19. Jenna
JENNA
The Friendsgiving potluck happens in the school gym every year, folding tables end to end down the length of the basketball court, a hand-lettered banner over the stage that's been reused so many times the letters have started to fade unevenly, and by the time we arrive half the town's already there, balancing paper plates and arguing about whose stuffing recipe is the original.
"Smells like Dot's turkey again," Maggie says, appearing at my elbow with a casserole dish she guards like state secrets. "Which means somebody should probably call the fire department preemptively this year instead of waiting for the alarm."
"What happened last year?"
"Convection oven. She got a new one over the summer and decided this was the occasion to learn how it works.
" Maggie shakes her head, fond and exasperated in the exact proportion this town seems to reserve for Dot specifically.
"There's a scorch mark on the gym ceiling from the year before that the school still hasn't painted over. It's become something of a landmark."
Sure enough, Dot's at the far table, hovering over a turkey that's gone a deeply concerning shade of mahogany on one side and something closer to raw on the other, waving away offers of help with the confidence of a woman who's convinced this year is different.
"It's resting," she announces to no one in particular. "It just needs to rest."
"That bird's not resting, Dot, it's recovering," Gunny calls from two tables down, where he's setting out a pumpkin pie that's visibly, alarmingly liquid in the middle, sloshing gently every time he adjusts the pan. "Though I'm one to talk."
"What happened to yours?"
"I trusted a recipe that said 'bake until set.
' It never set. I've made my peace with it.
" He says this with the total serenity of a man presenting a science fair project he already knows failed, and sets it down next to a lineup of considerably more successful dishes without an ounce of visible shame.
Rafe's beside me through all of it, a dish of his own balanced in both hands, something involving roasted vegetables that actually looks edible, and if he notices the way half the gym keeps glancing our direction and then pretending not to, he doesn't let it slow him down.
"You didn't warn me about the turkey situation," he says, low, just for me.
"It's a tradition at this point. Dot's turkey and Gunny's pie are basically the opening ceremony."
"I brought roasted vegetables to a gathering with an opening ceremony built around failure. I may have miscalculated the assignment."
"You'll fit right in. Half this table is somebody's well-intentioned disaster."
We find a spot near the twins, who abandoned us the second we walked through the door in favor of the dessert table and a cluster of other kids running some complicated game involving folding chairs as home base, and I lose track of Eli for a solid twenty minutes before I spot him again, deep in conversation with Sheriff Cole over by the drink station, both of them gesturing at a turkey leg with the seriousness of surgeons.
Josie finds me first, plate piled dangerously high with three different desserts and nothing resembling an actual dinner. "I'm doing dessert now and vegetables later. It's a system."
"That's not really how a plate works."
"It's how mine works." She surveys the gym with the same critical eye she once turned on Rafe's shirt, taking stock of who's talking to whom, and lands on something that makes her grin. "Eli's going to ask him. I can tell."
"Ask who what?"
"You'll see." She wanders off before I can press her further, entirely too pleased with herself for someone holding a plate of mostly pie, and I file the comment away without fully understanding it, too busy scanning the crowd for a place to set my own dish down.
"That's the drumstick," Eli's saying, loud enough to carry. "The thigh's different. It's a whole separate muscle group."
"Is that right?" Sheriff Cole, a broad, unhurried man who looks like he's spent thirty years being mildly amused by this town, nods along with genuine interest. "You planning on being a vet or a butcher?"
"Probably a vet. Butchers don't get to keep the animals."
"Fair point."
I'm halfway through a conversation with Maggie about her granddaughter's soccer schedule when I hear Eli's voice cut through the general gym noise, clear and unbothered by volume in the specific way only an eight-year-old can manage.
"Rafe."
Rafe, a few feet away refilling his cup, turns. "Yeah, bud."
"Are you my mom's boyfriend?"
The gym doesn't go silent exactly, but it does that thing small towns do, where every conversation within earshot drops half a register and half the room gets suddenly interested in their plates.
Dot's head snaps up so fast she nearly loses the spoon balanced on her turkey.
Maggie goes very still beside me, coffee halfway to her mouth.
Around us, maybe fifteen people are watching Rafe's face, waiting.
I open my mouth, some half-formed instinct to deflect on his behalf kicking in automatically, years of practice smoothing over exactly this kind of question before it can land anywhere dangerous. Nothing comes out fast enough.
Rafe doesn't even hesitate.
"Yeah," he says, plain and steady, like Eli asked him what time it is. "I am."
The word lands in the middle of that gym like a dropped plate, and for one full second nobody moves, like the whole room's waiting to see if he's going to take it back or soften it or turn it into a joke the way most adults would with an audience this size.
He doesn't. He just looks at Eli, calm and certain, like the truth of it costs him nothing at all to say out loud in front of an entire town.
"Cool," Eli says, entirely satisfied, and goes back to his turkey leg conversation with Sheriff Cole like he didn't just detonate a small, glorious bomb in the middle of Friendsgiving.
