Ruined By My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: Sunday Dinner

Barrett said, "That's great, Dad," in a voice I'd never heard him use.

Then he hung up and looked at me.

"Tomorrow," I said.

"Tomorrow."

I put my face in his shoulder and laughed until I couldn't breathe, and he laughed too, and neither of us could have said why.

They landed Friday afternoon.

By Friday night, my mother had texted me nine photos of Nova Scotia and one of Glenn asleep on a ferry with his mouth open.

By Saturday, she had texted the family group chat.

"Sunday dinner at one! On the porch! Both kids! No excuses!"

The family group chat had four people in it.

I muted it, and then I unmuted it, because it was my mother.

Glenn's house is a yellow Victorian on Columbia Avenue with a porch that wraps all the way around.

At one o'clock on Sunday it smelled like charcoal and sunscreen.

Glenn stood at the grill in an apron that said KISS THE COACH, flipping burgers with a spatula the size of a tennis racket.

"Hattie! You made it! Get up here!"

He hugged me off my feet again.

My mother came out with a pitcher of lemonade and her reading glasses on their beaded chain.

She'd gotten freckles.

She looked ten years younger, and she held my face in both hands.

"You look tired," she said.

"Busy week."

"Glenn says the restaurant's full again. Somebody on Facebook says you hung the review on the wall."

"You said you don't know how to check Facebook."

"Glenn showed me."

Barrett came around the side of the house from the carriage house, barefoot, in a clean white T-shirt.

He hadn't touched me since Thursday morning.

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