
“We need to pay attention to every detail. Remember that, Gabe-boy. Now you look like a boy who ate his vegetables.” She smiled proudly at her work.
Zach and his parents were either too engrossed in their hushed conversation or didn’t mind the deceit the three hellions were creating.
“Why don’t you just admit that you’re together, son?”
“Please, Dad, just leave it. She needs time, and I’ll give her as long as she needs.”
Haley came back, putting a stop to their talk. She looked suspiciously at her son’s artfully dirty face, then peered at Ben and Mia, who kept eating without looking up at her.
When conversation around the room resumed, Gabe leaned forward and stared at me again. “I don’t know you.”
Everyone stopped talking, waiting for a response.
“This is Isabella, my girlfriend.” Ben grinned at the boy and held my hand under the table.
“What is agewfwiend?”
A devilish grin formed on Mia’s face. “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”
“A girlfriend is someone you care for. Someone you wanna protect and make happy.”
