Chapter 21: Family Breakfast
The kitchen air felt thick enough to chew. Sunshine streamed through the window, highlighting the dust motes dancing over the chipped Formica table, but it did nothing to warm the room. It was a mockery of a normal morning.
Dede moved between the stove and the table with a forced, breezy energy, her strawberry-blond curls bouncing. Her lavender yoga pants and tight tank top showed off the subtle, new curve of her belly. She placed a stack of pancakes in the center with a bright, “Voilà! Blueberry, David, your favorite.” She leaned into him as she said it, her breast brushing his shoulder.
David didn’t look up from his newspaper. His knuckles were white where he gripped it. He’d been silent since they’d all reluctantly taken seats—him at the head, Ace and Lexi on one side, Dede on the other.
“Thanks, Dede,” Lexi mumbled, staring at her plate. Ace sat beside her, a looming, quiet presence. He hadn’t said a word since sitting down. He just watched David over the rim of the coffee mug Dede had pushed toward him, his blue eyes flat and assessing.
“So!” Dede chirped, sliding into her chair. “Big plans for the weekend? I was thinking we could finally tackle that garden shed, David. Make room for all the baby things.” She patted her stomach, a gesture that was becoming habitual.
David finally lowered the paper. His gaze went first to Dede’s hand on her belly, and a complex storm moved behind his eyes—worry, possessiveness, a faint terror. Then his eyes cut across the table to his daughter and the boy whose thigh was pressed firmly against hers beneath it.
“We’ll see,” David said, his voice gravelly with sleeplessness.
Beneath the safety of the tablecloth, Ace’s hand found Lexi’s knee. His touch was a brand, a steadying current in the chaotic atmosphere. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. His thumb began a slow, deliberate stroke along her inner thigh, tracing the seam of her jeans.
It was a quiet act of defiance, of reassurance. I’m here. You’re mine. This changes nothing.
Lexi felt a flush creep up her neck. She forked a piece of pancake, but it tasted like sawdust. Her entire universe had narrowed to the heat of his hand inching higher, the rough pad of his thumb teasing the sensitive skin.
Ace kept his expression neutral, even bored, as he took a sip of coffee. But his eyes, when they flicked to her, held a dark promise that made her stomach clench.
David’s fork clinked against his plate. He was watching them. He could see the faint tremor in Lexi’s hand, the way her breath hitched just slightly. He saw the intense, focused stillness of the Ryder boy, a predator at rest.
“The shed can wait,” David said, his tone dangerously even. “I think today we need to have a longer discussion. About boundaries. About respect under my roof.”
The words hung in the air, sharp as the edge of the cracked plate. David’s jaw was a hard line, his eyes locked on Ace with a challenge that was decades in the making. Ace didn’t flinch, but his hand went still on Lexi’s thigh, a silent acknowledgment of the line being drawn.
Lexi felt the world tilting, the safe bubble of her secret connection with Ace about to be popped by her father’s raw scrutiny. She opened her mouth, a weak “Dad—” escaping her lips, but no other sound followed.
Dede sighed, a soft, exasperated sound that cut through the silence. She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping against the linoleum. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, David,” she said, her voice losing its earlier cheer but gaining a firm, practical weight.
She walked around the table, her movements slightly slowed by her new center of gravity. She placed a hand on David’s shoulder, her fingers gentle but insistent. “Look at them,” she murmured, her voice low enough for just him. “Really look.”
David’s stern gaze didn’t waver from Ace. “I am looking. I see a boy with a reputation who doesn’t know his place.”
“You see a reflection,” Dede corrected softly, her thumb rubbing small circles on his tense muscle. “You see yourself at nineteen, stubborn and in love and ready to punch anyone who looked at your girl wrong.” She paused, letting that seed of memory take root. “Except his girl is your daughter, and it’s terrifying.”
