Fifteen.
Rhett
There’s a specific kind of quiet that falls over this house.
Not silence, god knows this family has never managed silence.
The frantic passing of dishes slows. Plates go from full to wrecked.
Somebody’s always still going back for thirds, and tonight it’s Levi, who’s on his third ribeye and shows no signs of a conscience over it.
I lean back in my chair with a beer and glance around the table.
Ma’s at one end, Pop at the other, same as it’s always been.
The babies are getting passed around and loved on.
Parker’s under the table feeding both Cassidy’s and Callie’s dogs steak scraps—not that Frankie’s fat ass needs anymore food today.
Tyler’s wedged between Callie and Lily, on his second plate, arguing with my sister about if Parker should be allowed to see the latest Marvel movie.
And Shea’s beside me. Her hand resting on my thigh under the table, and every so often her thumb moves, like she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. She’s laughing at something Duke said, head tipped back, and I have to look away before somebody catches me watching her.
This is what I’ve been missing.
Not the dinner, the dinner’s always been here. Her, at this table. Someone of mine in the chair beside me. Thirty-two years old today and this is the first time I’ve brought a woman to this table. I don’t let myself do the math on how many Sundays are left before she’s gone.
“Haaaappy biiiirthday to youuuu…” Maci starts singing, carefully walking in the room with a three-tier layered chocolate cake Ma made from scratch.
Butch hits the lights as everyone begins to sing around me.
Shea quickly moves my plate, and the cake is placed in front of me with thirty-two candles flickering.
The whole table sings, off-key and too loud, Levi harmonizing badly on purpose just to make Lily wince, Pop’s booming bass under all of it, Parker screaming the words from under the table.
“Make a wish, birthday boy!” Ma hoots.
Here’s the thing about wishes, after a while you learn to just blow out the candles and let people clap, wish for nothing, want for nothing out loud, and move on like every other day. But tonight, I glance to my right.
Shea’s got her chin propped in her hand, watching me with those big brown eyes soft in the candlelight, a smile playing on her lips. A curl’s come loose against her cheek and she’s got no idea what the sight of her in this chair is doing to me.
Don’t leave. That’s the wish. Two words, so sure it startles me, rising up before I can talk myself out of it. Stay. Don’t leave and take all of this with you.
I lean in and blow out all thirty-two in one breath. The table erupts in cheers, somebody flicks the lights back on, and Shea claps with everyone else. And when she leans over to whisper happy birthday against my ear, I decide I don’t care if it’s foolish.
A man is allowed to want something on his birthday. Even if that something is a someone.
She may even be the one.
The thought follows me as Ma cuts the cake, Maci scoops ice cream, and dessert plates start making their way around the table. Chocolate on chocolate, because my mother has never once in her life believed in restraint when it comes to dessert.
“Uncle Rhett,” Parker says between mouthfuls of cake. “For Halloween I’m gonna be a ninja. A real one. With the sword and everything.”
“Nice, buddy.”
“And Tyler’s gonna help me practice ‘cause he knows ninja stuff.” Parker looks up the table with adoration for the usually surly teen. “Right, Tyler?”
Tyler, caught off guard, simply says, “I mean, yeah, sure, dude.”
“Halloween is next Saturday,” Lily says, wiping frosting off Parker’s chin he immediately re-applies with another oversized bite. “The town does the whole Main Street thing. Trick-or-treating at all the shops, a mini hay maze for the kids by the town hall, cider, a few vendors and all that.”
“You two should come,” Cassidy says to Shea. “Gage is gonna be a little pudgy football.” She rolls her eyes when Butch grins from ear to ear at this year’s family costume choice.
“Olivia’s a strawberry this year,” Maci adds, gazing adoringly at her daughter nestled in Duke’s arms. “The girl loves her strawberries.”
Shea laughs and says something about how Tyler’s already ‘too cool’ for costumes, and for a second, the whole table is arguing happily about whether fifteen is too old to trick-or-treat. Which, according to Levi, who wore a full inflatable T-rex suit last year, it is not too old.
Although, for him, it probably should be.
“Well, now, if you’re both here for Halloween,” Ma says, “then you’ll still be here for Thanksgiving, won’t you?”
The table doesn’t go quiet, but I feel Shea go still beside me. “Um, maybe,” she says cautiously. “My father and…stepmom should be back by then, but, uh, we’ll see.”
Tyler’s excited demeanor from a second ago deflates faster than Levi’s T-rex costume.
