Chapter 11 #3
Sunshine settled into the chair Charlie had chosen for her with a careful smile, though the faint color warming her cheeks told me she understood the significance of the arrangement even if my daughter did not.
Charlie immediately climbed onto the bench between us, placed Mr. Pickles in the center of the table, and began explaining that royal bears required their own plates because sharing with humans was apparently beneath their station.
Sunshine listened with the same patient seriousness she offered every child, asking whether Mr. Pickles preferred chicken or potatoes while I lowered myself into the chair on Charlie’s other side and tried not to notice how naturally the three of us fit into the space she had created.
That was becoming increasingly difficult.
Around us, the clubhouse moved through the familiar chaos of family dinner.
Toxic stood at the head of the table pretending he had any control over the noise while Lark quietly relocated the plate of rolls farther from Steel’s reach.
Mace argued that stealing food before everyone sat down was an ancient club tradition, and Lilith informed him it was only a tradition because no one had managed to break his fingers yet.
Bishop carried another pitcher of sweet tea from the kitchen while Daisy reminded Mr. Dawson that salt was not a food group, regardless of whatever military doctor had allegedly told him fifty years earlier.
The laughter came easily, overlapping until the room felt full in the best possible way.
There had been years when dinner at the clubhouse meant brothers eating wherever they happened to find space, conversations centered around security runs and rival clubs, and nobody staying at the table longer than necessary.
Now children’s cups sat beside beer bottles, high chairs crowded one end, and someone had taped a crooked drawing of a motorcycle-riding dragon above the fireplace because Charlie insisted Pancake deserved to attend family dinner too.
Sunshine looked around the room with an expression I had begun recognizing.
It appeared whenever she witnessed something ordinary that still felt extraordinary to her: brothers passing bowls without being asked, women teasing the men without fear, children interrupting conversations without anyone silencing them.
She never stared long enough to make anyone uncomfortable, but she absorbed everything, gathering the details as though she were still trying to understand how a family could be loud without being dangerous.
“You alright?” I asked quietly.
Her gaze shifted to mine. “I am.”
“You look overwhelmed.”
“A little.”
Charlie leaned across the table before Sunshine could say more. “That’s because everybody talks at the same time.”
Sunshine smiled. “I noticed.”
“You hafta pick one person.”
“One person?”
“Mhm. If Uncle Mace is talking, don’t listen.”
Mace looked offended from three seats away. “I heard that.”
Charlie nodded. “See?”
Sunshine laughed, the warm sound catching somewhere beneath my ribs before I could prepare for it.
I had spent the entire day thinking about that laugh, about the way it had become one of the sounds I instinctively searched for whenever I walked into Harbor House.
Hearing it now, with Charlie leaning against her shoulder and the clubhouse wrapped around us, made Bishop’s earlier warning feel uncomfortably accurate.
I wanted this.
Not merely the kiss or the possibility of another one.
I wanted the ordinary moments surrounding it.
Sunshine at the breakfast table. Sunshine listening to Charlie’s impossible stories.
Sunshine laughing when the brothers became too ridiculous to ignore.
The realization was far more dangerous than desire because desire could be dismissed as temporary.
Wanting someone woven into the routines of your life was something else entirely.
Daisy began passing platters down the table, and Sunshine reached automatically to help Charlie fill her plate.
She cut the roasted chicken into small pieces, added two spoonfuls of potatoes, and accepted the broccoli Charlie placed beside Mr. Pickles without questioning why a teddy bear required vegetables.
Her movements were so natural that I almost missed the shift inside me.
She was not behaving like a guest uncertain of her place.
She was simply taking care of the little girl beside her, trusting that no one at the table would tell her she had overstepped.
Charlie watched Sunshine arrange the food before looking toward me.
“Daddy.”
“What?”
“You forgot.”
I examined my empty plate. “I haven’t forgotten. The food just got here.”
“You hafta eat too.”
“I will.”
Sunshine’s gaze moved from Charlie to me, and the smallest hint of amusement touched her mouth.
“Apparently you’re being supervised,” she said.
“Constantly.”
“It seems necessary.”
