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GRACE

Cody shows me to my room, which is big and airy, with yellowing lace at the windows and a plaid comforter that swallows the mattress. My suitcase has been placed on the bed, and two towels are stacked neatly next to it. “Your bathroom is there,” he says, waving a hand toward a door in the corner.

My eyes widen in relief, and he smiles, flashing his sexy dimples again. “We have some modern facilities, you know.”

“I didn’t…” I don’t bother finishing the sentence when he wiggles his eyebrows and sweeps his hand through his shaggy brown hair.

“I know. Dinner will be ready in five. You arrived right on time.”

I reach for my suitcase, unzipping it with a flourish. “I’ll freshen up.”

“I’ll leave you to it.”

When Cody leaves the room, he takes his reassuring, warm energy with him, leaving me alone with my overwhelmed self.

I grab my wash bag and head into the bathroom, finding it old but clean.

I guess they don’t have a housekeeper out here, which means one or more of those big men downstairs handle the domestic duties for this monolith of a ranch house.

Impressive.

I look different in the tarnished mirror above this dark wood vanity than at home.

My hair is still miraculously in place, and my makeup, which is nearing the end of its life, is still perfectly acceptable in this setting.

Maybe it’s the softer light that streams through the high window that’s taken some of the harshness from my features.

Or the relaxed environment that’s removed a pinch from around my mouth. Interesting.

Dinner smells like heaven as the scent of roasting meat wafts through the open door.

I start to think about how I’ll approach the research for this article.

There are definite pros and cons to a more formal approach.

Sitting each of the men down, one by one, to answer the list of questions Rianna had already drafted would be simple.

I’d get eleven individual responses, which may or may not be unified.

It’d provide the structure to get to the root of their motivations and rationale, but now I’m here, amongst the noise and chaos, it suddenly feels wrong.

These men are always on their feet, dealing with the practicalities of their work and home lives.

Treating them like academics or celebrities doesn’t fit, and I worry it won’t produce anything more engaging than I could have achieved over the phone without following Moses into the desert, risking life and limb.

The other option may be more dangerous. Follow them around to get to know them in their own habitat. Form slower opinions and grow the story more organically.

That feels closer to what I need to do, but it’s risky. If they don’t open up before I leave, there’s a chance I won’t get what I need to make this tale of old-fashioned love meet the modern world structure in time.

I’m the editor-in-chief. I can’t fail at this .

But I feel rusty. It’s been a while since I've done anything but review the work of others. What if I’ve lost my edge?

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.

“You wouldn’t survive playing house here, city girl,” he says. Calm. Even.

I raise an eyebrow. “Already making assumptions.”

He shrugs, cutting a piece of roast. “It’s the truth… isn’t it?”

Someone clears their throat, cutting through the tension. It’s Harrison, I think, glasses flashing in the low light. “So, what exactly is your job? Are you a real reporter or the… what do they call it, human interest bait?”

I laugh, surprised. “Neither. I’m the editor-in-chief.”

The table goes still for half a second. Levi whistles low. McCartney straightens, as if he's learned I carry a gun .

“You run the whole damn magazine?” Brody asks, tone more skeptical than impressed.

For a second, I gape in surprise as dude-of-stone-and-grouch comes to life with a voice like a growl.

“I assign work, approve stories, rewrite the headlines, clean up other people’s work.

Manage the staff. Babysit executives. Massage my boss’s ego.

I also order coffee or lunch when the interns forget. ”

“You don’t look like a boss,” Jaxon says, voice rough but quiet.

My spine stiffens like someone rammed a metal bar in place of the cord. “Because I wear red lipstick?”

He shrugs, eyeing me like I’m an idiot for making such an insinuation. “No. Because you’re here. Sitting in this chaos. Don’t you have grunts for this?”

Corbin leans forward, elbows on the table. “Why’d you take this assignment? No offense, but this…” He waves idly at the chaos of his family. “Doesn’t exactly scream editor-in-chief material.”

“No offense taken,” I say, then pause. “My reporter got Mono. I got guilt tripped. And honestly? I thought it’d be fun.”

“You thought we were a joke?” Dylan’s tone is factual rather than accusing

“I thought it would be an interesting story,” I correct. “Eleven men. One wife. Come on. That’s clickbait gold. But now…” I glance around the table again at the noisy kids, the muscles and motion, and the fatigue behind every gesture. “Now it feels more complicated.”

