As I watched him sit there, firelight cutting his profile into shadow and gold, I understood something I couldn’t unsee.
Dean Weston had never stopped being that boy.
He’d just learned how to hide what it cost him.
Twenty-Four
The fire burned loweras the night stretched on, the clearing settling into smaller pockets of conversation. Parents with toddlers bundled in blankets had slipped off toward cabins, voices fading into the dark. Clusters of people leaned close on the benches, laughing over old stories—most lighthearted, some personal.
Dean’s name wove in and out of the chatter mostly for my benefit. Stories about him fixing the broken dock one summer, with logs he’d cut down himself. Of him literallyrunningto his cousin’s wedding because his car hadn’t started that morning when he was eighteen. But one thing I noticed: every story started later. After his grandmother and Mr. McHenry had adopted him. It was as if the years before his parents died had been quietly erased, the whole family determined to keep his past sealed away.
Mason eventually pulled out his guitar, strumming warm chords into the cool night. A handful of voices rose in song, people swaying together, smoke from the fire curling upward toward the stars.
I slipped away, needing space, my feet carrying me down the slope toward the lake. The night air was cooler here, andthe reflection of the moon rippled faintly on the dark water. I hugged my arms around myself, letting everything I’d heard tonight tumble over in my mind—the stories, the laughter, the silences between it all.
I heard him before I saw him. Footsteps soft on the sand, the quiet shift of his weight. Then the warmth of a blanket settled around my shoulders, his hands lingering just long enough that I felt them, even after they dropped away.
“Do you always run away from campfires,” he asked me, his voice low and close to my ear, “or just mine?”
I grinned, glancing at him over my shoulder. “Just yours.”
He laughed, the sound breaking easily in the dark. “My family can be a lot.”
I didn’t deny it. Instead, I whispered, “You’re lucky to have them.”
Something shifted in the air, and his gaze lingered on mine, thoughtful and heavy. He came to stand by my side, where the reflection of the moon caught in the darkness of his eyes, making them flicker with gold.
The mood wasn’t casual anymore—it was heavy, as though he wanted to see past my walls and get to know me in a way no one else had ever bothered to.
“John,” he said quietly. “Is he really your brother?”
I shook my head. “Not by blood. But he’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to one.”
He nodded, his eyes unrelenting. “And what you said about your parents earlier—was that true?”
The question unraveled me more than I cared to admit. I could have laughed it off, told him I’d made it up, anything other than the truth—but for some reason, I didn’t want to lie to Dean. Maybe because all the stories I’d heard this evening made me feel like I really knew him.
They’d cracked something open in me—something I couldn’t seem to close again.
“Yeah,” I whispered, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. “My mom decided I was too much work. Gave me a handful of quarters and told me I could buyanything I wanted.”
He didn’t flinch. But something shifted in his eyes—pain, maybe. Or grief on my behalf. He stepped closer, his thumb brushing gently along the side of my neck.
“She didn’t deserve you,” he said softly.
The words were simple. That was what made them hurt. They pressed straight into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs.
I closed my eyes, my body reacting like it was yesterday instead of twenty-five years ago.
“Damn it,” I breathed, the curse slipping out without permission. I shook my head once, like that might steady me.
He leaned in then, resting his forehead against mine—not asking, not rushing—just there, solid and warm, like he was silently asking me to trust him.
“She never came back,” I said, the words rushing out before I could stop them.
His grip tightened—not possessive but grounding me in a way that made it impossible to drift. “I can’t even imagine.” He said softly. And for a moment he was right there with me, sitting in the pain instead of shying away from it.
Thunder rolled low in the distance, a warning rumble over the lake. I let the sound settle, let the weight of what I’d admitted hang between us before I swallowed hard and forced myself to meet his gaze.