“But, you know, we have the Hargrove place to work on, so we may be here for a while,” she quickly adds, sending Tyler a wink. “And I need my film crew slash director with me, otherwise the whole project is done for.”
The faintest smile returns to her stepbrother’s face and I file the moment away.
“Well, you’re both welcome, and that’s the end of it,” Ma declares. “Nobody spends a holiday in a hotel while I’ve got a table this size. Where are you staying, anyhow? That little inn off Main?”
“Oh, no.” Shea shifts. “We’re up at the resort, actually. My father knows the—he got us a suite for a few months.”
Pop whistles low. “Fancy.”
Shea tries to laugh it off, waving her fork. “Trust me, it’s a bargain compared to LA.”
The table moves on, Pop’s already arguing with Duke about somebody’s truck, and I catch the flush riding high on Shea’s cheeks, she reached for that joke a half-second too fast. I make a note to tell her later that nobody at this table gives a damn how much money she has or hasn’t.
It doesn’t change a thing for me, but my mother’s gone quiet.
She’s still smiling, but her eyes have landed on Shea with a new kind of attention. “Winton,” Ma says. “That’s your family name, sweetheart?”
Shea nods. “Yes, ma’am. It is.”
“Hm.” My mother’s smile doesn’t waver. She reaches over and pats Shea’s hand once.
I brace for her next comment, knowing how she felt about the resort when it was built over thirty years ago, and I know how she feels about the owner of said resort.
And it ain’t anything kind. “Pretty name,” is all she says, letting it go as she calls for Butch to help her start the coffee.
The rest of the evening moves on in a flurry of gag gifts and three new packages of socks to line my dresser drawer. By the time we’re pulling on coats at the door, Ma’s loaded us down with two bags of Tupperware containing leftover corn casserole, chocolate cake, and a baggie of rolls.
Tyler hugs my mother goodbye and Shea says her goodbyes to Callie and the girls with plans about Halloween flying around. My mother touches my elbow. “Rhett. Help me grab that other cake tin from the pantry, would you?”
My brow furrows. I follow her down the hall, out of earshot of everyone, and she turns to face me in the little pantry doorway.
My mother peers up at me with a crease between her brows and I have a mere second to brace for what the problem is.
“She’s lovely,” she says. “I mean that. And that boy, she’s doing a good thing there. ”
“But,” I say, because I hear it coming.
She folds the dish towel in her hands, once, twice. “The Winton Resort, Rhett.”
“What about it?”
“You know what about it.” Her voice drops, careful with something I don’t hear from my mother often. Worry. “The same resort my son just signed the biggest contract of his career to renovate.”
“Ma. It’s not a big deal.”
“Rhett Montgomery. You are the most careful man I’ve ever raised.
You’ve built your whole name in this town on being the one folks can trust, the one who does it right, no shortcuts, no funny business.
” She reaches up to pat my chest. “You take a job that size, then take up with his daughter under his roof, and you don’t think this town will have something to say about how you landed it? ”
My jaw tightens. “That’s not what this is.”
“I know it’s not. I know you, dear.” Her eyes go soft and sad.
“But I remember that man, clear as day. I sat across a table from Daniel Winton thirty years ago while he smiled at this whole town and took what he wanted, and I have never once been wrong about him.” She squeezes my arm.
“I don’t want you caught in the middle of something you didn’t sign up for. That’s all.”
I open my mouth, then close it. I don’t know how to respond to that. I’d like to think people would be able to see the contract dates compared to when Shea arrived and not think something negative about Levi or me and this gig, but…
She looks at me for a long moment. Then she reaches past me, pulls a cake tin down off the pantry shelf. “Just be careful, okay?” She pats my cheek, and walks away.
I stand in the pantry a beat longer than I need to, my mother’s worry settling into my chest like cement. I try to shake it off, but there’s a layer I can’t scrape away as I make my way back to the front door.
Shea’s standing by the door, arms full as she chats with my sister. The sight of her stops me halfway down the hall. She fits. That’s the thing I keep circling back to. A woman like her, going back to a life like hers, she’d never stay.
But damn if she doesn’t look like she belongs right where she stands. With me.
“Ready?” she asks with that same smile that’s had me forgetting anything and everything that doesn’t have to do with a five-foot-seven, brown-eyed beauty.
I take the bags out of her arms, and before she can argue, I plant a heated kiss right on her plump lips. Ma’s warning can wait. It’s still my birthday for another few hours, and I’m not spending it worrying about tomorrow.