Page 74 of Distress Signal

Finn’s hand found my thigh under the table, squeezing in a way that told me he liked the sound of that—me at his side for a thousand more nights like this.

I liked it too.

At first, I was quiet. There were so many personalities in the room, making it almost impossible to catch onto a thread of conversation and follow it meaningfully. This family seemed to have a shorthand for the way they spoke to each other, born from years at each other’s sides. None of them seemed bothered by the fact that several different topics were being discussed at once, all between bites of Birdie’s delicious meal.

I was content to sit back and observe. Growing up, it had only been me, Lainey, and our parents. Mom and Dad had both been raised in New England and moved to the south after they graduated college, so any extended family we had was spread across Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maine. Every few years, we’d head north or some of them would head south, but we didn’t have a close relationship with them. Two of our grandparents had passed before we were born, the other two when we were in high school.

Those funerals were the last time we’d seen any of our parents’ relatives—until their own funeral, of course.

Lainey and I always discussed our family dynamic, curious if there was more to the story of why we weren’t close with them outside of literal distance driving a wedge into those relationships.

But we never figured it out before Mom and Dad died, and now we never would.

Once everyone returned home after the funeral, we never heard from them again.

For our entire lives, it had been me and Lainey against the world.

Being surrounded by these people, this warm, big family, was surprisingly comforting. I expected the opposite, to be an odd man out, to be reminded how fucking alone I was.

And I did feel that way, mostly in the way that I wished Lainey were here to experience it with me.

Otherwise, being here was…easy.

Finn was a solid presence at my side, carrying on a conversation with Crew, but frequently checking in with me. Giving me space to navigate this setting on my own but letting me know he was there to lean on if need be. Silently reminding me I could leave if it all got to be too much.

Eventually, though, when the boys had polished off their second helpings and dessert made its way onto plates, conversation turned to me.

“You said you grew up in Tennessee, right?” Aria asked me, the first time since West’s welcome that I’d been addressed directly.

“Yep, about an hour south of Knoxville.”

“How close is that to Nashville?”

All movement, conversation, hell,breathing, at the table stopped in an instant, like all the air had been vacuumed from the room with Aria’s question.

Unperturbed by the silence that followed it, she merely stared at me expectantly, cutting off a small bite of her peach cobbler and putting it in her mouth, chewing slowly.

Clearing my throat awkwardly, unsure of what the hell happened, I said, “About three and a half hours. We’re tucked in the southeast corner of the state, right along the borders with North Carolina and Georgia.”

“I’ve always wanted to move to Nashville,” Aria mused, her lips twisting into a wry smile—almost like she knew her brothers would erupt.

They didn’t disappoint.

Lane: “Absolutely not.”

Trey: “You’re fucking crazy.”

“You’re not moving halfway across the country without any family nearby, Ari,” West grumbled from next to her.

“I personally think she could benefit from getting out of thistown,” Aspen said from the other side of Crew, who hummed noncommittally in response.

“Yes, well, no one asked your opinion,little phoenix,” Trey snarled from next to her.

“You don’t get to call her that,” Crew replied lowly.

A nickname from her fiancé, then, I surmised.

“I can’t get my singing career off the ground if I stay here,” Aria said.