That had terrified her before six months ago, because—as she’d gotten older—she’d realized what her feelings must mean, and she’d been unhappy with them. Ready to perform an exorcism, in all honesty.
She didn’t want to get married and be miserable like her mother was.
It had been a relief to discover the real truth behind her feelings.
“What were your dinners like growing up?” she asked.
She was hungry. But not for steak. She wanted to know him. His family. What his life was like, and how hers might have been.
“Well, something like this. I mean, we started with a house that was pretty similar to this. It expanded as time went on.”
“And that changed things? I mean, for all of you?”
“I guess so. I’m probably the only one who really remembers the change. Who really remembers what it was like before. Or… I don’t know. Creed probably does to an extent. Not Honey, though.”
“Right.” So that wouldn’t have been different. If she had grown up with them, she would have been like Honey. She wouldn’t have known what it was like to have normal family meals around the table. She knew that being wealthy was a privilege. It wasn’t that. It was easy to romanticize things you didn’t have. Easy to look at them in a simple way. She knew that too.
She wasn’t stupid.
She’d spent a lot of time by herself. And as a result, she’d spent a lot of time thinking. She thought a lot about the way other people lived. The way families looked on TV. And while she knew there were other struggles involved in their lives, she also knew that some of the good things they showed on sitcoms were real.
“So you got a big table, probably then,” she said.
“What does the size of the table have to do with anything?”
“You know, on TV,” Cricket said. “When everybody sits around this little, cheerful table. Just like this. And they have some kind of casserole. It’s always casserole. And I don’t even know anyone who’s ever eaten a casserole.”
“Yeah, can’t say as I’ve had a lot of casserole experience myself.”
“Well, there’s always a casserole, and they’re all sitting together, and reaching for the dishes, and talking. And we didn’t have a table like that. It was big and long, this banquet hall. As if there were fifty of us, but there wasn’t. And my dad would always sit down at his end, miles away. And that’s just… It’s a metaphor. Really. For my family. All spread out, all engaged in their own thing and not paying attention to each other. Oftentimes we would even have different food. We had a chef. And we could basically put in an order for whatever we wanted at the beginning of the week. We would sit there in the same room and basically all be…separate. And sometimes I just wanted a small table. Because I thought that would fix things.”
“Well, we might’ve gotten a bigger table, but we all sat down at one together.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling wistful. “You all really love each other.”
“You love your sisters,” he said, and she noticed he skimmed over her question.
“I do,” she said. She looked up at him, taking a chance at meeting his gaze. “My siblings are the most important people in my life.”
His lips curved upward, and something in her stomach shivered. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like the feeling at all.
“Well, I… Anyway. I don’t know. I’m just curious. About how other people grew up.”
“Did you go over to anyone’s house when you were a kid?”
“Not really. My sisters went to private school. They were away from home a lot. They sent me away for a while, but I hated it. I wanted a family, and being at school with strangers didn’t help at all. Dorm rooms and formal dining halls and all of that. I just ended up walking the grounds alone. They brought me back. They enrolled me in a school in Gold Valley. But they didn’t really want me associating with any of the local people. So I had friends. But only at school. My parents didn’t let them come over. They didn’t let me go over there. The stupid thing is, I’m not sure my dad would have actually known what I was doing if I hadn’t asked for permission. But I’ve never really known how to live.”
Except, she was deceiving Jackson a little bit. And that made her feel… Well, that made her feel marginally guilty. It wasn’t the most honorable thing, but her deception was all in service to something bigger.
She looked at him, and the sense of intensity, of longing, grew. She couldn’t feel bad. Not now. She wanted him here. She needed him here. And some part of her knew that. On a deep, cellular level. She knew that.
“Anyway. I’m just kind of making up for lost time. For things I didn’t have.”
“So, you got yourself a little kitchen table.”
“Yeah. And you’re the first person to sit with me here.”
He looked a little uncomfortable with that statement. Cleared his throat. She blinked, wondering what he thought she meant. And then she realized her words could be misconstrued.
“Only that…”
She must’ve sounded panicked, because he held her gaze, his expression steady then. “No drama.”
“Right.” His words made her feel immediately soothed and she didn’t really know why.
She’d first felt this weird sort of connection to him years ago. He hadn’t been as broad then as he was now. He’d been lean and rangy, and very different from his brother, Creed, who was often at winery events, fulfilling much the same job as her sister. Jackson wasn’t a salesman. He wasn’t the kind of guy who was in the front of the house. Much like her. He was behind the scenes. It was also very clear that Jackson was an integral part of his family in a way that Cricket had never felt like she was.
Jackson