“Whose side are you on?”
Charlie answered immediately. “Mine.”
“That wasn’t one of the options.”
“It is now.”
Steel laughed from across the table. “Bug’s been rewriting rules since she learned to talk.”
“She gets that from you,” I said.
“Absolutely not. I respect rules.”
The entire table fell silent.
Steel looked around. “What?”
Daisy patted his arm. “Nothing, sweetheart.”
Sunshine lowered her face toward her plate, but I saw the smile she tried to hide. A moment later, she reached for the platter and placed a piece of chicken on my plate without asking.
I looked down at it.
Then at her.
“You forgot,” she said softly.
“I was getting there.”
“I know.”
There was no teasing in her expression now, only the quiet concern I had come to recognize whenever she noticed I was carrying more than I admitted.
The same concern had appeared when she brought coffee to my office, replaced my forgotten lunch, and asked whether I had eaten breakfast that morning.
None of those gestures had been dramatic enough to attract anyone’s attention, yet each one had settled deeper than it should have.
“Thank you,” I said.
Her eyes held mine for a moment. “You’re welcome.”
Charlie looked between us with obvious satisfaction before returning to her potatoes. Whatever private conclusion she reached seemed to please her, and I decided I was better off not asking.
Dinner continued around us, drifting through several conversations at once.
Toxic updated the brothers on the security rotation near Harbor House, keeping the details vague enough that the children would not understand there had been another threatening message left at the property line.
Lark changed the subject before Charlie could ask why Bishop would be checking the cameras after dark.
Melissa told Daisy the elementary school wanted to organize another book drive, and Mr. Dawson began offering unsolicited advice about which books children should read, despite admitting he had not opened a children’s book since Eisenhower was president.
Sunshine remained quieter than most, but she no longer looked as though she were waiting for permission to join the conversation.
When Lark asked whether the children’s wing needed more art supplies, Sunshine answered without hesitation.
When Daisy asked what Harbor House should serve for Sunday breakfast, she suggested cinnamon French toast and immediately found herself responsible for making it after Charlie announced it was the best idea anyone had ever had.
“You volunteered yourself,” I murmured.
“I noticed.”
“I can help.”
She glanced at me. “Do you know how to make French toast?”
“I know how to cook.”
“Dinosaur pancakes don’t count.”
“They absolutely count.”
“Only if they’re supposed to look like dinosaurs.”
Charlie leaned between us. “They are.”
Sunshine’s expression became solemn. “Then I withdraw my objection.”
“Thank you.”
“I still think you should help.”
“I was planning to.”
The words came so naturally that neither of us noticed the implication until after they had settled between us. Sunday morning. Together in the kitchen. Another ordinary routine neither of us had consciously planned, yet one we had both accepted without hesitation.
Sunshine looked down at her plate, and I focused on cutting my chicken even though it no longer required attention.
The kiss hovered beneath the quiet moment, unspoken but impossible to forget.
We had not discussed it, and part of me wondered whether we were making a mistake by letting the silence continue.
Another part understood that forcing the conversation in the middle of family dinner would turn something gentle into a problem that needed solving.
Perhaps it did not need solving yet.
Perhaps it only needed time.
Charlie eventually abandoned her chair after eating half her dinner and convincing Mr. Pickles to finish the broccoli.
She joined Nathan and Emily on the floor near the fireplace, where the three of them spread crayons across a low table and began designing what Nathan solemnly called a dragon emergency hospital.
Sunshine watched them for several minutes, her expression softening as Charlie explained that every dragon doctor needed a motorcycle because ambulances could not fly.
“She’s going to start asking for one,” I said.
“A motorcycle?”
“A dragon.”
Sunshine smiled. “You could tell her no.”
“You haven’t known her long enough if you think that works.”
“I suspect she gets her determination from you.”
“That accusation has been made before.”
“Was it true?”
“Usually.”
Her smile remained, but something more cautious appeared beneath it when the conversation quieted again. She folded her napkin slowly, smoothing the edges as though she needed something for her hands to do.
I lowered my voice. “About last night—”
Her fingers stopped.