38. Emma
Chapter thirty-eight
Emma
Dinner at Rosie Holt's table was an experience.
The floral wallpaper did not stop at the kitchen. Or the living room. Or, apparently, anywhere within a five-mile radius of her house.
It followed us—onto the tablecloth, the napkins, the seat cushions. Even the plates were ringed in delicate pink roses.
Each place setting had its own crocheted doily—uniquely patterned, meticulously shaped, like they'd been arranged by a very determined saint with a glue gun.
Mine was lavender.
Candace's was white with scalloped edges.
Damien's had delicate green vines.
Sebastian's sparkled. Glitter glued to the corners.
Rosie bustled around the table carrying bowls and platters.
"Sit, sit," she demanded, pointing at each chair with her wooden spoon. "You're all skin and bones. I'm embarrassed to have you at my table."
Damien shot me a smug look as he pulled out my chair.
I mouthed: Don't start.
He mouthed back: I'm always right.
I stomped his foot under the table. He didn't even flinch.
The table was a battlefield of Italian abundance.
A massive wooden bowl of salad sat in the center, greens shining with oil.
Steam curled from a loaf of fresh bread, rosemary baked deep into the crust.
A platter of stuffed mushrooms gleamed under the kitchen lights—rich, glossy, borderline indecent.
And beside them, Rosie's chicken cutlets were sliced so thin I could practically see God through them.
Two enormous ceramic bowls anchored the spread—pasta shells drowning in red sauce, meatballs the size of baseballs.
And a pitcher of wine Rosie insisted was "the cheap stuff."
It tasted like it had been blessed by saints.
The whole table felt alive—chaotic, overflowing, impossibly inviting.
Rosie took her seat at the head of the table.
Beside her, Sebastian didn't bother waiting. He stabbed a cutlet with his fork.
"Sebastian!" Rosie barked, smacking the back of his knuckles with a spoon. "You know better than that."
Sebastian threw his head back dramatically. "Ma! I'm starving!"
"You ate an entire hoagie two hours ago!"
"It was SMALL."
Candace giggled—an actual, surprised little sound—before she clamped her lips shut.
Sebastian noticed.
He wiggled his brows at her. She turned crimson.
Damien leaned toward my ear. "This is going well."
I elbowed him. Hard.
He winced silently, still grinning.
Rosie released a long-suffering sigh and lowered her head. We all followed suit, the room settling into a reverent hush broken only by Sebastian's stomach audibly growling.
"Dear Heavenly Father," Rosie began, hands clasped dramatically, "thank you for bringing these two beautiful women into my boys' lives."
Damien snorted. I elbowed him. He bit down on a laugh, shoulders shaking.
I peeked across the table.
Candace looked like she might faint.
Sebastian looked like he wanted to faint, escape, or simply surrender himself to the tomato sauce.
Rosie didn't even pause.
"Thank you for guiding my sons to women with patience—because Lord knows they need it—"
"Ma—" Sebastian groaned.
"Hush," she snapped without opening her eyes. "I'm talking to God."
He slumped in his chair.
"And," Rosie said, warming to her theme, "thank you for letting me meet the girl who finally convinced Damien to stop hiding that sweet face behind emails and grunts. Amen."
I blinked. Sebastian choked. Candace covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. Damien's ears turned red.
Then—finally—Rosie clapped her hands.
"Eat!"
The room erupted into chaos again, forks flying, bowls passing, bread tearing, chairs scraping, the whole world caught in noisy, loving, outrageous Holt-family energy.
Damien reached for my plate without asking and started building it with care. A little salad. A slice of the still-steaming bread. One chicken cutlet. Two meatballs. A spoonful of pasta shells drowned in Rosie's sauce. An extra stuffed mushroom for good measure.
Rosie smiled approvingly.
"A real gentleman," she said with a proud little nod, expression softening as she watched him.
Then her eyes snapped sideways—razor sharp—as Sebastian shoveled a forkful of pasta toward his mouth.
"Sebastian!"
He froze mid-bite, fork suspended like a criminal caught red-handed.
"What?" he mumbled around the noodles already halfway in.
Then—slowly—his expression shifted to realization.
