Chapter 6: Sunday Lunch

Shelley had answered my brunch text three days late.

"Swamped this week! Rain check, sweetie. Kiss kiss."

I read it standing in my parents' driveway on Sunday, with Theron's hand warm at the small of my back.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready."

He carried the wine, and I carried the pie, and we walked in together.

My mother hugged him first, as she always did.

My father shook his hand and asked about his parents, and Theron answered with the easy charm he had used on them for five years.

Orin came out of the kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder.

Shelley followed him, glossy and bright, and the smile on her face was a little too wide.

"There's the couple of the hour," she said.

She kissed Theron's cheek, and I watched his body go stiff for less than a second.

I would never have seen it if I hadn't been looking.

We sat down to a pot roast, and my father started on a story about a truck he was restoring.

Halfway through the gravy, the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," my mother said.

She came back with a tall man in a charcoal overcoat holding a bottle of wine in one hand.

"I hope I'm not intruding," Cade Preston said. "Theron told me the family was meeting and I was nearby."

Theron's fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

"I didn't tell you that," he said.

"You said something about Sunday." Cade smiled at him, small and perfectly polite. "I must have misheard."

My mother, who could never turn anyone away at a meal, was already pulling a chair to the table.

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