Page 158 of Terms of Exposure
"Ma—" Sebastian groaned.
"Hush," she snapped without opening her eyes. "I'm talking to God."
He slumped in his chair.
"And," Rosie said, warming to her theme, "thank you for letting me meet the girl who finally convinced Damien to stop hiding that sweet face behind emails and grunts. Amen."
I blinked. Sebastian choked. Candace covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. Damien's ears turned red.
Then—finally—Rosie clapped her hands.
"Eat!"
The room erupted into chaos again, forks flying, bowls passing, bread tearing, chairs scraping, the whole world caught in noisy, loving, outrageous Holt-family energy.
Damien reached for my plate without asking and started building it with care. A little salad. A slice of the still-steaming bread. One chicken cutlet. Two meatballs. A spoonful of pasta shells drowned in Rosie's sauce. An extra stuffed mushroom for good measure.
Rosie smiled approvingly.
"A real gentleman," she said with a proud little nod, expression softening as she watched him.
Then her eyes snapped sideways—razor sharp—as Sebastian shoveled a forkful of pasta toward his mouth.
"Sebastian!"
He froze mid-bite, fork suspended like a criminal caught red-handed.
"What?" he mumbled around the noodles already halfway in.
Then—slowly—his expression shifted to realization.
He turned his head toward Candace like a robot rebooting. "Uh—right. Sorry. I didn't… uh—did you want—?" He gestured helplessly at the chaos of food. "What do you want? You should go first. Ladies first. Always. That's a rule. A Holt rule. Family motto, even."
Candace blinked, caught between startled and charmed. "I—um—I don't know. Everything looks amazing."
"Oh! Okay—cool—yeah, so—" Sebastian scrambled upright, grabbing her plate. "Let me just… explain the menu. It's important."
"This," he said, pointing dramatically at the stuffed mushrooms, "is the dish that almost killed me when I was twelve. I ate an entire tray before dinner and passed out on the stairs. Rosie thought I died."
Rosie snapped, "SEBASTIAN."
Candace snorted before clapping a hand over her mouth, mortified.
Sebastian glowed like he'd just been handed a trophy.
"And this bread?" He held up the loaf reverently. "Rosie taught me to knead dough with my elbows because I broke my wrist skateboarding that summer. Turns out elbows make great bread. Horrible pizza, but great bread."
Candace's laugh dissolved into helpless little gasps, her whole body shaking.
Sebastian kept going, emboldened.
"These meatballs? Don't eat more than two unless you want to see god. I did once. Hated the guy. I haven't been the same since."
Rosie swatted at him with her spoon. "Stop telling people you met god in my kitchen and hated him!"
"I did and do!" he insisted. "He was holding a cheese grater."
At this point Candace was wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.
