I stopped mid-motion. The cinnamon sticks slid out of my hand and rolled across the counter.
“What extra people?”
He looked at me like I’d just told him the sky was green.
“Aunt Diane said she invited almost 20 more. Something about your house being the biggest.”
“Twenty?”
“That’s the number I heard.”
I didn’t answer right away. My eyes drifted to the dining room, to the place cards I’d hand-lettered, to the seating chart I’d redone three times to make sure Diane sat far enough from my mother to survive the meal.
Ryan watched me. He didn’t look surprised. He looked patient.
“She didn’t call you, did she?” he asked, softer now.
“No.”
“Figured.” He picked up his keys and hesitated at the door. “For what it’s worth, I thought you should know before Thursday. Not on Thursday.”
He said it lightly, but he meant it heavily.
I understood the difference.
That night, I waited until Harley came in from the garage.
He was scrolling through his phone, half-smiling at something, until he saw my face and put the phone down.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Did your mother tell you she invited twenty extra people to our house?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. That gesture. Eight years of that gesture.
