For one terrifying second I’d considered feeling embarrassed about that.
Then Derek’s nieces had come running back over asking if they could have more tickets for the toy baskets and any potential embarrassment had died a quick and noble death.
Worth it.
Completely worth it.
Especially when their faces lit up like Christmas every time I handed them another strip.
“Pick your favorites,” I’d told them.
They had taken the assignment extremely seriously.
One of the girls had studied every basket with the grim concentration of a tiny auction expert before deciding the Barbie Dream House basket was clearly superior to all competitors. Another kid had made a beeline for the remote-control car like there was no universe where he would accept any other outcome. The smallest one had simply chosen anything containing candy, which honestly felt like the purest form of strategy.
Watching them run around with excitement twisting through their little bodies had done something to me.
Softened something.
I didn’t have a lot of family left. Not anymore.
My parents had died when I was twenty. A car accident. Sudden. Ugly. Final in the way things always were when you didn’t get to prepare for them. We hadn’t been one of those impossibly close families people wrote heartfelt Facebook posts about, but they’d still been mine. Losing them had left this strange, quiet emptiness in the middle of my life that had never really gone away.
No siblings.
No nieces or nephews.
No giant family holidays.
Just me and a house full of memories I’d learned how to live beside.
So yeah, maybe seeing Derek’s family here—loud and messy and worried and hopeful all at once—got to me a little.
Maybe handing a curly-haired five-year-old extra raffle tickets had made something ache in my chest.
I lifted my drink and took another sip.
Cold. Sweet. Easy.
My third.
I wasn’t usually a big drinker. One socially, maybe two if I was trying very hard to relax somewhere I didn’t totally want to be.
Tonight, though, the bartenders had apparently decided my can should never be empty for longer than thirty seconds. Every time I looked down, there was another cranberry Carbliss within reach like I had accidentally entered some kind of very specific alcohol sponsorship.
At this point, my limbs felt pleasantly loose.
My cheeks were definitely pink.
Maybe red.
Alcohol always did that to me.
I could feel the warmth high in my face and knew if I looked in a mirror I’d resemble someone who had just been complimented too aggressively.
I didn’t really care.
Across the room, the emcee tapped the microphone twice, producing that awful screeching burst of feedback that made half the room wince.
