Chapter 179: Madeline
As soon as we step inside, still a little damp from the drizzle, Finn looks up from the kitchen and raises his eyebrows.
“What was that whole cat situation?” he asks, grinning like he already knows it was something ridiculous.
I wipe my hands on my sleeves and shrug casually. “There was a kid crying in the alley because his cat got stuck on the roof. I just... got her down.”
Finn blinks. “You climbed something.”
I nod. “Stacked crates. It was very structurally unsound. Ten out of ten do not recommend.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re insane.”
Charlie chimes in, hauling a bag over her shoulder and dumping it near the couch. “What’s really insane is me carrying all her heavy-ass notebooks and books here. That’s true friendship. I want it on the record.”
From behind her, Jake crosses his arms and deadpans. “I’m the one who carried it.”
Charlie doesn’t even flinch, just brings the bag closer to me. “Irrelevant.”
I gasp a little, grinning, clutching my hands to my chest. “Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you! You have no idea. I’ve been dying to look at the charts from last week, and I wanted to compare the temperature dips post-storm and—”
Silence.
I turn around.
Everyone is staring at me. Liam has his arms crossed, looking both amused and confused.
“…You’re such a nerd,” he says.
Charlie snorts, covering her face.
Jake shakes his head like he’s trying not to laugh, and even Finn is grinning like I just said I wanted to marry a whale.
I narrow my eyes and grab one of my notebooks from the pile, swatting Liam on the arm. “You’re lucky I’m a nice nerd.”
He laughs, throwing an arm around my shoulders and pulling me into a one-armed hug. “I am lucky. Wouldn’t trade you for anyone else.”
“Aww,” Charlie coos dramatically. “You guys are so cute. Are we gonna cry now?”
“No,” I say firmly. “But we are gonna review feeding pattern anomalies.”
Liam groans.
Finn covers his face with a pillow.
Jake mutters, “Oh no.”
I grin and flop onto the couch. “You all mock me now, but wait until I show you my charts.”
“Terrifying,” Reid says.
“Utter menace,” Finn adds.
“Created in a lab, I told you,” Charlie finishes.
But I’m already flipping open my notebook with the biggest, nerdiest smile on my face.
I review charts for a good forty minutes, completely in the zone — my little notebook fortress around me, a pen behind my ear, another in my hand. I’m halfway through cross-referencing temperature shifts when I hear pots clanking and someone saying, “Food, now. Or I’ll eat a dry sock.”
Liam, obviously.
I glance up to see everyone moving around, pulling out ingredients and unboxing the supplies Finn and I brought. I gently close my notebook and stand, stretching out my arms. My brain is buzzing from the numbers, but in a good way.
Everyone’s helping — Charlie’s slicing the bread, Liam is in charge of butter for some reason (questionable decision), and Finn’s unpacking the cheeses with this weird reverence like they’re holy relics. I take over stirring the soup on the small propane stove.
“It’s tomato and red pepper,” I tell Reid, who’s passing by.
“Is that your way of telling me it's all they had left?” he says without looking at me, grabbing a handful of spoons.
I grin. “Wouldn't have been my first choice.”
Jake reappears from the hallway, holding two bottles of wine above his head like he just won a prize.
“Okay,” he says. “Two rules. One: no one gets drunk enough to forget how to walk. And two: no throwing anything that could injure someone or damage property.”
Charlie holds up a butter knife. “Define ‘injure.’”
Jake doesn’t even blink. “If blood comes out, you went too far.”
Reid, who’s stacking plates like the world’s most reluctant host, mutters under his breath, “This is just to help everyone warm up. And help me stand being in the same house with this many people for this long.”
I bite back a giggle.
He catches my eye.
“Don’t laugh,” he warns.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say sweetly, hiding my smile behind the soup spoon.
He grumbles something and turns away, but I see the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth. My grumpy man is trying his best, but he’s definitely not used to this much chaos in his personal space. Every time someone bumps into him, I swear I see a vein twitch.
But he stays. He helps. He’s here.
And that — plus soup, wine, and buttered bread — makes everything feel just a little warmer.
We’re all bundled up in layers, huddled around the kitchen and eating like we just survived the apocalypse—which, to be fair, isn’t that far off. The soup is hot, the bread is soft, and the wine Jake brought out is making everyone just warm enough to not murder each other in this electricity-less house.
It’s quiet. The kind of quiet where you can hear every scrape of a spoon against ceramic, the wind groaning through the trees outside, the occasional sigh. Not awkward, just… still. Calm, for once.
Then Liam, out of nowhere, says with his mouth half full of cheese, “Wait. Charlie, didn’t you say you had, like, a ton of stories from when Reid and Jake were actually fun to be around?”
I nearly choke on my sip of wine. Across from me, Charlie’s eyes go huge, and her whole body lights up like someone just handed her the mic at a roast.
“Oh my god,” she gasps, practically dropping her spoon. She slaps her hands together dramatically. “I have so many.”
Reid and Jake—sitting on either end of the table like they’re the grumpy kings of this broken-down castle—groan in unison, so perfectly synced it has to be genetic.
Jake rubs a hand down his face like he’s preparing for battle. Reid just mutters, “You don’t have to do this.”
Charlie beams. “Oh, I do.”
I lean in, already grinning. “I feel like we’ve earned these stories.”
“You have,” she says, all smug and glowing with menace. “You definitely have.”
Jake points a warning finger at her. “No fire stories.”
Charlie ignores him completely. “Did I ever tell you guys about the time they—”
“Nope,” Reid cuts in sharply. “Dinner’s over.”
“It’s not,” Charlie sings.
I giggle behind my glass, already knowing this night just got ten times more interesting.