Chapter 23 #2
“Balance is exactly what I understand,” I say automatically.
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, and suddenly, every pair of eyes in the room is on me, amused and interested. Heat creeps up the back of my neck as I clear my throat. “I mean, I work in PR. Optics and balance are kind of my thing.”
“My God,” Cole says, turning to Kyle. “You really found your perfect match. She speaks fluent overthinking.”
“Shut up,” Kyle says mildly, then gives me a sidelong look that does something strange to my pulse. “You don’t have to work, Torres. You’re a guest.”
“I don’t know how to be a guest,” I admit, so quietly I’m not sure anyone hears it.
Mrs. Mel’s gaze softens as she comes toward me, bumping Cole out of the way. “You can finish cutting the vegetables, since this one is doing a terrible job at it.”
“What do I do, then?”
“You can help Cooper finish setting the table.” Mrs. Mel points toward the dining room. “Along with Kyle, since he wants to do nothing but hover.”
Both boys open their mouths to respond but slam them shut quickly.
“Rule number one in the Hendrix family: Momma says it once, and everyone listens,” I whisper, causing Alise and Ramona to giggle.
“She is gonna fit in just fine,” Beau says as both boys turn and slink toward the dining room to join their older brother.
After that, we fall into a natural rhythm that feels unnaturally easy.
I chop while Ramona seasons. Alise assembles bread on a tray.
And Beau stirs while Darius pretends he’s not sneaking pieces of bread off the tray almost as quickly as Alise puts them there.
All of this happens while Mrs. Mel watches us move around the kitchen like the seasoned general she is.
The noise settles around me, not overwhelming but warm. It’s alive, like I’m standing next to a bonfire: too much if you get too close, but intoxicating if you find the right distance.
“They’re a lot,” Kyle murmurs near my ear as he slides beside me at the island.
My hand trembles on the knife. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“But you were thinking it.”
A startled laugh slips out. “I don’t think I have the emotional stamina to manage all of you without a crisis budget.”
“You’re not managing us, just surviving.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It’s the truth.”
Before I can respond, Cooper bellows from the next room. “If y’all don’t get in here in thirty seconds, I’m eating everything myself!”
“He’s been pacing like he’s hosting the president.” Ramona rolls her eyes.
“Lord have mercy,” Ms. Mel mutters.
We gather dishes in a chaotic but shockingly functional line, and Kyle catches my eye as we step toward the dining room.
“You’re doing better than you think,” he murmurs, and somehow, I believe him.
The dining room feels less chaotic than the kitchen, but it’s loud in a way that feels…
lived in. A long wooden table stretches across the room, big enough to fit a small army, which I guess is what the Hendrix family is.
Every one of the chairs is different. Some chairs have cushions, some are wooden, and it seems someone dragged one from a desk upstairs.
A bouquet of wildflowers sits in a mason jar, slightly lopsided but clearly placed with care.
Cooper is standing at the head of the table like he’s presenting a five-course tasting menu at a Michelin-star restaurant. “Please be respectful of the serving order, and—Mona, stop laughing.”
Ramona kisses his cheek loudly. “You’re adorable.”
“I am organized.”
“You’re adorable and organized,” she teases as his ears turn a soft shade of pink.
I blink at the sight. This is not the Cooper Hendrix I know.
Not the drill-sergeant hockey coach whose posture alone straightens entire conference rooms. Not the man who can shut down a full-media panic with one clipped sentence.
This Cooper—bickering with his wife about table settings, looking almost shy about it—is so startlingly human it knocks something loose in my chest.
Kyle leans in, pretending to inspect a stack of napkins while his voice dips for me alone. “He’s not usually this… theatrical. But give him a dinner to host, and he goes full Broadway.”
I laugh under my breath, too quick to catch. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him… like this.”
“Most people don’t,” Kyle says, grabbing plates before Cooper can snatch them away. “Home coach is a rare Pokémon.”
It should be comforting, seeing Cooper relaxed.
Instead, it makes the room tilt just slightly, because if he is different here…
my gaze drifts to Kyle because he’s different, too.
It’s not as obvious as it is with Cooper.
It’s subtler. I see it in the faint tension in his shoulders and the carefulness hiding beneath every easy line he throws across the room.
With me, he is teasing and loose around the edges, but here with his family, he’s on guard in ways I didn’t recognize until I actually looked.
I notice it in the way he deflects Cole’s chirping with a sharp quip that lands just a hair too fast and how he hovers on the outside of everything like he’s bracing for impact.
I watch how he glances toward Cooper before speaking, like checking wind direction before a shot on goal.