The gym doesn't stay quiet for long. Dot's the first one to recover, clapping her hands together once, sharp and delighted. "Well, it's about time somebody said it out loud."
"I told you," Gunny says, to absolutely nobody and everybody at once, raising his cup like he's accepting an award. "I called this months ago."
"You called it to me specifically, and I already knew," Maggie says. "That doesn't count as calling it."
"It counts. I'm putting it on the record."
The teasing spreads through the gym in that fast, good-natured way news travels through a room full of people who've known each other their whole lives, somebody two tables over saying "finally" loud enough to be heard, somebody else starting a slow clap that Rafe silences with one look that has absolutely no real authority behind it anymore.
Sheriff Cole claps him on the shoulder on his way past for more turkey he probably shouldn't eat given what he now knows about Dot's oven situation.
An older woman I recognize vaguely from the hardware store tells him, entirely unprompted, that she always thought he and I made a nice pair, watching us at the register that first week I started.
"Did you know?" I ask her, half laughing, unable to help myself.
"Sweetheart, everybody knew. We were just waiting for one of you to catch up.
" She pats my arm like she's delivering a diagnosis and moves off toward the dessert table, entirely satisfied with herself, leaving me standing there wondering exactly how long this town's been ahead of us on our own relationship.
Josie reappears at my side, empty plate now, looking extremely pleased with how the evening's turned out. "Told you."
"You knew Eli was going to ask that?"
"He's been planning it since the car ride over.
He wanted to know before winter break because he's putting together a list for his teacher about his family, and he said it's easier to write down if he actually knows the answer.
" She says it so matter-of-factly, so entirely without drama, that it takes me a second to catch up to the size of what she just told me.
"A list for his teacher?"
"It's a whole assignment. Everybody has to bring in something about the people in their life." She shrugs, like this explains everything, and in a way it does. "He didn't want to guess wrong."
Rafe takes all of it with the kind of steady, faintly embarrassed grace of a man who spent years training for combat and somehow finds a gymnasium full of well-meaning teasing more disarming than actual gunfire.
He doesn't run. He doesn't deflect. He just stands there, a little pink around the ears, letting the whole town have its moment at his expense because apparently that's a price he's decided is worth paying.
I make my way over to him through the crowd, weaving around folding tables and a very determined toddler chasing a dropped roll, and by the time I reach him the teasing's mostly moved on to somebody's questionable green bean casserole, leaving us in a small, relatively quiet pocket near the drink station.
"You didn't have to say it like that," I tell him, not quite able to keep the smile off my own face. "You could have deflected. Redirected him to the turkey leg conversation. You had options."
"I had exactly one honest option, and I took it." He looks down at me, something easy and unguarded sitting in his face that I don't think he'd have let this town see a month ago. "Eli asked a direct question. Man doesn't lie to an eight-year-old holding a turkey leg like a gavel."
"Our secret's officially dead."
"It was never much of a secret. Dot had a betting pool. I heard about it from three separate people before Thanksgiving decorations even went up."
"A betting pool?"
"Apparently I was the favorite by a wide margin, which either speaks well of me or terribly of this town's standards.
" He glances around the gym, at Gunny still narrating his pie disaster to anyone who'll listen, at Dot holding court near her recovering turkey, at Eli and Josie now both interrogating Sheriff Cole about some unrelated crime statistic.
"I don't think I mind. I thought I would. I really thought I would."
"And now?"
"Now I think I've been carrying around a secret this whole town already knew, which means the only person I was actually protecting from the truth was me." He says it plainly, and somehow that lands harder than a more dramatic version would have.
Across the gym, over the top of somebody's head, our eyes catch, and neither of us says anything for a second, just standing there in a room full of people who've apparently known about us longer than we let ourselves admit it out loud.
Then something in his face cracks open into a laugh, helpless and real, and I feel my own following right behind it before I can stop it, both of us laughing at nothing and everything, at Eli's turkey leg gavel and Dot's betting pool and a secret that died in front of fifteen witnesses and somehow feels like the best thing that's happened to either of us in years.
"We were terrible at this," I manage, wiping my eyes.
"Historically terrible."
"Worst secret keepers in Pinewood Ridge."
"Second worst. Dot's still got that turkey convinced it's resting.
" He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, unhurried, in front of God and Gunny and the entire gym, and doesn't look even slightly sorry about it.
"I'm glad it's out. I'm glad everyone knows.
I'm glad Eli's the one who made me say it. "
"Me too."
Around us the potluck rolls on, someone finally convincing Dot to let the turkey rest for real, Gunny trying to salvage his pie with a can of whipped cream and sheer optimism, the twins somewhere in the crowd narrating the whole evening to anyone who'll listen.
For the first time since this started, I don't feel like I'm hiding anything from anyone, not the twins, not this town, not even myself.