Page 30 of Everything You Hate
He doesn’t. “I’m sure you have.” His smile is polite and doesn’t reach his eyes. “Malcolm’s been talking about bringing a reporter out here for a while. I just didn’t expect you’d end up at our dinner table.”
“That was my fault,” Mimi announces, materializing at my elbow with a ladle. “I invited her. So if you have a problem, Bodhi, you take it up with me.”
Bodhi looks at Mimi with equal parts respect, affection, and frustration. “I don’t have a problem, Mimi.”
“Good. Because the stew’s ready?—”
The screen door bangs again.
He has the same blue-gray eyes as the rest of them, but his are different—they see through walls, maybe even through me. The hair is trimmed tight against his scalp, dark as oil, and his jaw looks like it’s been carved out of stone by someone in a hurry and left to set that way. He wears black: black shirt stretched over lean muscle, black cargo pants, and boots that have seen better days. He doesn’t linger on anyone. First, his gaze sweeps the corners and shadows of the room, checking for threats. Then, and only then, does he size up the people. He never unclenches his jaw. That, more than anything, sets my nerves on edge. There’s something behind his stare, something coiled, and it makes the back of my neck prickle.
Mimi crosses the kitchen, reaches up, and takes his face between both hands. She doesn’t say anything. Just holds on. His shoulders come down half an inch. He leans into her palms for one second, maybe less, then steps back.
“Hey, stranger,” she says.
“Hey.”
His eyes land on me. Assess. Dismiss. He nods once at Bodhi, the barest acknowledgment, and takes himself into the living room without a word.
“That’s Zade.” Shea hands me a salad bowl. “He’s… complicated.”
“I gathered.”
“Don’t take it personally. He’s like that with everyone.”
Except Mimi, I think, but don’t say it.
Dinner arrives in waves. Stew with dumplings. Bread still hot. Potatoes with garlic and too much butter. Henry opens wine and pours for anyone holding a glass.
The table is loud. Bodhi at one end, Henry at the other, Mimi beside Henry. Zade takes the seat farthest from everyone, back to the wall. Dean sits next to me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him through my sleeve.
Nobody asks about my followers. Nobody mentions the clip. Nobody wants to know what LA is like, or what happened with the morning show, or whether it’s true about the barista.
They ask if I like the stew. They ask about seeing the orcas and if I’d met Sir yet.
I glance at Dean. “Sir?”
“A sea lion,” Dean says, and I swear something almost like a smile touches his mouth before he looks down at his bowl. “He’s been begging tourists for fish since before I took over the tours. Fat old thing. Waddles up the dock like he owns it.”
“Like someone else I know,” Mimi says, jerking her chin at Doug, who has parked himself under the table with his head on Dean’s boot.
“Sir’s a menace,” Colter agrees. “Last summer he stole a kid’s hot dog right out of the bun. Kid ran away screaming.”
“Smart kid,” Zade says from the far end of the table. “Sir could’ve taken him too if he was inclined.”
The whole family turns to look at him. He doesn’t look up. Just eats.
Henry clears his throat and launches into a story about Dean falling off the dock at six years old and swimming back to shore under his own power, furious at the suggestion of rescue. Dean doesn’t stop him. Just shakes his head, the corner of his mouth doing that half smile again.
“You left out the part where you jumped in after me,” he says when Henry’s done. “Even though you can’t swim.”
“I can swim.”
“You dog-paddle. Badly.”
“It got the job done.”
“You nearly drowned us both.”
