Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kyle
Cooper’s office smells like old coffee and cedar polish, his unofficial “I’m spiraling” cologne. He’ll swear it’s just “maintaining a professional environment,” but I’ve seen his garage. That man only deep-cleans when his stress hits DEFCON levels.
Alycia is already seated across from him, legs crossed, notebook open, and her posture immaculate. To anyone else, she looks focused and unshakeable, but her knee bounces once—just a small, frantic tremor—and my brain zeros in on it like it’s the only movement in the room.
She glances at me when the door clicks shut behind me, and the bounce stops instantly. It hits low under my ribs, the way it always does when I realize I’m somehow the thing that grounds her.
“Sit,” Cooper orders, pointing at the chair like I’m ten and just broke something important. “We’re finalizing the gala logistics.”
I drop into the chair and stretch my legs out because the office is small, and I enjoy taking up space. Alycia flips a page in her notebook, her fingers tense against the paper’s edge.
“I drafted the media talking points,” she says evenly, “but I want to make sure we’re aligned before I finalize.”
I can hear the thin fracture beneath her professional voice. The one no one else would notice. The one I’ve learned by heart.
Cooper leans forward. “Tomorrow is going to be a circus. And because the two of you decided to—”
“Handle an unexpected PR crisis professionally?” Alycia offers, but I immediately follow with the last thing any of us should say right now.
“Panic-kiss in public?” I say, deadpan, because sarcasm is my favorite coping mechanism.
Alycia shoots me a sharp look, and Cooper closes his eyes like he’s praying for strength.
“Whatever it was,” he says through his teeth, “you’re showing up tomorrow as a united front.”
“We have been. Pretty sure we fooled the entire world already.”
Alycia stiffens, and I know immediately I shouldn’t have said that. The last time I made a joke like that, her mom overheard it. And we’re still recovering from the fallout.
Before I can fix it, Cooper launches into the checklist: arrival times, photo line order, sponsor placements, seating charts, exit strategy. Alycia matches him beat-for-beat, crisp and controlled. But her fingers tap the notebook. Tap-tap-tap. A quiet Morse code of nerves.
I want to slide my hand over hers, not to hold it, but to still the tremor.
But wanting things I shouldn’t want is basically my personality at this point, so I force myself to look at the desk instead.
My phone buzzes, lighting up with Mom. Alycia notices a full second before I do, and her eyebrows lift, a faint warning written in the line of her mouth.
“Answer it so she doesn’t call me instead,” Cooper mutters.
I swipe to answer too fast, thumb slipping, and I must hit the wrong icon because the second Mom’s voice comes through, it’s blasting out of the speaker.
“Kyle Raymond Hendrix.”
Alycia jumps, and Cooper’s mouth falls open in shock as I reach for the phone, but Mom barrels on.
“Is there a reason why I haven’t met my baby boy’s new girlfriend?”
“What?”
Cooper leans back slowly, arms crossing, a knowing grin tugging at his mouth.
He’s the oldest and recognizes that tone better than any of us.
Momma means business, and he’s settling in like he just paid for front-row seats to my funeral.
Beside me, Alycia goes still, shoulders tightening, her gaze fixed straight ahead with the expression of a woman preparing for impact.
Mom continues, voice somehow louder than the speakers should allow.
“Your brothers say to ask you, so I’m calling. Your auntie Peggy called this morning, demanding pictures. Pictures, Kyle! She’s practically family, and I had to tell her I haven’t even met her yet.”
I lunge for the phone to take it off speaker, but somehow hit the wrong button, and the volume spikes. Fucking fantastic.
“Are you listening to me, young man?”
“Momma,” I hiss, panicked. “You’re on speaker.”
She pauses—the deadly pause every Hendrix boy knows—long enough to stupidly hope she’ll calm down but knows deep down she won’t. Instead, her voice turns sickeningly sweet.
“Oh! Wonderful! Then is your girlfriend with you right now?”
Alycia makes a tiny choking sound as Cooper’s shoulders start shaking—full-body, silent laughter—because he knows exactly what’s coming. This is the part where Mom verbally drop-kicks someone, and for once, it’s not him.
I jab at buttons until the phone goes back to normal volume but is still on speaker. “Mom, she is, but this isn’t a good—”
“Can she hear me?” she demands.
Alycia leans in and whispers, barely audible, “Please say no.”
I whisper back, “She heard you.”
“Be a good boy and put her on the phone, Kyle.”