The silence that follows isn’t awkward but thoughtful.

Then Nash says softly, “Still seems strange to me that someone like you would come all this way for us. ”

Someone like me.

I don’t know if he means city girl, woman, editor, or something else, but the sentiment lands with surprise rather than hostility and gratitude in a way that makes me squirm.

“I’ve seen a lot of people trying to navigate love and relationships,” I admit. “High-powered couples. Socialites. Influencers who schedule arguments for better engagement.” I sip my tea. “You guys? You’re doing something wild, and I guess I wanted to see if it’s real.”

“We’re real,” Conway says. No hesitation.

McCartney smiles. “Sometimes a little too real.”

Levi nudges me with his elbow. “So you gonna live-tweet our love lives? Or write a sexy tell-all?”

“Neither,” I say, and it comes out sharper than I intended. “I’m here to understand it. From the inside.”

Inadvertently, the words hang in the air like a threat.

Conway nods like he expected that answer. “Then you’d better be willing to get your city pumps dirty.”

***

The wood creaks under me as I sit on the edge of the porch, picking at a splinter. The sun is bleeding into the hills, all burnt orange and gold, and even that makes me mad because it’s too pretty for a place I don’t want to be.

Behind me, someone’s laughing. One of the kids. I need to learn their names at some point. One of the men, too. They all blur together. All these boots, hats, strong forearms, and smiles that look too good for guys who don’t use conditioner or moisturizer.

My skirt is too short, my shoes are still dusty, and the porch swing tilts to the left and groans like an old man whenever I move.

I don’t belong here.

I light a cigarette that I’ll only take two drags from and stare at the horizon, wondering how the hell I’ll survive four more days.

The sky doesn’t care. It keeps bleeding color, the sun taunting me with its ability to make an exit.

The fence that encircles this property feels a little like a noose.

This is the light people fall in love under. The kind they write poems about. The kind that makes you forget all the reasons you keep offering out your body like a library book, but keep your heart wrapped in a velvet bag.

I’m not built for wide-open spaces or quiet that isn’t filled with sirens, drunken yelling, or podcasts screaming productivity advice. This kind of silence is intimate. It makes you look inward, and inward isn't my favorite direction.

The screen door creaks open behind me.

Boots thump on the floorboards in a gait that’s slow, heavy, and confident. I don’t look up.

“Didn’t peg you for a smoker,” Cody says, voice low and easy like the breeze.

I take another drag and exhale into the wind. “I’m not. Just wanted the illusion of country cool.”

He chuckles, steps forward, and leans on the porch railing beside me, holding his hand out for the cigarette.

I pass it to him, and he inhales the smoke deeply, holding it before he lets it curl into the night.

He passes the cigarette back, and I take a drag, conscious that his lips pressed around the same place moments before.

Now, the silence feels shared instead of lonely.

“The swing tilts,” he says after a moment. “Been meanin’ to fix it.”

I flick ash over the side. “Add it to your endless to-do list?”

“Nah,” he says. “Not endless. Just... always changing.”

We sit there for a moment, watching the hills drink the last of the light.

I glance at him sideways. He’s got his hat off, fingers running through that shaggy brown hair like he forgot I could be watching. His brows are drawn into a serious V as though he has something to say, but he doesn’t know if he should.

“Dinner wasn’t what I expected,” I say.

He nods. “You thought we’d be weirder?”

“I thought you’d all be shirtless and gruff.”

He laughs, loud and warm. “Stick around. Mornings in the barn get close.”

I roll my eyes but don’t fight the smile.

He studies me for a beat. “You did good tonight.”

“Good?” I echo .

“With the chaos. With the kids. With this place.” He spreads his arms wide like he can encompass everything in the embrace of a single man.

I snort. “I panicked and asked for a group proposal.”

“Yeah,” he grins. “That was somethin’. But I liked it.”

I shake my head and stub out the cigarette. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Maybe not now, but you will.”

He says it like a promise rather than a sales pitch.

“I should have sent someone else.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Our eyes lock and remain glued for longer than they should with a stranger, like he’s challenging and assessing me.

“Why?”

“I think you can do our situation justice.”

It’s a compliment I wasn’t expecting.

He steps away. “Night, Grace.”

When he’s gone, I lean back and let the silence settle again.

It still feels like it’s pressing down on me, but not quite so hard.