Chapter 7
But here’s reality, right back in my face again. —Noah Hardaway
“Can someone add another log?” Benson pokes a stick into the flames nesting in the firepit in front of us, but he makes no move to get up from where he’s sitting in a camping chair with a baby sleeping on his lap.
“I’m assuming by someone you mean me,” Jack says, his voice teasing, as he pushes himself up and out of the chair next to Benson.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to wake Vera.” Benson sends Jack a wicked grin. “And we both know I don’t hate it when you wear flannel shirts and start flexing those muscles of yours like a lumberjack, so…”
Dr. Sam Evers, who’s told me to call him Sam, groans from across the firepit.
He looks over at his husband, Malachai. “Is this why you insisted I wear flannel in seventy-degree weather? Am I unwittingly involved in some kind of conspiracy? I just realized that Jack, Tom, Colin, and I are all dressed in flannel.”
“Mine’s designer!” Tom calls over from the large folding table he and Colin set up as a hot dog and salad station. He’s helping Lou put a metric ton of ketchup onto a hot dog that looks like it’s about to collapse under its own weight.
Malachai smiles, unrepentant. “Gabe and Benson and I decided that if we were all cooking outside and hosting a welcome party for Noah, we wanted to keep the view as impressive as possible. The vote in the group text was to encourage flannel. Flannel in as many places as possible.” He waggles his eyebrows at Sam, and Gabe bursts out laughing.
“Remember when Malachai used to turn red just looking at Sam?” he asks.
Malachai shrugs. “Devon Falls changes people.” He turns to look at me. “You better watch out, Noah. One minute you’re hanging around a campfire trying to figure out how everyone in this place knows each other, and the next minute you’re manipulating group fashion choices over voice notes.”
All I can do is smile weakly. I’ve never felt any of the easy, honest camaraderie this group clearly has around each other.
In every classroom I’ve ever walked into, from elementary school through college, I’ve had to watch people whisper and wonder as soon as they saw my face.
I was always that kid. The damaged one. The one everyone worried about from afar but never wanted to get close to.
Life in and around my small town kept me safe for years, but it also kept me in a very closed fishbowl.
Everything feels different here in Devon Falls.
It’s pretty clear that no one here knows my past—well, except Milo.
He has to know, right? I glance over at the table again and watch as he draws careful, exacting lines of ketchup, mustard, and relish across the hot dog he’s just finished cooking.
He’s never said a word about my history.
Is it possible he doesn’t know my background?
My phone pings with a text.
Uncle Stan
Hope you’re having fun at the campfire gathering! Are you taking your vitamins every day? Tell Milo I said hi. Call me if you need to talk. I miss you, kiddo.
I start to type out a text back, but I quickly get distracted when Sam clears his throat and leans over to whisper something in Malachai’s ear. Then Malachai starts blushing. Benson hoots loudly.
“Tell the group, Sammy! Tell the group!”
“Not in front of the children!” Tom, Sam’s brother, interjects.
He, Lou, and Colin finish up what they’re doing with the hot dogs, and then the circle around the fire is complete.
I drop my phone back into my pocket as I study the group around me, the group that invited me to this hot dog welcome dinner, the group that seems to be at the front lines of helping Gabe with this whole community center project.
There’s Jack Lancer and Benson Lewis, who are married.
Sam Evers and Malachai Flynn, who are also married.
Sam and Jack were best friends with Milo during his residency, and they’re the ones who run Lancer Family Medicine, the only medical practice in Devon Falls.
Jack seems to be the reason Sam and Milo both ended up in Devon Falls.
Jack’s from here, and Lancer Family Medicine is his mother’s old practice.
And then there’s Gabe, Colin, and Tom. I was a little shy around Tom and Colin when I first met them—I’ve never met anyone famous before, unless you count my uncle and his state senator friends, and it doesn’t get much more famous than an Oscar-nominated movie star and a world champion racing driver—but they’re both so kind and easy to talk to that I let go of all that anxiety more easily than I expected.
It was hard to keep my hero worship going when I needed Colin to help me clean out and fix a backed-up toilet a few days ago.
There’s also Lou, of course, and little Vera.
Milo has alternated between cuddling Vera on his lap and helping Lou work on teaching Bear to sit and stay.
