Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
By Wednesday, the rhythm of the week had reasserted itself. But some things didn’t feel quite the same.
Muddy Boots was already humming when she walked in.
No line at the door. A few familiar faces at the counter.
Conversation drifting across the red vinyl booths and polished wood floors.
Sunlight caught on chrome napkin holders and the scuffed edges of tabletops worn smooth by decades of elbows and coffee cups.
Mac slid into the booth across from Bella, setting her bag on the floor beside her feet.
Bella smiled, dark curls pulled back, her T-shirt faintly dusted with flour. She wrapped both hands around her coffee mug. “I’ve got three trays of mini bundt cakes left to glaze and a sauce that refuses to behave,” she said. “But I needed to step away.”
“Always a good call,” Mac said.
Helen appeared with the coffeepot, flipped Mac’s cup and filled it without comment. “What can I get you ladies?”
“Waffles,” Bella said. “Extra syrup.”
Mac smiled. “Eggs. Whole wheat toast. And a blueberry muffin, if you still have one.”
“I’ve got one with your name on it,” Helen said, already moving away.
Bella leaned back and studied Mac. “It’s been days,” she said. “Start talking.”
Mac blinked. “About what?”
Sugar packets tore open between Bella’s fingers. She stirred them into her coffee and took a long sip. “Whatever you haven’t said yet.”
Mac tapped a finger against her lips, considering.
“I’ve been working out every day. Increased my lifting weight by ten pounds.”
She shrugged. “Been helping out at the Y when they need an extra pair of hands.”
Bella watched her, something thoughtful settling in her expression. “You know the rest of us already picked you, right? You don’t have to keep trying out.”
A quiet laugh slipped out of Mac. “Spent most of my life doing exactly that.”
“Basketball?” Bella asked, tilting her head.
Mac shrugged.
“Basketball. Coaches. Sponsors. Fans. You get used to proving you belong.”
Mac lifted her coffee.
“Oh—and last Saturday, I went to the farmers’ market with Connor.”
She didn’t add that it had been the best part of her week. Or that she’d caught herself smiling about it more than once since.
Bella’s mug paused halfway to her mouth. “With Connor.”
Mac shrugged, suddenly very interested in her coffee. “It was just the farmers’ market.”
Bella slowly set her mug down.
“And afterward,” Mac added, a smile slipping in despite herself, “we joined a pickup baseball game in the park.”
“You played?” Bella’s voice jumped.
“I did.” Mac huffed a quiet laugh. “And I didn’t think once about the possibility of getting hurt, like I constantly had to be on guard against in high school.” She paused. “Or feeling pressure to perform at peak level.”
“Good for you.” Bella lifted her mug in a mock toast. “That must’ve felt strange.”
Mac rested her forearms on the table, fingers loosely laced. “You know what’s strange? It didn’t feel like a big deal while it was happening. I wasn’t thinking at all. It was just…fun.”
“This didn’t come up when we talked on Sunday,” Bella said, her tone easy but attentive.
“I didn’t think it mattered much,” Mac said. Then, after a beat, she added, “Now I’m not so sure.”
Their food arrived, steam curling upward as plates hit the table. Bella reached immediately for the syrup. Mac broke her toast in half and nudged the muffin to the side.
They ate for a moment without rushing.
“Oh. Clay Chapin, the principal at the high school, called yesterday,” Mac said.
“Oh yeah?”
“He wanted me to know how much they’d love to have me teaching and coaching permanently.” Mac exhaled. “When school starts again in the fall.”
“They loved having you fill in for Rita,” Bella said. “I heard she decided to stay home with the baby.”
“Which left the opening.” Mac turned the muffin once with her thumb. “I have until the end of July to sign.”
“And?”
“I don’t know yet.” Mac stared at her plate. “I’m tempted. But I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Paula keeps calling. She wants me back playing. She’s very good at making a choice feel inevitable.”
Bella snorted. “That’s literally her job.”
“I’m not saying no,” Mac said. “I just don’t want to make a decision that costs me something I don’t want to give up.”
“And which are you afraid of giving up? Coaching here or playing there?”
Mac stared into her coffee, not sure how to answer.
Bella reached across the table and nudged Mac’s coffee cup a fraction of an inch, the small, familiar gesture grounding. “You don’t have to decide anything yet.”