Alycia’s eyes widen like she’s staring down a penalty shot from hell.
“Mom, we’re in a meeting—”
“Kyle.” Her voice drops into that tone—the one that has shut down Hendrix boys for three decades straight. “Don’t make me come down there. Give her the phone.”
Cooper snorts—not silently this time, but loud and obnoxious—and Momma pounces immediately. “Don’t laugh, Cooper. Your turn is coming. I already called Ramona, and apparently, she hasn’t met her yet either.”
“She met her…”
“Not as your baby brother’s girlfriend, she hasn’t.”
That wipes the grin off his face so fast I bark out a laugh. Before Momma can lay into me again, Alycia inhales sharply, straightens her blazer like she’s walking into a board meeting, and holds out her hand for the phone. I swear, I do not deserve this woman.
“Hello, Mrs. Hendrix,” she says sweetly. “This is Alycia Torres. It’s nice to—”
“Oh, honey, call me Mel! Now tell me… when am I meeting the woman who finally got my son to settle down?”
“Oh—um—we’re actually really busy with preparations for the gala this weekend, so I don’t think…”
“Well, that works out perfectly!” Mom cuts in. “Why don’t you two come to Redwood Falls tonight? Everyone will be at the house, and we haven’t had a full family dinner in ages. Six o’clock sharp.”
“Tonight?” Alycia squeaks. “I don’t think that’s—”
Cooper cuts in fast, stepping forward like he’s defending a penalty kill. “Mom, we have a lot going on tonight. Team business.”
“Nonsense,” Mom says immediately. “I already talked to Ramona and Alise. They said you’re all free. Poor Michele has a game tonight, but she said Cole will be there.”
Cooper and I both go still, knowing there is no use fighting any longer. The women in our family are conspiring against us, serving us up on a silver platter to Momma. Serves me right for trying to keep secrets from the once-most important woman in my life.
Alycia, meanwhile, looks like she’s seconds from googling whether faking your own death is a reasonable exit strategy. “Mom, seriously, we can’t just drop everything. We’ve got schedules, and the gala prep, and—”
“Dinner is at six o’clock,” Mom says warmly, knowing there is no way any of us are going to tell her no.
But Alycia tries again, voice thready but determined. “Mrs. Hendrix, I really don’t want to impose—”
“You aren’t imposing, honey. You’re practically family now. I can’t wait to hug you. See you soon!”
Click. Silence crashes back into the room.
Alycia looks like the ground shifted under her feet, and she’s trying to find something solid to hold on to. The worst part is that every instinct I have wants to be that solid thing. Cooper is rubbing his temple like he’s developing a migraine on my behalf. I manage, “We’re dead, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Alycia turns to me slowly. “Did your mother just invite me to meet your entire family tonight?”
“I’m so sorry,” I say immediately. “We can call her back, tell her it’s too much, we can’t go, that this was all a misunderstanding—”
“We can’t.” Alycia’s voice is quiet, frayed around the edges in a way she never lets people hear.
She’s holding herself together too tightly, like if she loosens her grip even a little, she’ll unravel right here in front of us.
And it hits me hard how much she’s carrying for both of us.
She doesn’t need to finish because the lie we told is swallowing us whole.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” I scrub a hand down my face.
“I know.” She breathes out slowly, steadying herself. “It’s fine. I’ll… figure it out.”
But she won’t. She’s shaken, overwhelmed, and trying to shrink her reactions into nothing so no one sees the cracks. And it hits me harder than anything else today. She shouldn’t have to do this alone.
I lean in closer without even thinking, lowering my voice so it’s just for her. “We’ll handle it together. I won’t let them steamroll you.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and the flicker there—uncertainty, gratitude, the fear of needing someone—knocks something loose in my chest. Because she’s letting herself believe me, and I feel that trust settle between us, warm and dangerous.
Cooper clears his throat loudly. “Right. Well. If you two are having dinner with our entire family, then we need to prepare properly.”
“Prepare?” I echo. “It’s just our family.”
Cooper and Alycia both look at me like I’m delusional. Okay, that’s fair.
“She’s going to need a helmet,” Cooper mutters, causing Alycia to laugh and easing something tight in my chest.
She closes her notebook with trembling fingers, attempting professionalism even as the color has drained from her face. “Okay. I guess… we should go get ready.”
I grab my jacket, pulse thrumming with a truth I’m not ready to name.
Redwood Falls has never scared me, but walking into that house full of my entire family, with Alycia at my side? That’s a different kind of terrifying.