Sarcasm becomes his armor, and his silence a strategy.
That’s when it hits me, because outside of the office, I’m the opposite.
When I’m at the office, I shrink and try to calculate my next move, but not here.
In the middle of all this chaos—his family—he’s the one who starts folding inward.
The realization unsettles something deep in me.
I’ve been so focused on what tonight means for me—my nerves, my boundaries, my composure—that I forgot this is something for him, too.
That he’s not gliding through this with half the ease he pretends to be.
And somehow, knowing that makes me feel less alone in the swirl of it all.
We’re both out of our depth here, just in the opposite directions.
Kyle catches me looking at him, something unguarded flickering across his face before he masks it with a half smile. He doesn’t tease me like he usually would. He just looks at me like he’s checking a compass he forgot he had. And God help me, my heart answers before my logic can shut it down.
Ms. Mel reappears in the doorway like she’s stepped off a stage cue, hands on her hips, eyes scanning the room with laser precision. “If y’all stand in here much longer, dinner’s never getting to the table. Move.”
Not one in this room even thinks about arguing.
“Translation: do what she says or face the consequences.” Kyle nudges my elbow with a quiet.
“I’m learning.”
“Fast learner,” he murmurs, almost proud.
But the second Ms. Mel points toward the serving platters, Kyle straightens like he’s being inspected. The casual, teasing version of him fades into something sharper. He grabs the mashed potatoes and steps aside quickly, like he’s making himself smaller in his own home.
A strange ache I didn’t expect pulls through me as Beau passes behind us, carrying two bowls, unbothered and humming some old R&B song under his breath.
Cole yells from across the kitchen about how he’s “in charge of carbs, a world-class responsibility,” and Ms. Mel threatens to revoke his knife privileges.
Ramona floats around them all, stealing bites and ignoring every warning.
It’s loud and weirdly efficient, and Kyle is holding himself like he doesn’t want to take up space in any of it.
Ms. Mel catches sight of me by the counter and beams. “Can you grab the rolls, Alycia? They’re too pretty to trust your boyfriend or any of his brothers with.”
The word detonates softly somewhere behind my ribs. Kyle doesn’t react outwardly, but I feel the tension catch in him, like a string pulled too tight. “We—”
I start, then stop when Kyle’s fingers brush my wrist. “We’ll bring them,” he says smoothly, and she’s already turning away with a satisfied smile on her face.
“Sorry,” Kyle murmurs, low enough only I hear. “It’s easier just to roll with her.”
“I’m not arguing,” I say, but my voice is thin. “Just… noting the whiplash of suddenly being included in all of this.”
“Yeah. I know that feeling.” He meets my eyes, something complicated flickering there.
I want to ask what he means as we step into the kitchen. I want to know why a man so deeply rooted in this family looks like he’s holding himself together with quiet force, but Beau appears beside us, balancing a precarious stack of dishes. “Y’all moving or staring into each other’s souls?”
“We’re moving,” Kyle says, stepping around Beau and grabbing the basket of rolls of the counter next to him.
Beau gives me an almost-smile as I follow Kyle back into the dining room. The room smells like everything comforting at once—roasted chicken, buttery herbs, warm bread.
“Here.” Kyle pulls out the chair beside him. His voice is gentle in a way I’m becoming too aware of. “Sit. Before someone else tries to steal the seat.”
I slip into it, trying to absorb everything at once as Darius plops into the seat across from me, teen attitude radiating off him in waves. “Sup.”
“Hi.”
He squints, assessing me with the intensity of someone evaluating whether I’m worthy of insider jokes and potential blackmail material.
Kyle kicks his chair lightly. “Be nice.”
“I am nice,” Darius argues.
“You are many things. Nice is occasionally one of them.” Ramona snorts as all the seats at the table fill quickly.
Plates clatter as everyone takes their fill, but somewhere amidst all the noise, Kyle sits beside me—quiet, observant, a little stiff—like he’s waiting for something he’ll never admit out loud.
I feel it then, too. Like we don’t belong in this mess of people who know each other almost as well as they know themselves, as well as something scarier. I’m beginning to understand him, and that's when Ms. Mel clears her throat from the far end of the table.
“All right,” she announces. “Before we eat, I want to say something.”
Every Hendrix boy groans. Ramona grins. Alise perks up like she already knows what’s coming. And Darius drags a hand down his face, mumbling, “Here we go…”
Momma beams directly at me, warm and unfiltered.
“Alycia, honey, welcome to the family.”
Kyle goes still beside me, like the words hit him harder than they hit me, and the room erupts before I can process what is happening.