Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
PENELOPE
When Holly had invited me to dinner earlier in the week, she’d made it sound casual. Just a promise of apple crisp—she had apples that needed using, and she refused to peel them alone—and a simple directive to stop by around four.
That was it. No mention of guests. No ominous bring a side dish. Just apples and an implication that she required company. I should’ve asked more questions.
Instead, I’d agreed—after a polite attempt at declining that she bulldozed straight over—and that was how I found myself standing in her kitchen, cleaning up apple peels and listening to a story about Declan as a kid that involved a goat and a fire extinguisher.
A story I was certain he wouldn’t want me to know, which only made it better.
“To this day, he still swears it wasn’t his fault,” Holly said wryly. “But I didn’t see anyone else holding a giant bag of marshmallows and a lighter around all that hay.”
I couldn’t hold in my laughter at the picture she’d painted. “Was the goat okay?”
“Oh, fine.” She waved a hand through the air. “Smelled like marshmallow for a week, though.”
A laugh bubbled out of me before I could stop it, unfiltered and completely unguarded. It echoed in the kitchen, mingling in the air with the scent of baked apples and brown sugar and…home.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this comfortable. Though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Being in Holly’s company had always come easily. She had a steadiness to her that made the room feel anchored. Made you feel like you were exactly where you were meant to be.
I hadn’t been surrounded by this much comfort and warmth in far too long. Maybe ever. And though I couldn’t deny how much I enjoyed it, I knew I couldn’t get used to it.
Not when I wouldn’t get to keep it.
I shook those thoughts from my head, refocusing instead on the story of Declan as a little boy. “I can’t picture him without tattoos and a scowl. Was he always so broody?”
Holly huffed out a laugh. “No, definitely not. But things changed after their dad left.”
I’d been in Starlight Cove long enough to know their dad—the namesake of One Night Stan’s—had left years ago, but that was the extent of it. It was sort of an unspoken rule around town that no one talked about the details, so I was in the dark.
“Of all my boys, he worshiped Stan the most.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel, gaze drifting toward the backyard window for a second. “Took him a long time to admit maybe he shouldn’t have.”
The words settled somewhere low in my chest, making me ache for Declan and the boy he’d been, knowing how hard it had been for me to lose someone I’d loved so young.
But my mother’s absence had been fate. His father’s had been a decision.
There was something uniquely cruel about loving someone who chose to walk away.
Holly placed the jars of cinnamon and nutmeg back in the cabinet, her voice level as if she were just commenting on the weather. “And now, I think he worries more than he lets on about becoming something he doesn’t want to be.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the counter. Becoming. Like it was inevitable…that he was destined to be a carbon copy of his father, whether he wanted to or not.
“Declan doesn’t do things halfway. That includes caring about people.” She lifted the lid on the stew simmering on the stove, giving it a quick stir. “He just takes his time deciding whether something’s worth the risk.”
The idea of him weighing me like that—carefully, deliberately—made my stomach twist. I’d spent most of my life trying to stay small…
agreeable…perfect. Someone worth choosing.
And the thought of someone taking their time to measure my worth against the risk felt dangerous in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
I swallowed. “And if he decides something is?”
Holly’s mouth curved, soft and slow, like she knew more than she was going to say. She reached for the oven mitts, sliding them onto her hands with unhurried ease. “Then he doesn’t scare easy. He just goes all in.”
For some stupid reason, her response made my heart jump into my throat like I’d just hit the first drop on a roller coaster.
She pulled the apple crisp from the oven and set it on the stovetop before tugging off her oven mitts. Then she stepped over to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, tugging me into her side. “I’m glad you came tonight, sweetheart.”
It wasn’t a loaded statement. Just simple. Honest. But my throat felt tight anyway.
“Thanks for inviting me.” I smoothed my palms down the front of my sweater, more for something to do than anything else. “It’s nice to be here.”
“Of course. You’re basically part of the family now.”
The words landed square in the center of my chest. My smile was still fixed in place, but everything underneath it had gone quiet.
Family.
I wasn’t part of families. Not authentically. I was the placeholder—the one who got pulled in as a guest, then drifted back to the edges when the real moments happened. A witness, never a participant.
Besides that, Declan and I were just…roommates. Except the word felt hollow—a lie even I didn’t believe anymore.
“That seems…premature.”
Holly shot me a look over her glasses. “Does it?”
Before I could respond, the back door opened and chased away the denial sitting on the tip of my tongue.
“—so I told him to get fucked. And if he wanted closure, he could try Daddy Grump ’cause I charge extra for emotional stupidity.” Laurel, Sutton’s seventeen-year-old daughter, strode in, glancing back at her mom.
“Brutal, Lolo.” Sutton shook her head, but a smile played on her lips. “Who raised you to be like this?”
Laurel rolled her eyes. “He deserved it. Who cries about a ‘breakup’ after literally a single date?”
Atlas followed behind them both, towering and stone-faced. “Sounds like he and I need to have a conversation.”
Holly lifted a brow at her son. “We all know that you having a conversation with anyone interested in our Lolo is less a chat and more an interrogation.”
“Pen!” Sutton walked over and gave me a hug. “I didn’t know you’d be here tonight.”
“Oh, I was just helping Holly with some apple crisp. I didn’t know anyone else was coming over.”
Sutton’s brows flew up, and she shot a glance at Holly, who was diligently ignoring her.
Laurel muttered, “Uh-oh. Mimi’s at it again.”
Before I could ask what she meant, the back door opened a second time, and in walked Willa and Lincoln, followed immediately by Xander, Chloe, and Emma, who ran straight for Holly like she’d been launched from a cannon.
“Mimi!”
With a bright smile, Holly bent to catch Emma and wrapped her in a tight embrace as everyone else greeted me with surprised but not unkind expressions.
Understanding crashed over me all at once. This wasn’t a drop-in. Everyone being here at the same time wasn’t a coincidence. This was a thing…a ritual.
This was Family Dinner—capital F, capital D.
And somehow, I was standing right in the middle of it all.