I start setting the silverware around the plates she’s placed on the table. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.”
“At my parents’ house?”
“Yeah, you haven’t been to any of the other dinners.”
She doesn’t answer me. It grates on my nerves how she won’t give me the time of day. Dancing at Sunset Shores was fine, but holding a conversation, that’s where she draws the line.
“Want me to go?”
“That’d be great.”
I snort a laugh. “There’s feisty Wren.”
“Don’t act like you know me, Jett. You have no idea who I am or what I’ve been through.” Her voice cracks at the end.
I tilt my head, watching the way her chest heaves as she places the last plate on the table.
“Everything good in here?” Nate steps into the room, glancing between the two of us.
Wren pastes on the fakest smile I’ve seen as she walks past her brother and pats his shoulder. “It’s great. Why wouldn’t it be?”
This is going to be a long dinner.
We all crowd around the big dining table. Platters are passed, chairs scrape against the floor, and conversations mix. Mark sits at the head of his table. Nate’s next to him as he helps fill Corbin’s plate, and Rachel is on her son’s other side. Happiness radiates off them, and a part of me wishes I were them. What could my life be like if I hadn’t gotten in that car the night that changed everything?
Wren sits next to Rachel, across from me and a few chairs down. She’s close enough that I can see the gold glimmer in her amber eyes.
Close enough that I remember what it feels like to hold her hand beneath the table during family dinners.
Close enough to remember what it felt like to kiss her.
Close enough to feel the pain of leaving.
Jerking my head away from the memories, I place a few strips of brisket on my plate as I wait for the spoonbread to make its way around. The damn cornbread with the honey butter. My stomach grumbles in anticipation.
Small talk starts—farm updates, town gossip, my grandpa complaining about some new restaurant and their city-like menu. Briefly, it feels like I can handle this dinner, like Wren and I can actually be in the same room without a war breaking out.
Then my mom has to break the bubble. “It’s nice having everyone together again. Feels like old times,” she says, eyes darting between Wren and me.
Wren lets out a sardonic laugh.
Every fork stops moving as the air fills with tension.
Nate leans back in his chair, watching me like he’s anticipating he’s going to have to break up an inevitable fight.
Wren’s stormy glare lands on me. “You ever planning on telling me why you left without a word?”
There it is.
Ten years of silence sitting right in the middle of the table between the macaroni and cheese and Grandma’s spoonbread.
“Pumpkin,” her dad starts. “I don’t think this is the time.”
Rachel scoots closer to Corbin, as if she’s preparing to protect her son from flying dishes.
I rub my hand down my face, exhaling a deep sigh. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?” she asks with a bite.