He turned his head toward Candace like a robot rebooting. "Uh—right. Sorry. I didn't… uh—did you want—?" He gestured helplessly at the chaos of food. "What do you want? You should go first. Ladies first. Always. That's a rule. A Holt rule. Family motto, even."
Candace blinked, caught between startled and charmed. "I—um—I don't know. Everything looks amazing."
"Oh! Okay—cool—yeah, so—" Sebastian scrambled upright, grabbing her plate. "Let me just… explain the menu. It's important."
"This," he said, pointing dramatically at the stuffed mushrooms, "is the dish that almost killed me when I was twelve. I ate an entire tray before dinner and passed out on the stairs. Rosie thought I died."
Rosie snapped, "SEBASTIAN."
Candace snorted before clapping a hand over her mouth, mortified.
Sebastian glowed like he'd just been handed a trophy.
"And this bread?" He held up the loaf reverently. "Rosie taught me to knead dough with my elbows because I broke my wrist skateboarding that summer. Turns out elbows make great bread. Horrible pizza, but great bread."
Candace's laugh dissolved into helpless little gasps, her whole body shaking.
Sebastian kept going, emboldened.
"These meatballs? Don't eat more than two unless you want to see god. I did once. Hated the guy. I haven't been the same since."
Rosie swatted at him with her spoon. "Stop telling people you met god in my kitchen and hated him!"
"I did and do!" he insisted. "He was holding a cheese grater."
At this point Candace was wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.
And that's when it clicked.
The rambling. The nervous stories. The overeager enthusiasm.
He's doing what Damien does.
When Damien gets uneasy, or unsure, or overwhelmed with affection he's not ready to name—he talks. He fills space with memories, with little stories, with warmth disguised as noise.
Sebastian was the same flavor of awkward. Just louder. Less polished. Less filtered.
I turned to find Damien watching me.
His mouth curved—small, private, a little embarrassed.
A silent yeah… that's us.
And I felt my heart crack open.
Because he was right.
It was cute.
All of it.
Them.
Us.
This ridiculous, chaotic dinner was cute in a way I hadn't known my life desperately needed.
Dinner blurred into one of those soft-focus memories I knew I'd replay later.
Rosie bullied us into second servings. Sebastian dropped his fork twice. Damien stole a mushroom off my plate and pretended I didn't catch him. Candace laughed—really laughed—three separate times.
And somewhere between the garlic bread and the second round of meatballs, the air in Rosie's little dining room shifted from meeting the family to belonging.
Plates were scraped clean. Wine refilled more times than should be legal. Rosie declared the sauce "saved" and Sebastian declared himself "abused."
Candace's shoulders loosened, inch by inch, until she no longer looked like a guest perched on the edge.
We drifted back to the living room—Sebastian limp-walking with the medical boot, Candace hovering just enough to be subtle, Damien trailing a hand along my spine as if he couldn't help himself.
I settled beside Candace on the floral couch, the doily under my thigh itching like a hostile lace coaster.
"Hey," she murmured. "So… there's a fair in Riverside."
"A fair?" I asked, intrigued.
She nodded, biting back a shy smile. "It's… silly. But I thought maybe you'd want to go? Next weekend? Just… something light. Something not hospital or work or—"
Her gaze flicked downward. "Not… everything."
"Of course," I said quickly. "I'd love to."
"Count me in." Damien said, dropping onto the arm of the couch.
Candace's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"
"Emma's going." He shrugged, all the explanation needed.
Before she could respond, a quieter voice broke in from the recliner.
"I'll go."
Sebastian didn't look at us when he said it.
He sat there picking at the seam of his pajama pants, gaze fixed somewhere around the floor lamp.
He cleared his throat. "I mean… fairs have food. And, uh, air. Fresh air. I could probably use that or whatever."
The lie was adorable.
He wanted to go. He wanted in. With us. With her.
I looked at Damien. He looked at me.
Another one of those unspoken, crackling smiles passed between us—the kind that said you seeing this? and yeah, I'm seeing this.
Across the room Rosie wiped her hands on her apron, watching the four of us with a soft, knowing expression.
"That's good," she said simply, a smile on her face. "You all should go."
Damien grinned. "Perfect. It's a date."