Chapter 19 #2
Part of me wanted to tell him off for making fun of my boyfriend—fake boyfriend—but this was pretty much a Turner family tradition. Not to mention I’d never heard Tino sing solo (I’d unfortunately been subjected to the boys’ group karaoke) and I was curious.
Tino glanced down at the guitar like it might bite him. “Just so we’re clear, I play hockey. That’s my thing.”
Neil smirked. “That’s not going to save you.”
Tino sighed, adjusting the guitar on his knee.
He strummed once. It sounded… fine. Not great.
Not terrible. Honestly, I was impressed that he could play any chords at all.
Then he started to sing. It wasn’t bad, exactly.
It just wasn’t… good. His pitch wavered, his timing was off, and he kept glancing at me like he was trying not to laugh at himself.
Grace gasped dramatically. “Oh my God.”
“Is he doing this on purpose?” Neil asked.
Zach winced. “I respect the confidence.”
Tino finished the song with a flourish that suggested he was well aware of how it had gone. He handed the guitar back immediately.
“There,” he said. “I did it.”
Luca wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “That was… an experience.”
Tino pointed at him. “I’d like to see you on skates.”
The teasing moved on, replaced by stories—tour mishaps, school disasters, moments that had grown funnier with time. Someone passed around marshmallows and chocolate, and Nina reappeared with graham crackers like she’d been summoned by the word “s’mores” alone.
At some point, someone started singing again—this time together, harmonies blending easily. I recognized the song almost immediately, a Take Five chorus floating into the night, soft and familiar.
Tino didn’t sing this time. Instead, he listened. I glanced up at him, expecting boredom or polite tolerance, but his expression surprised me. He was watching everyone with quiet interest, eyes warm, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You okay?” I asked softly.
He looked down at me. “Yeah. Just… this is nice.”
Something in his tone made my chest ache.
I followed his gaze as it drifted over the group—Grace leaning against Neil, Ivy laughing with Zach, Megan tucked under Hudson’s arm, Nina and Finn sharing a blanket like they didn’t even notice anyone else was there.
My family. My world.
And Tino was sitting in the middle of it like he’d always been meant to.
The bonfire burned lower, the flames settling into a steady, glowing rhythm instead of the earlier wild crackling.
Someone added another log, and sparks lifted briefly into the air before fading into the dark.
I found myself tucked more securely against Tino’s side without remembering how it happened.
At some point, Nina passed around mismatched mugs of hot chocolate, insisting it was tradition even though I was fairly certain it was something she’d invented a couple of weeks ago.
Megan dragged a blanket from somewhere—no one knew where it came from, only that it was enormous and smelled faintly like smoke and fabric softener—and insisted on piling it over everyone sitting closest to the fire.
It ended up covering Tino, me, part of Neil, and one of Hudson’s legs.
“This is a fire hazard,” Hudson said mildly.
Megan beamed. “So is your personality.”
I laughed, the sound easy and unguarded, and felt Tino’s chest move under my cheek as he laughed too. His arm tightened briefly around my shoulders, not possessive, not performative—just instinctive, like he was anchoring himself there.
At one point, Finn started telling a story about a tour stop that had gone spectacularly wrong—something involving a broken bus, a misplaced passport, and Luca somehow ending up onstage in the wrong city entirely.
Tino listened like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, chiming in at the right moments, laughing in all the right places.
I watched Tino banter with the boys, watched how quickly the rhythm formed—how he didn’t overdo it, didn’t fade into the background either. He asked questions, remembered details, followed up on things they’d mentioned earlier like it mattered.
Because it did.
And I realized, with a strange mix of warmth and something dangerously close to fear, that he wasn’t trying.
He wasn’t performing for them any more than he was performing for me.
This was just… him.
Somewhere between the third song and the fifth retelling of the hockey-versus-boyband debate, Tino excused himself to help my eldest brother Asa bring out more wood.
Asa, who had stayed inside all evening like clockwork, appeared briefly at the back door, exchanged a few words with Tino, and handed him gloves like this was a well-established routine.
I watched them disappear toward the side of the house, my chest tightening unexpectedly.
“You’re smiling,” Nina said softly, appearing beside me.
“I am?”
She nudged my shoulder. “You look happy.”
I looked back toward the fire, toward the people who had raised me as much as they’d grown up alongside me. “He fits,” I said quietly. “I didn’t think he would. Not like this.”
Nina hummed. “Sometimes the people you expect to be temporary aren’t.”
By the time Tino came back, his cheeks were pink from the cold and he was laughing at something Asa had said, the sound easy and unguarded. He dropped back onto the bench beside me and immediately reached for the blanket, tucking it around us again like it was second nature.
“You missed Luca attempting harmony,” I told him.
He winced. “I’m devastated.”
Luca pointed at him. “Rude.”
Tino leaned closer, his voice low, meant just for me. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I just—this is nice.”
He smiled, warm and genuine. “Yeah. It is.”
The fire burned on. The night deepened. And for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel like I was pretending at all.