A flicker of something—recognition, pain—crossed David’s face. His shoulders lowered a fraction of an inch. Dede took the opportunity. She turned her head, addressing Ace and Lexi directly, her tone shifting to one of blunt, amused reality. “And you two. The leg thing? Not subtle. At all. My grandmother saw more subtlety in a bull in a china shop, God rest her soul.”
A startled, choked laugh escaped Lexi. Ace’s lips twitched, the ghost of a smile threatening his brooding facade.
Dede pressed her advantage, turning back to David, her hand now resting on the gentle swell of her stomach. “This boy got his GED early to work and keep his siblings out of foster care until his aunt could take them. He lives in that old house alone and keeps it spotless. He looks at your daughter like she hung the moon.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper only he could hear. “You asked me to trust you with our future. Maybe it’s time you trusted her with hers.”
The room held its breath. David looked from Dede’s earnest face, down to her hand on her belly—their future—and then across the table at his daughter. He saw the fear in Lexi’s emerald eyes, but also a fierce, quiet defiance he didn’t recognize. He saw Ace’s protective stillness, the way his body was angled toward Lexi, a shield even while sitting.
David let out a long, weary breath that seemed to deflate him. He ran a hand over his salt-and-pepper beard. “The hand,” he said finally, his voice gruff but lacking its previous heat. “On the table. Where I can see it.”
Ace studied him for a moment, then gave a single, slow nod. He withdrew his hand from under the tablecloth and placed it palm-down on the chipped Formica next to his fork. Lexi, after a heartbeat, slid her hand over and linked her pinky with his, a tiny, brave gesture.
David watched their joined fingers, a simple point of contact in the stark morning light. He didn’t smile, but the storm in his eyes quieted to a simmering watchfulness. “Finish your pancakes,” he muttered, picking up his newspaper again, though he didn’t open it. “They’re getting cold.”
Dede gave his shoulder a final squeeze and returned to her seat, a small, satisfied curve to her lips. She forked a bite of pancake and looked between the two young people, her eyes knowing. “So,” she said, the normalcy in her voice a delicate, offered truce. “What are the plans for the weekend?”
Lexi’s eyes darted to Ace, then down to her plate. “We don’t really have plans,” she said, her voice barely above a murmur. She felt the weight of her father’s gaze and the warmth of Ace’s leg against hers, a silent anchor in the choppy sea of the morning.
“Perfect,” Dede declared, clapping her hands together once with a sharp, satisfied sound. She smiled, a bright, practical thing that didn’t quite reach the calculating gleam in her eyes. “Then you two can help your father and me move the last of my things from next door. The lease is up, and I’m not renewing it.” She said it as if it were the most obvious conclusion in the world, as if boxes and endings were just another domestic chore. “Everything comes here.”
The silence that followed was different from the tension of minutes before—it was stunned, filled with the finality of a closing door. David looked at Dede, his expression shifting from stubborn father to a man suddenly realizing the speed of the current he was in. His house, still echoing with Lexi’s mother’s perfume and his own lonely years, was about to be filled with another woman’s history.
“Today?” David asked, his voice rough.
“No time like the present,” Dede replied, standing and beginning to clear plates with an efficiency that brooked no argument. “The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can properly nest before this one arrives.” She patted her stomach, linking the move to the baby, making any objection feel like a rejection of their future.
Ace’s hand, still on the table, turned to fully encircle Lexi’s. His calloused thumb stroked her knuckle. “I’ve got a truck,” he said, his voice cutting through the domestic fog. He was looking at David, not Dede. Offering.Not asking.
David held his gaze for a long moment, then gave a single, curt nod. It was a truce, fragile and based on manual labor. “Alright.” He pushed back from the table, the legs screeching against the floor. “Let’s get it over with.”
The air in Dede’s bungalow was still and faintly dusty, smelling of dried lavender and stale coffee. It wasn’t a home; it was a waiting room filled with tasteful, impersonal furniture and boxes already labeled in neat script: KITCHEN, BATH, STUDY. Lexi stood in the living room, holding a cardboard box labeled “Decorations – Fragile,” feeling like an intruder.