Mac nodded. “I know.”
When they stood to leave, Bella pulled her into a quick hug. “Whatever you choose,” she said, “make sure it feels like it fits. Something you want to do. Not like something you should do.”
Outside, the afternoon stretched open before her. No errands pulling at her, no clock demanding attention.
Mac adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and stepped into the light, content to leave the questions unanswered for now.
Connor swung into his parents’ drive with the drill he’d borrowed from his dad in the back of his SUV. Gravel popped under the tires. The house sat the way it always did—trim yard, flower beds edged clean, porch swept. Except, today, something was different.
Laughter, high and bright, spilled from inside. A chorus of it. Then a burst of music, something peppy and familiar, followed by a shriek that could’ve been joy or indignation.
Connor killed the engine and sat there for a beat, listening.
Another squeal. A thump like someone had fallen onto a couch. More laughter.
He got out, the late-afternoon air warm on his forearms, and rounded the side of the garage with the drill in his hand.
The back door was propped open with a shoe—Adelyn’s sneaker, if he had to guess.
The smell of sunscreen and cut grass mixed with the scents of whatever his mother had simmering—something with onions and garlic—and something else sweet that indicated baking cookie dough.
He stepped into the mudroom and froze.
Sleeping bags in the living room.
Not neatly laid out either. Half unrolled like someone had started to unroll them and gotten distracted.
A pile of blankets had migrated into a nest by the living room doorway.
A ring light stood in the corner like a tiny stage spotlight.
And a scattering of nail polish bottles dotted the coffee table in colors so bright they looked radioactive.
From the living room, a girl said, “No, you cannot put that on my face. I will look like a clown.”
Another girl—his sister—shot back, “It’s not clown. It’s glow. There’s a difference.”
“Glow is for cheeks,” yet another girl argued. “That’s for…for…you’re trying to frost me.”
Connor’s mouth twitched.
Prim appeared from the kitchen with a dish towel over her shoulder. She took one look at him and lifted her eyebrows as if to say, See? I’m surviving.
“Hey,” he said, keeping his voice low, like he’d walked into church.
“Perfect timing,” Prim whispered, then immediately dropped the whisper and smiled. “Your dad is in the garage. Put that drill back where you found it, please.”
Connor nodded and stepped carefully over a sleeping bag. “Sleepover?”
Prim’s smile turned pleased in the way moms looked when something normal happened under their roof. “Yep.”
“On a Wednesday?”
“Don’t start.” She waved a hand like she could swat away his skepticism. “School’s out. Addie wanted to have a few friends over. They’ve been planning it since last week.”
Connor glanced toward the living room. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“Three friends and a dog I don’t recognize.” Prim’s eyes flicked to his. “And before you ask, yes, I checked with the dog’s mom. Your dad is pretending he doesn’t care, but he headed for the garage and hasn’t been seen since.”
The image brought a laugh.
From the living room, Addie’s voice rose again. “Mom! We need—”
“Nothing,” Prim called without missing a beat. “You need nothing. You have pizza. You have a living room. You have the entire summer. I am not buying you fake eyelashes.”
A groan rolled through the house.
Connor shook his head, grinning now, and headed out to the garage. His dad was there with a screwdriver in hand, squinting at something on the workbench like it had personally offended him.
“There he is,” Max said, relief and amusement mixing in his voice. “My prodigal son. Bring back a tool, and you’ll be forgiven.”
Connor set the drill in its corner. “I’m doing my part.”
Max jerked his chin toward the open door. “You hearin’ that?”
“The squealing?”
“The chaos.”
Connor’s smile softened without permission. “Yeah.”
Max snorted. “I said yes because your mother gave me that look. And because Addie promised she’d keep it ‘chill.’”
“Seems chill,” Connor said, deadpan.
Max leveled a look at him. “You’re enjoying this.”
Connor lifted both hands. “I didn’t say that.”
Max’s mouth quirked. “Mm-hm.”
Connor leaned against the doorframe, the hum from the house reaching the garage like a distant radio station. There was something about it—the mess, the noise, the way it didn’t need to be productive to be worth doing—that made his chest tighten in a way he couldn’t explain.
“Remember when she was little and begged to sleep on the trampoline?” Max asked, eyes on his screwdriver.
Connor nodded. “She made you stay outside with her.”
