Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121296 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
I rearrange my hair, pat my nose with some powder, and wash my hands in the sink, letting the cool water travel over my wrists. Then, when I feel more composed, I venture into the hallway and back down the stairs toward what sounds like the spectators at a football game.
I’m already missing the peaceful tranquility of my condo, and that’s before I reach the kitchen.
***
Dinner feels like chaos.
The long farmhouse table is packed. Eleven men, six kids, and one overwhelmed city girl sitting at the edge like she body-swapped into someone else’s life, cram the space. It’s like my childhood table, except three times as long, with eleven times the booming voices and testosterone.
I glance around at the sea of handsome faces engaged in filling their plates and those of any adjacent small people.
I don’t belong here, and yet, here I am with a plate full of roast and cornbread on the side, lukewarm sweet tea in front of me, and the distant memory of my real life fading fast.
Across from me, a kid makes mashed potato mountains with meat dinosaurs and gravy lava. Beside me, Levi elbows Cody, muttering something that makes them laugh. Loudly. Like they’ve done it a hundred times before and give zero shits that I’m currently an audience.
The men pass food without speaking. They move around each other like parts of a well-oiled machine, fluid and practiced. There’s no struggle for dominance inside this rhythm that feels like a dance routine I don’t know the steps to.
This isn’t just dinner, and these aren’t just cowboys. It’s a family unit. A whole life.
And I’m sitting here in a pencil skirt, trying not to drop gravy on my stupid fancy blouse or forget the sea of names I should have worked out a system to remember.
I think I’ve lost track of who’s who already.
There’s Cody. And Corbin. And Conway.
One of them might be Jason or Jaxon. I think there’s a Brody.
Someone introduced themselves as McCartney—he’s the one with the lyric tattoo. And I’m pretty sure there’s a Lennon and a Harrison. One of their moms loved the Beatles.
“More bread, ma’am?” one of them asks with a crooked smile and a dishtowel slung over his shoulder.
I blink up at him. He has blue-gray eyes and calloused hands. And the biceps and forearms of a man who doesn’t own a gym membership because his life is a workout.
“Uh, sure,” I say. “Thanks.”
He grins and moves on, refilling plates, ruffling a kid’s hair, and dropping back into his chair like his bones hurt.
There’s noise everywhere; dishes clanking, forks scraping, and the baby crying. A toddler spills her milk. A small boy wipes his nose on the tablecloth, but nobody blinks.
And somehow, in the middle of it all, there’s calm, like they’ve built a fortress around the noise. As if it’s part of the structure now, or even the whole foundation.
But I don’t miss the undercurrent.
I watch the gruff, dark-eyed one, who’s way too intense, grip his glass too tightly when Conway speaks.
I catch the one I think is Dylan flinching when one of the kids throws a crayon at the side of his head. Eyes flicker in my direction, wary, uncomfortable, and curious.
The conversation seems a little stilted, and it must be because I’m here.
These men want a woman to glue them together, but there must already be enough of a bond between them to seek out such an unusual arrangement. There must be a strong rationale behind it because if even one of them objected, it wouldn’t work.
But it still feels like something isn’t being said, and I hate it. Before my dad left and started his second favorite family, this kind of undercurrent was a regular at our dining table, making hair stand up across my forearms and my heart sink like a stone. I search for Brody in the crowd, finding his focus on his heaped plate.
The discomfort I feel is a creeping, swelling thing. My heart begins to speed and sweat gathers across my upper lip. I’m supposed to be a professional, but right now, I’m a lamb in a den of lions. I try to meet the eyes of the man in front of me, but he’s distracted by the cute toddler who clung to my leg outside. I fill my mouth with delicious cornbread and chew slowly, trying to quiet my growing anxiety, but it swells until I feel like I’ll burst with it if I don’t do something to break the rising tension.
I clear my throat, set down my fork, and look straight down the table.
“So,” I say. “What does a girl have to do around here to get a proposal?”
The laughter dies. The forks pause. Someone—Lennon, maybe—raises an eyebrow.
Then Levi chuckles. “Well, I like her.”
More laughter follows, laced with surprise, but I don’t laugh. I sit back, fold my arms, and wait. The table quiets again. Eyes shift toward Conway. He meets my gaze like he’s measuring me.