I don’t pull away either, focusing on breathing like a normal person. Across the table, Alise lifts the basket of rolls toward Ramona.
“Coop, if you don’t stop reorganizing the serving spoons, I swear?—”
“I’m not reorganizing,” Cooper argues, adjusting a spoon by a quarter inch. “I’m optimizing efficiency.”
“Cooper,” Ramona says, not looking at him, “eat your dinner or so help me?—”
He sits immediately, and the table cracks open with laughter. The tension slips another notch down my spine. This is the man who can freeze an entire press conference with one sentence, obediently sitting because his wife told him to. It is disarming and a reminder that titles and power and jobs all stay at the door here.
I can feel Kyle monitoring the room, picking his moments to speak, deflecting with sarcasm when things skim too close. For a second, I wonder if anyone else besides Beau notices. I see it in the way his attentioncatches on Kyle for a beat too long, like he is tracing an old pattern.
Kyle clears his throat, and his thumb sweeps over my knee before he pulls his hand back to his own lap. The loss of contact is so sudden that it leaves a small ache behind.
“All right, all right,” Cole declares loudly, waving a fork like a conductor’s baton. “We’ve been civil for too long. Someone insult someone else’s career choices before I die of boredom.”
“You shaved racing stripes into your eyebrows in high school,” Beau says dryly. “Your career choices are never the safest target.”
“It was a look,” Cole insists.
“I’m pretty sure it was a cry for help,” Darius deadpans, not even looking up from his phone.
The table erupts, and Kyle leans forward, shoulders shaking with quiet laughter he doesn’t bother to rein in. I laugh, too, and not a polished, socially acceptable chuckle. A surprised, almost breathless sound that feels like it belongs to someone who isn’t constantly managing the room.
When I suck in a breath and reach for my water, my hand shakes just enough that the glass clinks against my plate. Kyle’s hand is there instantly, steadying the bottom before it tips.
“Are you still doing okay?”
I nod, but the truth curls warm under my ribs.
“All right,” Ms. Mel says suddenly, rising from her chair with an authority that freezes every Hendrix boyinstantly. “I made peach cobbler for dessert, and I’m not letting it go cold because you people are too busy arguing about eyebrows.”
“Momma, we’re full,” Kyle groans.
“You will eat dessert.” She gives him a look that could take the paint off a car.
“You know that you’re legally required to cave to that woman,” Ramona says, patting his shoulder.
More laughter rolls around the table. People stand, shuffle, and dodge each other in a choreography they have been perfecting for years. When a slice of cobbler lands in front of me, steam curling up, smelling like cinnamon, warm sugar, and summer, I just stare at it for a second.
“You’ll want to pace yourself.” Beau nods toward it. “Momma takes offense if people don’t get seconds.”
“Beau!” Ms. Mel yells from the kitchen.
He grins, unbothered.
“What do you think so far?” Cooper leans forward.
It sounds casual, but it’s not. Cooper does not ask throwaway questions. He is taking the temperature of the room and of me.
“It’s… a lot.”
He nods once, as if he expected nothing less.
“But,” I add, surprising even myself, “it’s really good.”
His smile is small but sincere. Beside me, Kyle’s shoulders relax, as if that one tiny shift took weight off him, too.
Dessert turns into its own kind of chaos.Cole declares himself the king of cobbler. Darius tries to steal a second piece. Ramona trades bites with Alise. Peach and cinnamon fill the space, soaking into everything, including the parts of me I usually keep sealed off. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, something shifts. Not around me, but inside me.
