In a hotel room, a television was playing in the background, showing coverage of the National Championship. The ESPN commentator's voice filled the space, though neither of the two people in the room had paid much attention to what was being said for several minutes.
Wyatt ran his hand absently over the back of Blaire, who was lying on her side with her head resting on his shoulder, her eyes half-closed as she looked at the screen without really seeing what was on it. The sheets covered them both up to the waist, with the Katy afternoon light filtering through the window blinds in a golden hue—that specific Texas temperature in January that signals something isn't going to last much longer.
Blaire had arrived that morning on the nine o'clock flight, and Wyatt had picked her up at Bush Intercontinental Airport with a cup of coffee. She had taken it without a word, though the way she snatched it from his hand said enough.
The day had passed the way days do when two people who know each other well—but live in separate cities on opposite ends of the country—are finally in the same place with no obligations until seven in the evening. It included an unplanned stop at the Museum of Natural Science, simply because Blaire had pointed it out from the car window and Wyatt had turned the wheel without asking questions.
And now they were here, with the television talking about the upcoming championship game and the fading afternoon turning the sunlight through the blinds into a deeper shade of orange.
Reaching out toward the nightstand, Wyatt grabbed his phone.
It was 5:42 p.m.
"We need to get up," he said.
Blaire didn't answer right away.
"Blaire."
"I heard you," she replied without moving.
"Dinner is at seven."
"I have time."
"You need to get ready."
Blaire raised her head from Wyatt's shoulder and looked at him with that expression of hers—one he had learned to read as someone processing whether the statement she had just heard deserved a verbal response or simply an eloquent silence.
"Did you just tell me I need time to get ready?"
"I didn't say that."
"That is exactly what you said."
"I said you need to get ready," Wyatt corrected. "I didn't say you need time to do it."
"It's the same thing."
"It's not the same thing," Wyatt said. "One is a fact; the other is an opinion on your efficiency."
Blaire stared at him for three full seconds. "That's worse than the first thing," she said before getting out of bed.
"Is there anything I should know about your family before we get there?" Blaire asked from the edge of the bed as she pulled her hair up.
Wyatt buttoned his shirt without turning around. "They're a normal family."
"That tells me nothing."
"What do you want me to tell you?"
"I don't know, Wyatt, I've never met your family," Blaire said with the patience of someone who considered her question entirely reasonable. "Is there anything I should keep in mind?"
Wyatt turned toward her. "My dad is a man of few words. Don't take it as him not liking you—he's just like that with everyone. My mom is going to ask you way too many questions, and she'll probably hug you before you've even finished introducing yourself."
"And your grandparents?"
"My grandparents are getting there at seven-thirty," Wyatt said. "And my grandfather already knows who you are."
"How?"
"Because I told him."
Blaire looked at him. "When?"
"Christmas of '14," Wyatt said. "On the couch, watching Home Alone."
Blaire processed that for a moment in silence while Wyatt looked for his shoes under the desk chair.
"And what exactly did you tell him?"
"That there was a girl in Boston," Wyatt replied, without elaborating further.
"That's very specific," Blaire said.
"I didn't want to overwhelm him with details."
"What details?"
Wyatt looked at her for a second before standing up, shoes in hand. "That I really liked her," he said simply, continuing to dress without adding another word. Blaire sat for a moment with that expression Wyatt had learned to read as someone who had just received something unexpected and was deciding what to do with it.
"And what did he say?"
"He said geography is just a logistics problem."
Blaire nodded with the expression of someone who didn't fully understand the context of the phrase, but recognized that it made sense.
"I like your grandfather," she said.
"You haven't met him yet."
"I like him anyway."
The Sterling house was fully lit up when Wyatt's car turned down the familiar street. Blaire looked at the front of the house from the passenger seat without saying anything for a moment, wearing the same expression she always wore when processing something she preferred to digest in silence before commenting.
"It's bigger than I imagined," she finally said.
"How did you imagine it?"
"I don't know. Smaller."
"It's Texas," Wyatt said. "Everything is bigger in Texas. I told you."
Blaire let out a soft laugh right before the car came to a stop in the driveway.
Max heard them arrive before Wyatt had even turned off the engine.
The front door opened, and the Border Collie shot out toward the car as usual, possessing an energy that recognized no difference between returning from a National Championship game or returning from buying bread at the corner store. To Max, any return was the most important return of the day.
"Max," Wyatt said, opening the driver's side door as the dog was already on top of him, paws on his chest. "Down."
Max got down for exactly two seconds before spotting Blaire stepping out of the passenger side. He immediately redirected all his attention toward her, his energy multiplied by the fact that this person was new—and therefore infinitely more interesting than Wyatt, who had been part of the known inventory for years.
He began circling Blaire, sniffing her methodically with his nose close to the ground while his tail wagged relentlessly.
"Is he always like this?" Blaire asked, looking down at the dog as he kept circling.
"With new people, yeah," Wyatt said. "Give him thirty seconds."
Blaire stood still while Max completed his inspection. Sure enough, right around the thirty-second mark, the Border Collie determined she was acceptable and simply sat in front of her, looking up with the exact same expectation he had for all newly approved humans.
"Hi," Blaire said to the dog.
Max wagged his tail twice.
"Welcome to the club," Wyatt said.
It was at that moment that the front door opened again. Ed, Wyatt's father, walked out onto the porch with his usual posture and stepped down toward them at the calm pace he reserved for everything in life.
"Dad," Wyatt said.
Ed reached them and gave Wyatt a brief handshake before turning to Blaire with that same composure. "Ed Sterling," he said, extending his hand.
