“No, he’s so cute!” He set down a tub of salad on the table and leaned over to give Dog a scruffing. Dog panted happily and pretended he was agooddog, and not one who had tried to steal my phone charger again just this morning. “Aren’t you so cute? Shoot, now I need to wash my hands again. Wilder, can you check the garlic bread?”
“Well, it smells good,” Wilder said and headed for the kitchen.
The entire house smelled fantastic, and my stomach growled. It had been a long time since I’d done more than eat at the kitchen table at Uncle Jim’s or, before that, at the breakfast counter in my apartment in Cincinnati. There was something different about eating with a group of people that had nothing to do with the food and everything to do with a sense of community. I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing feeling like part of a group until I was in the middle of one again. And Ididn’t know these guys, not yet, but it felt like it would be easy to do. It felt like having a group of friends like this one would be as hearty and nourishing as whatever ended up on the table when dinner was served.
I was seated with Cash beside me, and Chase was across the table with his boyfriend, Lee. It was weird how similar the twins looked—literally identical—and yet they projected such different energy. Cash was quiet and gentle, while Chase was loud and sharp. But there was overlap there too, because I knew Cash could be sassy when he wanted to be, and I loved it. And a few times when Chase glanced at Lee, I saw the same affection and adoration in his expression that Cash got with Dog and the kittens. And with me.
That realization gave me a kick in the guts, and it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. I hadn’t come to Goose Run looking for anything at all—not a boyfriend, not a dog, not friends—but it seemed like maybe I’d found those things anyway. Goose Run, I’d thought, would be nothing but a dead end, which was a perfect fit for everything I’d felt about my life and my career. But now this place was starting to feel like it could be a beginning instead.
Avery returned to the dining room with a pot of spaghetti and another of sauce and started to serve them onto plates. The plates were then passed around the table until they got to whoever was at the end of the line. Again, there was that sense of community, of sharing more than food as plates and utensils and side dishes did a complicated dance up and down the table.
Wilder returned from the kitchen holding a tray in his oven-mitted hands.
Cash sat up straighter. “Garlic bread!”
Wilder delivered it to him first, and he grinned.
“He goes apeshit for Avery’s garlic bread,” Chase said.
“It’s so good,” Cash agreed, and I caught one or two glances from the others, which made me wonder how quiet he usually was even among his family and friends.
“Lee’s is better,” Chase said, glaring.
Lee gave him a look that was halfway between fond and exasperated. “It’s not a competition, babe.”
Chase wrinkled his nose. “Whatever.”
“You’ll have to put up with mine, sorry,” Avery said, completely unoffended. “But Lee made apple pie for dessert.”
“Two apple pies,” Lee said. “And one apricot.”
“I call dibs on the leftovers,” Danny said.
Wilder tucked a napkin into Gracie’s shirt collar. “Leftovers? In this crowd? You’re crazy.”
“I want apricot!” Gracie said.
“Manners, sweet pea,” Wilder said, smoothing a loose tendril of hair back from Gracie’s face.
“I want apricot,please!”
“Sure,” Lee said, and Gracie beamed at him.
Cash grabbed a slice of garlic bread off Wilder’s tray and put it on the side of my bowl, and I smiled my thanks.
Farther down the table, Miller had opened his bottle of wine and was holding it up in invitation. Danny made a face but gave a cautious nod, and Avery slid a cup forward.
“Aren’t you supposed to drink wine from a wine glass?” Wilder asked. “I think we have some somewhere?”
“That’s just what Big Wine Glass wants you to believe,” Avery said. He tapped his cup against Miller’s. “Cheers.”
Danny took a sip and pulled a face. “Is it meant to taste like that?”
“Yes,” Miller and Avery answered as one, and Gracie giggled.
Danny shuddered. “Thank God that Mason brought beer!”
Dinner was great. The food was good, and the company was even better. I’d wondered if I might not fit in with Cash’s friends,but they were a motley bunch. An attorney, a plumber, a teacher, a baker, a barista, and Danny was a full-time student at the community college studying to become a paramedic while he also worked shifts at Goose Run Gas.
