Beside me, Dean caught my eye and winked—his smile was laced with pride and made me blush. But there was something else there, too. Something I didn’t dare name. His gaze held mine just long enough to make my stomach twist and for the world around us to blur—the laughter, the chatter, the soft chirp of crickets in the distance—until it was only him, looking at me like this was more than just a game.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because I could feel myself starting to believe it. To want it.
I swallowed hard and looked away, pretending to busy myself with a napkin, pretending I hadn’t felt the ground shift under my feet a thousand different ways this week.
I couldn’t afford to read into looks or lingering glances. I knew how this ended. And the closer we got to it, the more I felt myself brace for the fall I knew was coming.
So, I smiled, careful and practiced, forcing the air back into my lungs.This isn’t love, I repeated in my head, over and over again.
“Well?” Mr. McHenry asked, beaming over at me and pulling me from my thoughts. “What’d you think, Vivienne?”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin and downed half the beer someone had pressed into my hand. “It’s definitely an experience.”
The table rippled with laughter, and I finally braved a bite of the tail meat. When I glanced up, even John was smiling—his shoulders softer now, as though the weight he’d carried into the night had finally loosened its grip.
Voices began to tumble over one another, and everyone began eating. Dean’s aunt took it upon herself to coach John and Tuesday through the whole process of eating crawfish, and for the first time all evening, I felt myself relax. Tuesday and John fit in perfectly—smiling and joking with Dean’s whole family—as though they’d been folded into the chaos all week.
Then suddenly, my heart pinched in a quiet, unexpected way. Because I could see how easily our worlds would have blended with one another.
I glanced over at Dean and found him watching me too, his eyes steady on my face as though he’d been thinking the same thing. Wondering what it would have been like if we’d met under different circumstances. If our relationship wasn’t built on a foundation of lies.
Then he leaned in and smoothed a strand of hair behind my ear. “You know,” he murmured, the corner of his mouth meeting my cheek, “watching you eat that crawfish might’ve ruined me a little bit.”
My breath hitched, and I smiled. “Is that so?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth, then lifted back to my eyes. “Your hands were a mess, hair in your face—yet somehow it was the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
I laughed softly, shaking my head. “You have a strange definition of sexy,” I said. “I was just trying not to drop the thing or choke.”
Dean smiled—that deep, knowing kind of smile that always seemed to see right through me. “I’m serious,” he said, his voice low and steady. “I could watch you do just about anything and not get tired of it.”
His words lingered—warm, unflinching—and for a moment it felt like the rest of the world had gone quiet. His hand slipped away, but the memory of his touch stayed, steady and grounding in a way I hadn’t realized I needed until it was gone.
Then the sound of the table rushed back in—laughter, chatter, the clink of bottles. I straightened in my seat, blinking back into the moment, just as Mr. McHenry’s voice carried over the noise.
“Now that you’re here,” he said to John, his eyes glinting with mischief as they flicked between the two of us, “youmust appease an old man’s curiosity. We’ve been telling stories about Dean all week—it’s only fair you share one or two about Vivienne.”
My stomach dropped, and I shot John a warning glance, shaking my head and hoping he'd get the message.
For a second, he seemed to. His lips pressed together in a thin line, his eyes flicking down to the food on the table. His expression changed in a way that caused my stomach to tighten—because I knew what he was thinking. There were too many stories between us that he couldn’t tell at this table. Not surrounded by laughter and light and people who’d never know what it meant to go to bed hungry or to count bruises instead of blessings.
Then something flickered across John’s face. I saw it in the way his grin faltered—just barely—as though a shadow of his past had blocked out the sunlight. He looked at me then—really looked—and I knew he was remembering, too. The dark corners, the nights we both remembered but never spoke about.
A flicker of resolve crossed John’s face, and his expression changed. He cleared his throat and turned back to Mr. McHenry.
“Vivienne…” he began, hesitating just long enough for my stomach to tighten. Because hearing that name from his lips made me still. The sound of it—so practiced, so foreign—landed wrong.
For a heartbeat, it felt as though the whole table might see through me—through both of us, through the careful mask I’d been wearing since the moment we arrived.
Shame and gratitude twisted together in my chest. Because it was then I realized John—of all people—was helping me keep the lie alive.
He glanced at me once, a quiet acknowledgment passing between us, before his voice softened. “She could spin whole worlds out of nothing—princesses, kingdoms, shadows. Shecould make me believe just about anything when we were young.”
The table quieted, curiosity making everyone lean closer. Even Dean shifted forward, elbows braced against the table, his attention sharpened like he didn't want to miss a word.
"One day when I was five… which would make Viv around seven," John continued, "we were walking home from school and passed this ragged old carpet rolled up by someone's trash. Most kids would've ignored it, but not her. She stopped and asked me if I knew what it was.” He leaned back from the table and smiled. “Of course I had no idea, so she proceeded to tell me that it wasmagic.Swore it couldfly."