"Blaire Bennett," Blaire responded, shaking it.
Ed gave a single nod without adding anything else, but with an expression Wyatt read as provisional approval—which, for someone like Ed, was the equivalent of a full-blown red-carpet welcome.
They reached the door, and before Wyatt could do anything, Elena appeared from inside, wiping her clean hands after finishing something in the kitchen. The moment she saw Blaire, she opened her arms without preamble.
"Oh, I finally get to put a face to the name!" Elena said, wrapping Blaire in a hug. Blaire received it with an expression somewhere between surprised and amused, given that no one had hugged her like that within the first five seconds of meeting them for as long as she could remember. "Wyatt has told me so much about you."
"Mom," Wyatt said.
"What? It's true," Elena replied, not letting go just yet, while Blaire looked over her shoulder at Wyatt with a look that clearly said this information would be discussed later. "You're just as pretty as in the photos."
"What photos?" Wyatt asked.
"The ones he has on his phone," Elena said, finally letting go of Blaire and looking at her son with the satisfaction of someone who had just shared information guaranteed to produce an exact reaction.
Wyatt looked at Blaire, who was looking right back at him with slightly raised eyebrows and a smile that wasn't quite a full smile, but was getting pretty close.
"Come in, come in," Elena said, taking Blaire by the arm and leading her inside as if she had known her for years. "Dinner is almost ready, and I want to hear everything."
The Sterling dining table had that specific look it always took on when Elena decided an occasion called for extra effort, whether anyone had asked for it or not. The tablecloth was set, candles burned in the center, and there were more dishes than a normal dinner required—because she operated under the premise that you never have too much food, only not enough appetite.
Blaire found herself sitting across from Ed, with Wyatt beside her and the distinct feeling that the questioning was imminent. That intuition proved entirely correct: Elena had her interrogation prepared for weeks, though she delivered it with the effortless charm of someone simply being a good host.
"And you study English Literature?" Elena began from across the table, showing the genuine interest of someone who had been holding onto that question since Wyatt first mentioned Blaire.
"Yes, at Emerson College in Boston," Blaire replied.
"And what do you plan to do with that afterward?"
"I'm still deciding," Blaire said, with the direct honesty Wyatt recognized as her go-to response when something was true and there was no reason to disguise it.
Elena nodded as if that answer was completely satisfactory. "Wyatt wasn't sure what he wanted to do when he got to Clemson either," she said. "The only thing he was sure about was that he wanted to play football."
"I'm still sure about that," Wyatt said.
"Sure, but now you have more than that," Elena said, gesturing vaguely toward Blaire with the serving spoon.
From the other end of the table, Ed ate silently, though his eyes shifted between Wyatt and Blaire with his usual quiet evaluation.
"Do you have siblings?" Elena asked.
"No, I'm an only child," Blaire answered.
"And your parents?"
Wyatt caught the subtle shift in Blaire's expression—one that anyone who didn't know her would have missed completely. "I live with my aunt and uncle in Framingham," Blaire said, her voice remaining unchanged. "With my cousins."
Elena nodded without pressing further, displaying the natural sensitivity of someone who recognizes when a topic has its own boundaries. "And how is Boston in the winter?" she asked, smoothly steering the conversation.
"Cold," Blaire replied.
"Wyatt told me he went to see you in December of '13."
"He did."
"And it didn't bother you that he showed up unannounced?"
Blaire looked at Wyatt, who was looking down at his plate. "It was a surprise," Blaire said, choosing her words carefully.
"Good or bad?" Elena asked.
"Mom," Wyatt said.
"Good," Blaire replied.
Elena smiled with the specific satisfaction of someone who had just received official confirmation of something she already knew.
It was in that moment that Wyatt felt Blaire's hand move under the table, finding his and lacing her fingers through his without saying a word. Above the table, Elena kept up her stream of questions, Ed remained in his evaluative silence, and Max stayed curled up beside Blaire's chair—having decided over the last twenty minutes that she was his new favorite person in the house.
"Do you like football?" Ed asked suddenly from his end of the table, his voice as calm as ever.
Blaire looked at him. "I'm learning," she said.
A tiny smile appeared at the corner of Ed's mouth, disappearing almost as quickly as it had arrived. "Good," he said simply, turning back to his plate.
Wyatt knew right then that his father had made up his mind about his girlfriend.
At 7:45, the sound of Rudy's car arriving in the neighborhood preceded the vehicle itself, as his grandfather had been driving since the 1950s and held firm personal opinions about the appropriate volume for a car engine.
When the front door opened, Rudy stepped in first, hat in hand, with Caitlyn right behind him wearing a navy-blue scarf she never took off in January—even if Texas in January didn't have the kind of cold that strictly required scarves. Both paused for a moment upon seeing Blaire sitting at the table before Rudy shot Wyatt a look that Wyatt immediately recognized as the exact same one from that Christmas night.
"This must be the girl from Boston," Rudy said simply.
"Blaire," Wyatt said, "these are my grandparents, Rudy and Caitlyn."
Blaire stood up from her chair. Caitlyn greeted her with that straightforward warmth she brought to everything, while Rudy shook her hand with the same firm grip he gave everyone, regardless of size or circumstance.
"So, what do you think of Texas?" Rudy asked, taking a seat without any further preamble.
"It's big," Blaire replied.
Rudy nodded, as if that was the only correct answer.
Wyatt gave a light squeeze to Blaire's fingers, which were still intertwined with his under the table.
She didn't say a word, but she squeezed back.
Author thought
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