“Looks good,” said Ma, appearing at my side with a dish of ginger chicken soup. She pushed it into my hands, like I might starve without her intervention. “That boy’s got taste.”
“He does,” I agreed.
The others filtered up, Newt’s hands shaking as he tried to balance three jars of pickled something on a plate. Knox snatched one, popped the lid, and ate a spear in a single bite.
“Told you he’d like them,” Newt whispered, eyes flicking up to mine, then down again.
“You’re a genius, Newt,” I said, and he went so red he matched the jar.
Ransom dropped onto the porch swing, baby in lap, and shot me a look that was half dare, half warning. “She’s teething,” he said. “Try not to take it personally if she screams at your face.”
Floyd rolled his eyes, then started unloading more food from the Jeep. “He’s jealous because she likes me better,” he confided.
I shook my head, still boggled by the idea that Floyd and Ransom had adopted an abandoned a little baby girl. Ransom had take one look at her wrapped in a dirty pink blanket and he was a goner.
Harlow and Dan took up stations at the end of the porch, Dan unzipping the guitar case and tuning up while Harlow ladled chili into bowls for anyone who got close enough.
It was chaos, pure and unfiltered. Laughter tangled with the smell of food and the river air, voices rising and falling in a dance I never wanted to end.
I stood back for a second, letting it wash over me.
Levi caught my eye, wiped mud from his cheek, and grinned like he’d won the lottery. He wove through the cluster of bodies, stepped onto the porch, and slid into my orbit with the easy gravity he’d always had.
“You good?” he asked, voice low.
I looked at him—really looked—and felt the old, familiar ache. Not pain anymore. Something better.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m real good.”
He bumped his shoulder into mine, then leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth, quick and secret. No one noticed, or if they did, they didn’t say anything. Not anymore.
Shadow trotted up, dripping wet, and leaned hard into my leg. I reached down, ruffled his ears, and for the first time in a long time, I felt really good. Peaceful.
The sun finally slipped behind the ridge, and the porch lights flickered on, bathing everyone in a warm, golden haze.
Ma herded us toward the door, insisting the soup would go cold if we didn’t eat now. The others shuffled inside, plates piled high, laughter trailing after them.
I watched Levi for a second, the way he moved through the crowd, arms brushing shoulders, mouth quick with a joke or a compliment. He was at ease, the old nerves gone, every step confident and sure.
He belonged here. So did I.
I followed him in, Shadow at my heels, the air inside thick with heat and the promise of something lasting. For the firsttime in my life, I didn’t need to look over my shoulder. I knew what home was and I wasn’t letting go.
Inside, the house buzzed with the energy of ten people trying to occupy the same six feet of air. The kitchen overflowed. Ma lined up her ginger chicken soup alongside six other casseroles, Ransom picked at a pot of macaroni with tactical precision, and Harlow hovered by the sink, quietly washing every dish the second it was dirtied. Shadow patrolled the tile like a shark, tail swiping the knees of anyone standing too still.
The main room looked more like a festival than a dinner: people on every couch, every chair, even a couple of the new benches I’d made for the occasion. The table was buried under food, bottles, and bowls of snacks. I caught Floyd stealing bites from the baby’s plate when he thought Ransom wasn’t looking. Bodean and Dan tried to one-up each other’s worst college stories, while Ma clapped her hands over her ears every time the language went south.
In the thick of it all, Levi shone. He flitted from group to group, trading jokes with Ransom, snuggling the baby, stealing bites of pickle from Newt’s plate. He didn’t flinch at sudden movements, didn’t scan the doors, didn’t carry that old armor made of anticipation and doubt. It took seeing him here, at the center of all this, to understand just how much of his past he’d let go.
I tried to stay out of the way. I never did learn how to handle more than a few people at a time, and a full house made me feel like I’d swallowed a box of live wires. But nobody expected me to do more than eat and keep my temper, so I posted up at the far end of the room, sipping Ma’s iced tea and watching it all play out.
I glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to sunset. I’d been counting the minutes all day, not from impatience, but becausemy pulse went haywire every time I thought about what I’d planned.
When everyone was distracted—Bodean and Dan arguing over the merits of dark roast versus light, Harlow and Newt seeing who could build the tallest cracker tower—I slipped out the back door.
The night was cooler than expected. The air tasted of pine sap, river, and the faint aftershock of barbecue smoke. My feet found the flagstone path by memory, each stone a little uneven, the joints already sprouting weeds because Levi said it made the house look “lived in.” The workshop squatted at the edge of the clearing, the windows aglow with the last light.
I stepped inside. The shop was my church, the one place where I never had to pretend. Every inch was crowded with half-finished projects, the smell of cut wood sharp and sweet, varnish and oil thick in the air. The new workbench dominated the room, its top battered but clean, all my favorite tools within reach.
