Page 83 of Take Me Home

She cleared her throat, sat up straighter. “I mean, I’m sure it was all a lot—feeding me, coordinating babysitters around his crazy work schedule—”

Ash caught her wrist across the table. She did this a lot, this downplaying and redefining of things she hadn’t quite meant to say.

She took a breath and started again. “The day I lectured him about food, he pulled out all the ingredients we had, and we came up with this. A pear and bacon grilled cheese.”

“It’s delicious.”

“Thanks.”

“So,” he said, hesitant to bring up what he’d witnessed that afternoon at the festival. Ash had watched her watch her father filming her stepsister’s performance and felt helpless to reach her across his family sitting between them. That her father really thought she’d no-show after everything Hazel had done to show up gut-punched him as sharply now as it had in the moment. He’d wanted to whisk her away, to rewind time and not be such an ass about the gingerbread house, to not have walked out when she started to shut down.

“What?” Hazel prompted around a delicate bite of her sandwich.

“Why’d you come home?”

Her stare was pointedly blank, like he was being obtuse. “I was summoned.”

“Yeah, but you had a choice.”

She mulled this over. “Didn’t really feel like a choice.”

“You’ve never come home before. Not for holidays. Not for summer breaks. Pretty typical times when you’re expected to visit, but you always chose not to. And it sounds like your dad doesn’t make much of an effort to come see you, either. So, why now?”

“He’s getting married.”

“Yeah,” Ash said carefully, “and you told me you don’t need any more people in your inner circle.”

She shook her head, less a denial and more of a helpless flail. “If I didn’t come, it would seem like it wasaboutthe wedding. Like I had a problem with it.”

“Which you…don’t?”

“I don’t.” Hazel wiped her mouth with her napkin. “It doesn’t affect me at all.”

“You’ve said that. A lot, actually.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What are you getting at? That I’m protesting too much? That I’m a big baby, and it hurts my feelings that he’s suddenly this great dad to someone else’s kids?” Her voice dipped into a mocking sneer on the last bit.

Ash opened his palms on the table. He wanted to close them around her hands, but she pulled them into her lap. “I think if that’s how you were feeling, no one would call it childish. If you were hurt or angry, it would be justified.”

“It’s not like it’s some huge burden to be here.”

Ash wasn’t sure about that. For one thing, she had resisted it so vehemently from the beginning that, even if she didn’t think itshouldbe a burden, it clearly felt like one anyway. For another thing, Ash had wanted to come home, chosen it freely, and he still felt burdened by the position his parents had put him in, sometimes responsible for their problems, sometimes shut out like he was being controlling instead of concerned. At leasttheir relationship could survive the discord. His father wouldn’t let him leave without speaking to him again, no matter how angry he was. From what Ash could see, Hazel felt obligated to come home, but that obligation ran in only one direction.

Hazel chewed on her lower lip and looked out the window. It was dim in the kitchen. They hadn’t turned the lights on, and the feeble daylight was fading. He waited for her to say more, but she remained quiet. The thing about Hazel, he realized, was that when something really got under her skin, her usual fierceness and quick, combative spirit were nowhere to be found. She would fight for a chair in a café, or to follow her own driving directions instead of his, or to win at a silly bar game, but corner her on something real and she’d close right up.

He wanted more of her, not less. “Point is, I’m Team Hazel. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

She finally cast a tentative glance back at him. A little smile quirked the corner of her mouth, and she lifted her sandwich. “We should get you a team shirt then. It’s pink. And sequined.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“And very fitted.” Her eyes dropped to his shoulders and torso, and he watched her openly appreciate his body.

“I’m not scared.” If he flexed a little, sue him.

“Good.”

“Hey. Finish eating. I want to go upstairs with you.”

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