Page 46 of Take Me Home

Ash’s hand settled at the curve of her lower back. To his surprise, she shuffled closer.

His mom held out a perfectly golden blueberry muffin to Hazel. “Oh, this is just the usual Campbell chaos. The more, the merrier.”

“Mom, give her a minute before you force-feed her,” Ash complained as Hazel stepped out of his touch to take it.

Hazel moaned. “Wow, this is delicious, Mrs. Campbell.”

“Oh, please, call me Annie.” Food compliments were the surest way, after adoration of her children and grandchildren, to Ash’s mother’s heart, and she pulled Hazel over to the other counter to have her weigh in on the next batch.

Ash watched from the living room until his father said, “You gonna join us or lurk in the corner?” and he shrugged out of his coat.

“Hazel Elliot. I remember you.” June was suddenly right besideHazel and cast a mischievous glance at Ash that screamed,I’m totally going to fuck with you. Everything in Ash tensed with adrenaline. “He used to talk about you all the ti—”

Ash chucked a marshmallow from the open bag on the counter at her face, cutting off her comment. She retaliated by pelting him with chocolate chips.

“All complaints, I’m sure,” Hazel said with a nervous laugh.

If he weren’t on the verge of tackling June, he would have addressed this persistent misconception of hers.

“I remember you, too,” Hazel added. “You played Sandy inGrease, right? You were so good.”

June smoothed her hair and smiled, pleasure diverting her from her devious plan.

Until Cosette piped up from the table, “Are you Uncle Ass’s girlfriend?”

June’s face brightened in triumph, and she rewarded Cosette with the remaining chocolate chips in her hand. “Good girl.”

Maggie—good, protective, oldest sister that she was—pointedly snatched the chocolate chip bag from June and said, “Well, it’s nice to meet afriendof Ash’s.” Maggie’s refusal to conspire made June pout, but she dropped—for the moment—her mission to mess with him, sitting down with Isabel and Cosette to help cut construction paper trees.

Ash started a fresh pot of decaf while his mom and Maggie pulled Hazel into conversation. She was nervous at first, hugging herself and nodding politely. She smiled gratefully at him when he interrupted to hand her a mug of coffee with cream and way too much sugar, the way she liked it. He ignored Maggie’s raised eyebrow and then his mother’s subtle swat at Maggie’s shoulder with her dish towel, confirming that she, too, knew this was the Hazel that June had teased him endlessly about in high school.

They asked about grad school, and soon, Hazel relaxed, encouraged by their genuine interest. Ash was still on guard for June’s shenanigans, but the tableau of Hazel here in his kitchen, talking warmly with his family while Christmas music lilted in the background, was some kind of magic. He didn’t bother to disguise his rapt attention.

Hazel was telling them about her lab’s study on language development in toddlers. He hadn’t even known what she was working on and appreciated Maggie pressing for details about how they studied toddlers—the children wore vests with a recording device in their homes—and if they were studying bilingual households—they were. Ash realized Maggie’s underlying concern when she asked what parents should do if their toddler communicated in more grunts and gestures than actual words.

Hazel must have realized it, too. She followed Maggie’s glance to where Isabel was babbling excitedly but incoherently in June’s lap and squeezed Maggie’s wrist. “The best thing you can do is continue to be so responsive. Anyway, I don’t want to bore you all. I’m actually hoping to transfer to a different lab next semester.”

“What’s the other lab?” Ash asked.

Everyone’s eyes cut to him, as though they’d just remembered he was there. It broke the spell of Hazel being casually folded in with his family, and she blushed, waved her hands as if to say she’d already monopolized the conversation too much, but he kept her on the spot so she couldn’t weasel out of answering. “The one you’re wanting to switch to.”

“Dr. Tate’s. She’ll be studying children separated from their mothers due to incarceration. We already have a pretty good idea of the negative development outcomes for kids. They’re basically collateral damage, and it’s unjust and unnecessary—these women are mostly nonviolent offenders. But through the study, Dr. Tate hopes to identify policy changes that might better preserve attachment between the moms and kids and support family reunification.”

As she launched into specifics, the physical shift in Hazel was magnetic. Her whole body became involved, eyes bright and open, a passionate flush in her cheeks, hands emphasizing her words. She exuded competence. And that competence, at once both admirable and a little intimidating, wasunbearablysexy. A brain and a heart like that were completely unfair in a body like hers, which on its own made him stupid with want.

“Won’t that be kind of depressing?” June asked over her shoulder, helping Isabel press her paint-covered palm onto paper. “Will you have to go to a prison?”

Hazel shook her head, not in answer but because going to a prison clearly didn’t daunt her. “I’d take it over transcribing scratchy audio files any day.”

Ash’s father rose from the table. He was stiff, his movements deliberate and slow. On instinct, Ash crossed the kitchen to help just as his mom grabbed one of the orange pill bottles on the counter. His father held up a hand to stop him, but Ash fetched the walker just out of his reach and set it before him. “You tired?”

Everything continued around them, this choreography of care nearly invisible, the way his parents preferred it.

“She’s got a good head on her shoulders, that one,” his father said quietly, nodding at Hazel. Pride surged through Ash. If the comment was an attempt to distract him from assisting his father, he let it slide.

He looked back at Hazel just in time to catch her gaze on him. She didn’t falter in whatever she was telling Maggie, but heclocked her interest in his dad, the concerned little furrow between her eyebrows. If he hadn’t jumped to help, if he’d let his mother handle it alone, Hazel probably wouldn’t have even noticed his dad’s achy shuffle to the recliner in the living room. She thought it was just the hip, of course. But Ash considered whether he could have told her about the MS, too. He’d thought it would be too heavy, but then, most people wouldn’t choose a prison study over toddlers. As much as she seemed to paper over discomfort in her personal life, she didn’t shy away from it to help other people.

The conversation turned to embarrassing stories abouthim. His fear of horses—“Distrust, not fear,” he corrected—after a carnival pony ran off with him when he was a toddler. Crying at his first T-ball game because, after he hit the ball, he thought everyone was yelling at him.

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