Chapter 9 #3
Marshall nods once, distracted but not unfriendly. “Hi. Don’t take the sweet tea near the edge, it’s a structural risk.”
…Okay.
Another man slips in behind him, taking two of the glasses off the tray before it can tip.
“You say that every week,” he says mildly.
“That’s because every week someone ignores me.”
The second man glances at me and smiles.
“Wyatt,” he says. “Welcome to the mad town.”
“Annie.”
“Good luck,” he adds.
“That’s what everyone keeps saying,” I say.
“Because we’re honest,” a third voice cuts in.
I turn.
It’s Jesse, who I met on my first week here. He’s already grinning, like he’s been enjoying the entire situation from across the room and has now decided to join in, cookie in hand.
“See?” he says, pointing said cookie at me like evidence. “She didn’t run.”
“I considered it,” I tell him.
“That’s healthy.”
“That’s Jesse,” Abilene says, with the long-suffering patience of someone who has accepted her fate. “Hey, where are the twins?”
“I’m delightful,” Jesse corrects. “And they’re ‘helping’ with the cupcakes. So I best not leave them for too long…”
“That sounds ominous,” I say.
“It is,” Wyatt says mildly.
Jesse points at him with the cookie. “And yet no one stops me.”
“Because we’re tired,” Marshall mutters, finally setting the tray down somewhere that apparently meets his exact structural requirements.
I laugh before I can stop myself.
“Come sit with us when you get food,” Abilene says. “If you want.”
Before I can answer, Jesse’s already backing away. “I’m going to go make sure my children haven’t built a frosting weapon.”
“They probably have,” Wyatt calls after him.
“Then I’ll be proud and concerned at the same time!”
“That sounds on brand,” Duke says.
Jesse grins at him over one shoulder. “That’s because you know me.”
And then he’s gone, swallowed back into the swirl of people and noise and paper plates.
Marshall gives me a short nod that somehow reads as both hello and goodbye, then turns back to Abilene long enough to murmur something low by her ear. She rolls her eyes, but there’s affection all through it.
“It gets easier,” he says, and I’m not entirely sure whether he means potlucks, small towns, or being looked at by this many people at once.
Probably all three.
Then he heads off after the others, leaving me standing there with Abilene, Dakota, Duke, and the strange sensation that I’ve just been absorbed into something without any paperwork or formal approval process.
Which feels inefficient.
And also… nice.
“I’m serious,” Abilene says, adjusting the casserole dish in her hands. “Come sit with us.”
Dakota nods. “You’ll be safer there.”
“Safer from what?” I ask.
“Margaret O’Hara asking if you’re seeing anyone before you make it to the potatoes,” Abilene says dryly.
“Oh wow, really?”
“Yup.”
I laugh again, softer this time, and I ease another notch.
Duke appears at my elbow like he’s been there the whole time, plate in hand. “You want food?”
“Yes,” I say with the urgency of a woman fleeing her own thoughts. “Immediately.”
His grin flashes, warm and wicked. “That’s my girl.”
Every thought in my head trips over itself.
Dakota’s mouth twitches.
Abilene suddenly looks very interested in not rescuing me from this.
I decide I hate everyone here.
A little.
Duke guides me toward the food tables before I can recover, one hand hovering at the small of my back without quite touching.
It’s worse somehow, that almost contact. More noticeable. More unfair.
“Who cooks for all these things every month?” I murmur.
“Everyone,” Duke says. “Or they pick something up from Millie, Betty Lou, or whatever family member they fear most.”
“That feels efficient.”
He shrugs. “People don’t skip meals around here.”
I let him build my plate because apparently surrendering autonomy one category at a time is how I’m living now.
“More beans?” he asks.
“No.” He adds them anyway. “I saw that.”
“You need vegetables.”
“I’m at a potluck. The vegetables are decorative.”
We end up at a long table with Dakota and her family on one side, Abilene and hers on the other, and enough conversation happening around me that I stop being one distinct object of interest and start becoming part of the general noise.
Which, as it turns out, is deeply soothing.
No one interrogates me.
No one corners me.
No one makes me explain myself.
Instead Dakota asks if I’ve tried Millie’s lemon bars yet like this is critical information. Abilene points out which casserole to avoid unless I have “the digestion of a frontier woman.”
Jesse eventually returns with frosting on one sleeve and no particular remorse. Marshall steals his cookie. Wyatt passes me the salt before I realize I’m reaching for it.
Charlie tells me, very solemnly, that cornbread is better if you put honey on it, which feels less like a suggestion and more like a deeply held philosophy.
Somewhere between the peach pie, the superhero compliment, and Abilene confessing to fearing these events too, I stopped waiting for this place to close its teeth around me.
I find myself feeling more connected to this town than I ever have anywhere else before.