I’ve been trying not to look too closely at all of that, because I’d be lying if I said that watching Milo clap excitedly for Lou and high-five him after every success doesn’t make all the organs in my body twinge in a pretty uncomfortable way.
This is a family-friendly campfire, after all.
I can’t believe how easy it feels to be here.
How relaxing. I’ve only just met some of these people—Malachai and I have barely known each other for two hours—but right now I feel like I could dump some of my darkest secrets into the ears of almost anyone in this group.
Except some of my darkest secrets are very public knowledge that any of them could google anytime they wanted.
“Malachai, Benson, and I will add you to our group text, Noah,” Gabe tells me as he passes me a marshmallow for the s’more I’m about to make. “Since you’re living with Milo, you can make sure he’s up on the fashion choices for our group gatherings.”
Every possible answer I could give to that statement catches right in my throat. Milo looks up sharply from the hot dog he’s eating. “Yeah, not how that works. I don’t do flannel.”
“Oh, we know,” Jack says. “Only the most expensive athleisure wear will do for Milo.” He winks. “How much did that sweatshirt cost? Was it more than Vera’s car seat?”
“You mean the car seat I spent three hours helping you figure out how to install?” Milo answers. Benson laughs out loud.
“You got him, Milo! Plus, I like your fancy sweatshirts. And your sneaker game.”
I squint over at Milo’s feet. Today he’s wearing a pair of Reeboks, red and blue with black trim.
I’ve been slowly categorizing Milo’s sneaker choices each day as I try to figure out how he has room for them all in that tiny loft bedroom above where I’m sleeping.
So far my favorites are his black Pumas, which are velvet with neon-blue lettering and design.
“Are you a sneaker guy too, Noah?” Malachai asks.
Now they’re all looking at me. Staring, kind of, but not in an unkind way. Just not in a way I’m used to. I blush and clear my throat, trying to find an answer.
“Noah likes his Chucks.” I catch Milo smiling slightly at me as he gestures to my feet.
“Oh. Now I get the nickname.” Gabe looks up from where he’s opening a bag of marshmallows. “I thought his middle name was Charles or something. Milo calls Noah ‘Chucks’ sometimes,” he adds when the rest of the group just stares at him, clearly confused.
“I like shoes that are comfortable,” I add. Everyone turns back to look at me. “And I like silly t-shirts. You know, punny ones. Shirts that make people smile.” I unzip the sweatshirt I’m wearing to reveal my wardrobe choice for today. It says, Are you overthinking what I’m overthinking?
Ezra hates this one. He hates most of my shirts, of course, but he actually made me change out of this one for a campaign fundraising event at Uncle Stan’s feed store in Pottsville.
“It’s like you’re telling the world you’re not mentally strong, Noah,” he said the first time he saw me in it.
“Trust me, you can’t send that kind of public messaging anywhere near your uncle. ”
But right now, over this fire, everyone laughs. Except for Milo. He just sends me another half-smile and looks intently at the marshmallow he sucks off his fingertip. I can’t help but follow the way his lips move up and down the skin there…
I swallow hard and look away.
“So,” Sam says as he assembles a s’more on a paper plate. “Two months till the center’s opening. Are things on track? I saw Amelia put you on the agenda for the first September town meeting, Gabe.”
“Amelia’s the mayor,” Milo murmurs to me, and I nod in appreciation.
The number of names these people drop in casual conversation makes me wonder if they know every single person in Devon Falls.
I’m starting to think maybe they do. “She’s married to Ellie, who works in the town’s law office with Benson. ”
“Yeah, she did put us on the agenda.” Gabe frowns. “We’ve got some business I need to bring to the community. Things are mostly good, though.” He takes a long sip of soda and shrugs. “As long as we can open on time, everything should be okay.”
“What happens if the center doesn’t open on time?
” I ask. In my first week of work here, I haven’t gotten much of a glimpse into the administrative side of the community center.
When I arrived, Milo and Gabe had a mile-long to-do list of little projects, like building bookshelves and fixing plumbing and painting walls, and I volunteered to dive into that work.
But Gabe’s been saying that he wants to bring me more into the center’s planning process, and this seems like as good a time as any to remind him I’m ready for that work.
Gabe turns to smile at Lou. “Sweetheart,” he says. “Why don’t you take Bear over to the field to see if she wants to play fetch with that toy you brought for her?”