Ella claimed the seat next to Edith as Maverick and his brothers placed the food on the table before taking their own spots. Maverick, to Ella’s secret delight, chose the seat right next to hers.
Which, of course, Edith noticed, pressing her knee against Ella’s under the table. Like they were two schoolgirls trying to play it cool when the cute boy noticed one of them.
The bowls of food were passed, the plates filled, and no less than four conversations ran simultaneously around the table.
Ella was too overwhelmed to participate in any of them, enthralled by the easygoing chatter, the laughter, the compliments to the cooks. She’d spent her childhood in a home where dining room conversations weren’t encouraged. Dad, usually tired from work, liked to “eat in peace,” so immediately following grace, they ate in silence, the entire meal never lasting more than ten or fifteen minutes.
Dinner with the Storms, however, was a marathon, not a sprint. Not that it felt that way. Ella was actually shocked when the dessert dishes were cleared—by the men again, who were also in charge of cleanup—and she realized they’d been sitting there for nearly two hours.
Ella offered her help again, but Maverick insisted she remain where she was and enjoy her coffee. Then he shocked the hell out of her by claiming his mother would have his hide if he let her do any of his kitchen duties. According to him, the cooks didn’t clean, and neither did special guests.
Ella didn’t fight him on it, too focused on watching the way the men cleared the table, then listening to the noises from the kitchen that proved they weren’t just throwing everything in the sink but also loading the dishwasher, clearing away the leftovers, and handwashing the rest.
Levi, Maverick’s oldest brother, a huge, burly, lumberjack-looking fellow, came out of the kitchen with a dishcloth that he used to wipe the dining room table. Once he was finished, he gave Kasi a kiss on the top of her head, asking if she wanted him to get her another cookie.
It was such a sweet gesture, Ella found herself blinking several times to clear the sheen of tears forming.
She knew it would probably look strange to the others if they caught her being moved to tears by Levi’s kindness. After all, she wrote romance novels; a lot of her heroes were very much like Levi. But her stories had always felt very much like fiction to her. A female’s fantasy of how she would like the world to be rather than how it really was.
The only time she’d ever felt true love was with Maverick. And over the years, she’d started to reason that emotion away, telling herself it hadn’t been real, that her memories were those of a lonely teenaged girl who’d had way too many years to blow the feelings out of proportion.
“Well, stick a fork in me,” Edith said, rising from the table. “I’m done.”
Once cleanup was over, everyone drifted out of the kitchen, some heading to the living room to watch a baseball game, others grabbing their containers of leftovers, intent on heading back to their homes.
Maverick walked Edith, Ella, and Manny to the car.
“I’m glad you came,” he said to her, as she stood next to her door.
“I am too. I can’t believe I’d never met your parents or seen your home.”
“Crazy to think of, isn’t it?” Maverick said, unfazed by her comment.
“It was a great night, Maverick. Thank you for…” Ella wanted to say for being kind despite that letter, for letting her be a part of the evening, but she was too much of a coward to dip her toe in the water a second time. “Well…just thank you.”
Maverick nodded, and she got the sense he’d known what she was going to say without needing to hear the words.
He opened the door for her, a gentlemanly, swoon-worthy gesture. “Drive safe,” he said to Manny, before closing it.
She watched as he walked back into his parents’ house, sighing. Edith and Manny were chatting—gossiping—about someone, recounting information Jace had shared during dinner.
Ella tuned them out, her thoughts whirling over the wonderful evening. Then, because she’d cracked that door open with Maverick, she found herself replaying another memory of their summer together.
Ella layon the couch with her head in Maverick’s lap, while he gently stroked her hair. She knew their time was runningshort. Not just today but this summer as well. In a few weeks, they’d be back in school, and they’d be forced to return to stolen minutes in the hallway between classes or in the library.
The thought of not being able to spend time with him like this felt unbearable.
“I’m going to miss this,” Maverick said. Sometimes Ella swore he could read her mind. She’d never met anyone more in tune with her thoughts.
“Me too.”
“It’s only one more year,” he added. “Just one more year and then we’ll graduate and we can start the rest of our lives together.”
Maverick had made brief mention of the future before. Mostly, he was counting down to her eighteenth birthday, which sadly wasn’t until May. This was the first time he’d alluded to a wider future for the two of them.
“As soon as we graduate, I’m going to talk to my parents about this cabin.”
“What about it?” Ella pushed up, sitting next to him.