“She said she saw a ‘shadow bear.’” Max shook his head. “I sat out there for two hours with a flashlight and a baseball bat.”
Connor laughed under his breath. “And what was the shadow bear?”
Max lifted the screwdriver like it was evidence. “A raccoon.”
“Heroic.”
“Darn right.” Max set the screwdriver aside and glanced at Connor. “You’re quiet.”
Connor looked back toward the house. Another burst of laughter went up—full-body, can’t-catch-your-breath laughter. He hadn’t heard that kind of sound in a long time. Not from a group. Not without an agenda attached to it.
“I’m fine,” he said automatically.
Max didn’t bite. “Uh-huh.”
Connor pushed off the doorframe and headed back inside, mostly to escape the way his dad could read him without trying.
In the living room, Addie and her friends had taken over completely. A pizza box sat open on the floor like a sacrificial offering. A girl with a high ponytail was braiding another girl’s hair.
A third girl sat on the couch, looking slightly terrified as the others argued over what movie counted as “scary but not traumatizing.”
Addie spotted Connor immediately. Her eyes narrowed with a grin. “Oh no.”
Connor stopped short. “What?”
“You,” she said, pointing at him with a makeup brush like it was a weapon. “You have to settle something.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” she insisted. “They’re being ridiculous.”
The girl with the ponytail turned and eyed Connor with suspicion. “He’s old.”
Connor’s brows lifted. “I’m not—”
“I mean,” the girl amended, “not parent-old. Just…old.”
Addie waved that off. “He’s the best we have.”
Connor gave his sister a look. “Gee, thanks.”
“Okay,” she said. “Question. If you went to a dance, and there was a slow song—”
“Pass.”
“—would you dance, or would you stand there like a statue and pretend you don’t have feelings?”
Connor fought the urge to laugh. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“Answer,” Addie demanded.
One of the girls held up her phone. “We’re taking a poll.”
Connor’s gaze moved across the room, taking in the sleeping bags, glitter and pizza remnants—the kind of unremarkable joy that didn’t ask permission. He thought of Mac, her voice casual as she’d said, Other girls had sleepovers. Like it hadn’t mattered, and maybe that had been the point.
He cleared his throat. “I like to slow-dance. With the right girl.”
The room erupted.
The ponytail girl looked personally betrayed. “No. Boys don’t dance.”
“You heard him,” Addie crowed. “With the right girl.”
She thrust the makeup brush toward him. “Now, sit. We’re going to experiment on those freckles. A little frosting—”
“Nope.” Connor took a step back.
Prim appeared in the doorway, arms folded, mouth twitching. “No one is frosting anyone.”
Adelyn’s grin went feral. “Connor wants to do it,” she declared.
Connor backed up another step. “I like my freckles just the way they are.”
“Two minutes,” Addie pleaded, already advancing. “Just—”
“Hard no,” Connor said, then glanced at Prim like she could rescue him.
Prim tilted her head, considering. “Five seconds.”
Connor’s eyes widened. “Mom.”
His mother shrugged, innocent. “You should’ve been quicker.”
Addie dabbed a ridiculous dot of shimmer onto Connor’s cheekbone and leaned back, satisfied.
Connor stared at his sister.
She held up both hands. “It…enhances your freckles.”
Connor wiped his cheek with his palm and muttered, “Unbelievable.”
But as he turned to go, he caught the reflection of himself in the hallway mirror. Just a guy with a stupid sparkle dot on his face and the faintest smile he didn’t mean to wear.
He stopped there, just long enough to let something settle.
Not nostalgia. Not regret. Something quieter than both.
He thought of Mac again. Of how she’d laughed when she’d made a stellar throw.
She’d been relaxed, unguarded, seemingly surprised by her own joy.
And suddenly, the fact that she’d missed things like sleepovers with other girls didn’t feel like simply something she’d said while they were talking.
It felt like a missing room in a house you didn’t realize was incomplete.
Connor exhaled slowly and walked out onto the porch, the summer air warm and still. Behind him, the girls’ laughter swelled again—no stakes, no plan, no purpose except being together.
He stood there for a moment longer than he needed to.
Then he pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over Mac’s name in his contacts.
Not because he had an idea.
Because he had a feeling.
For once, he didn’t want to overthink it.
Instead of texting her, though, he put his phone away.