“It’s nice.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“April, I mean it. It’s so comfortable. So you.”
“Kitchen’s this way,” she said, brushing past him as she started across the room. The whisper of her sweater sleeve against his forearm felt electric. Her smile reached her eyes, bright in a way they hadn’t been before. Shane felt like he’d knocked down some invisible wall.
Kevin had already staged the kitchen table, sliding plates, coasters, and glasses into formation like he was setting out gear.
“Good job, kiddo,” April said as she studied the table, looking impressed. She ruffled his hair and he immediately ducked.
“Pete, down,” Kevin commanded. Pete folded himself onto the braided rug with a put-upon sigh that said he’d been left out of the wing selection and would be filing a complaint.
Shane set the food down. He cracked open the box holding the teriyaki wings first so the steam wouldn’t make the skin soggy. April grabbed a container of grated parmesan from the fridge. She turned and saw the open box and the ranch waiting and her mouth softened again, a tiny, involuntary thing.
It felt like being trusted with a fragile object.
It’s just dinner, he told his racing pulse as he handed her a plate. It thuddedLiarin reply.
They set up around the table—Pete within food-drop distance of Kevin on Shane’s right, April to his left. The whisper of a breeze floated in through a window over the sink. Outside, the river kept talking. Shane’s nerves settled—not the jumpy, hungry energy of a date, but steady, peaceful.
I could get used to this.
“Okay,” he said, lifting the pizza lid as if it were the lid of a treasure chest. Cheese-and-oregano-scented steam rose. “One half-pepperoni, one half-everything. Hot wings, teriyaki wings, and an unreasonable number of napkins.”
April reached for the teriyaki wings, then paused, gaze flicking up to Shane’s. “Thank you,” she said. There was a lot packed into those two words.
“Anytime,” Shane said, and meant it. Pete thumped his tail in agreement. Kevin dug into his slice of everything pizza like a starved wolf. In between bites, his chatter filled the kitchen like jazz music—uneven, bright, alive. “So if Benny passes his next obedience test, he gets to start tracking classes, and Mr. Hoff said that if we help foster him, we’d be, like, part of his pack. Not just babysitters.”
April arched an eyebrow, her eyes dancing with amusement. “Part of his pack, huh? That sounds like a big commitment. You still up for it?”
Kevin nodded hard, sauce on his cheek. “I can do it. I already started a plan.” He tugged a little spiral notebook from his back pocket and flipped it open. The pages were full of messy sketches and schedules. Shane leaned closer, pretending to study it like a field report. “Solid start, soldier.” He met April’s gaze. “Areyoustill up for it?”
She set aside a wing. “I talked to Mr. Hoff on my way home from Ellie’s. We’ll start with weekends. See how Benny does once school’s out.” Her tone was practical but warm. “He’d have to be at Riversong quite a bit, which Alex said is good for his conditioning, but I’m thinking with me working so much, keeping Benny full-time isn’t fair to anyone.”
“I can help with transport,” Shane offered. “Pick him up, drop him off for training days. Pete doesn’t mind carpool duty.” Pete’s tail thumped under the table, like he approved the plan.
April smiled—small, genuine. “We’ll work something out.”
They dove back into their meal—glasses clinking, Kevin dumping extra parmesan onto his slice until he had a mini ski slope, April happily dipping her wings into her sauce. Shane smiled softly at the sound of early field crickets sang through the open window.
Kevin looked up suddenly. “Hey, Shane, whatcha thinking about?”
“I’m listening to the crickets outside. In another month when the snowy tree crickets start to sing, we’ll know what the temperature is.”
“What?” Kevin asked.
“You don’t know about that? What you do is count the chirps for thirteen seconds and add forty, and that’s the temperature.”
“No way. That’s so cool.” Kevin turned to April. “Did you know that, Mom?”
April’s lips twitched as if she were re-living the same memory as Shane. The night he took her for a walk under the full moon, showing off his knowledge of the woods until he realized that what she wanted was to get him alone and away from the house for a makeout session.
“I sure do,” she said. “Shane taught me years ago, when we were teenagers.” She looked at him through her lashes. “He has all sorts of skills once you get him out into the wilderness.”
This woman is killing me.
“Cool! Can you teach me some survival stuff in the wilderness?”
