Margaret laughs, reaching over to pat Dylan's hand. "You've always been thorough, sweetheart. It's what makes you good at what you do."
After dinner, Margaret draws me into the kitchen while the men clear the table, their voices carrying from the dining room. She hands me a dish towel, and we work side by side drying wine glasses.
"I haven't seen Dylan this happy in years," she says quietly, not looking at me but somehow seeing everything anyway. "After Elena..." She pauses, seems to reconsider. "Well. After everything that happened, he closed himself off. Threw himself into work, into saving the company. We worried he'd forgotten there was more to life than spreadsheets and acquisitions."
I don't know what to say to the gentle weight of her words.
"But these past few months," she continues, "something's changed. He smiles more. He comes to family dinners without us having to guilt him into it. He seems more like himself." She turns to me then, her expression soft but serious. "Thank you for that."
"I haven't done anything," I say, because it's true.
Margaret's smile is knowing. "Sometimes just being yourself is exactly what someone needs."
The words lodge in my chest, making it hard to breathe. Being myself was never enough for Oliver. I was always too ambitious, too independent, too unwilling to shrink myself to fit his vision.
But here, with Dylan's family, being myself seems to be exactly right.
We rejoin the others in the living room where Jake is showing the photos from their first family trip to Tokyo, telling stories that have everyone laughing. I settle into the couch, and Dylan sits beside me, not touching but close enough that I feel his warmth and smell his cologne mixed with something that's just him.
"This one," Jake says, pulling up a photo from the family album, "is Dylan trying to eat sushi with chopsticks for the first time. He dropped the same piece three times before giving up and using a fork."
"I was twelve," Dylan protests.
"And stubborn," Thomas adds fondly. "Refused to ask for help even though the waiter offered to show him."
"Sounds familiar," I murmur, and Dylan turns to me with mock offense.
"Are you saying I'm still stubborn?"
"I'm saying you once spent three hours trying to fix a formatting error yourself instead of calling IT."
Jake laughs delightedly. "Call him out, Avery."
The evening winds down naturally, comfortable tiredness from good food and better company. As I help gather coffee cups, I catch a moment between Thomas and Margaret in the kitchen, the way he touches her lower back as he passes, the way she leans into him briefly, forty years of marriage distilled into these small intimacies that speak of enduring love.
"Avery," Thomas says as I'm putting on my coat. "You're welcome here anytime. With or without this one." He nods toward Dylan. "We'd love to have you back."
"Thank you," I manage around the tightness in my throat. "This was... lovely."
Jake hugs me goodbye like we've known each other for years. "Next time, I'm bringing my girlfriend," he says. "If I ever findone who isn't allergic to commitment. You can help me screen candidates."
"Jake, leave her alone," Dylan says, but he's smiling.
Margaret hugs me too, whispers, "Don't let him overthink everything. He has a tendency to do that."
Then Dylan is walking me to my car, and we're alone in the driveway with the city lights spread around us like scattered diamonds. The fog is starting to roll in, softening the edges of everything, making the world feel smaller, more intimate.
"Thank you for tonight," I say softly. "Your family is..." I trail off, not sure how to capture what I've just experienced. Warm. Loving. Everything I didn't know I was missing.
Dylan steps closer, and that electric charge that's been building all week sparks between us. "They liked you," he says. "Just the way you are."
My heart stutters.
"I wanted you to know—" He stops, seems to reconsider his words, choosing them with the same care he brings to everything. "My family isn’t one of those ‘fancy’ families that push others to act a certain way just to match some pointless standards. I hope you felt comfortable being yourself with us."
The observation is so precise, so carefully targeted at the hurt I've never fully voiced, that I realize he understands me in ways I haven't even articulated to Jessica. He sees the wounds Oliver and his family left, sees the way I've wrapped myself in armor to prevent it from happening again.
I look up at him, heart pounding so hard I'm sure he can hear it. The fog makes everything feel dreamlike. His eyes are dark in the dim light, focused on me with an intensity that makes my stomach flip.