“Just the stuff in the bedroom and the study left,” Dede directed from the doorway, pointing like a field marshal. “David, the dresser is solid oak, so be a love and take the drawer units out first. Ace, the bookshelves in the study are all you. Lexi, sweetheart, you can start on the closet. Be careful with the garment bags.”
Lexi nodded, slipping into the bedroom. The space felt intensely private, saturated with Dede’s signature musky perfume. She unzipped a garment bag and was met with a sliver of black lace, a sleek red cocktail dress, fabrics that spoke of a life very different from her own worn jeans and sweaters. She carefully gathered the hangers, the clothes whispering secrets as she moved.
In the study, Ace wrestled with a heavy oak bookshelf. He moved with a focused, physical grace, his muscles cordening under his t-shirt as he tipped it onto its side. He worked in silence, but his presence was a low hum in the small house. David passed him in the hallway, arms laden with drawers, their eyes meeting in a wordless, mutually understood exertion.
An hour in, Lexi was sweating, a fine layer of dust coating her arms. She dragged a plastic bin from the back of the closet and lifted the lid. Inside weren’t clothes, but memories. Photographs of a younger, softer-looking Dede with a man who wasn’t David. Ticket stubs. A framed diploma for a degree in sports science. At the very bottom, wrapped in tissue paper, was a small, carved wooden elephant.
“Find the good stuff?” Dede’s voice came from the doorway. She leaned against the frame, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, her expression unreadable.
“Just… things,” Lexi said, quickly re-covering the bin.
“That’s all any of it is, honey,” Dede said with a sigh that seemed to come from a deep, tired place. “Just things we carry until we find somewhere to put them down.” She pushed off the doorframe. “Bring that one out to the truck, would you? It’s light.”
The last item was Dede’s bed, a wrought-iron king-sized frame that had to be disassembled. David and Ace worked on it together in the now-empty bedroom, their earlier tension replaced by the shorthand of shared labor. A bolt stuck. David grunted, straining.
“Here,” Ace said, pulling a multi-tool from his pocket. He fitted the wrench attachment and applied steady pressure, his brow furrowed. The bolt gave with a squeak.
“Thanks,” David muttered, not looking at him.
“Sure.”
They lifted the side rail together, their movements synchronized. As they maneuvered it through the bedroom door, David spoke, his voice low. “You hurt her, and I won’t care about your reasons or your past. You understand?”
Ace didn’t flinch, his grip firm on the cold iron. “I’d never.”
“See that you don’t.”
The final load was packed into the bed of Ace’s truck, tethered under a tarp. The bungalow stood empty, echoing with their footsteps. Dede did one last walk-through, her hand on her belly, her face thoughtful but dry-eyed. She locked the door and dropped the key into her pocket without a backward glance.
Back at the Thompson house, the boxes created a labyrinth in the living room. The sun was lower now, casting long, weary shadows. David opened a beer, offering one to Ace with a silent lift of his chin. Ace accepted with a nod, the condensation cool on his dusty fingers.
Dede surveyed the chaos, a tired smile on her face.“Well. That’s that.”
Lexi sat on the bottom step of the staircase, watching the two most important men in her life drink in silence amidst the boxes that symbolized so much change. Ace caught her eye, took a long pull from his bottle, and then set it down on a box labeled LINENS.
“I should get going,” he said, his voice rough from dust and disuse. He walked over to Lexi, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He didn’t kiss her in front of them, but he reached out and tucked a strand of sweat-damp hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering for a moment on her cheek. “Call you later.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
He nodded to David, to Dede, and then he was gone, the rumble of his truck fading down the street.
The house felt different with him gone, the silence heavier. Lexi looked at the boxes, at her father finishing his beer, at Dede rubbing her lower back. Her sanctuary was gone, buried under the physical evidence of another woman’s life. But as she climbed the stairs to her room, she thought of Ace’s hand on her cheek, the steady look in his eyes, the unspoken promise that some things, the most important things, were not for moving.