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The urge to respond with I know was right there on my lips. I caught myself before I said something stupid. I’d have no way of explaining that one away. Unfortunately, my dad didn’t miss that detail. He looked up from chopping cucumbers for the salad to stare at me, a slight frown furrowing his brows.

“Your coach went to Florida with you?” he asked.

The temperature in the room skyrocketed as every muscle in my body locked up. Shit. For one horrible second, I tried to calculate how quickly I could invent an explanation without making it obvious I was making one up.

Thankfully, Jude beat me to it.

“Rhodes went back to Orlando for the weekend,” he said. “Something about a friend or someone getting married. He was in the wedding, I think, but I don’t know. I just know he was on a boat.”

Relief hit me so quickly I nearly laughed. I didn’t have the words for how grateful I was for Jude. I leaned against the table as I grinned.

“Was it a big boat?” I asked, to be a shithead. My dad seemed satisfied with the interaction and went back to the salad.

“I don’t know! He didn’t invite me, and that’s why I raided his house.” Jude finally put Roscoe down and bent to untie his boots. “And I made this really cool set of wood coasters over the weekend.”

At the mention of wood coasters, Mom abandoned whatever she’d been doing at the stove to ask him what kind of wood he’d used, what kind of designs he’d burned, and what else he could make with the kit. Jude responded confidently as if he hadn’t just picked up the hobby less than forty-eight hours ago. His ability to teach himself things was enviable.

As they talked, I carried serving dishes to the table while Dad followed with the rest. I listened to Jude explain everything about burning tips in great detail as Mom nodded as if she understood what he was saying. She didn’t, but by the time we sat down to eat, she’d requested eight floral coasters and a new charcuterie board to match.

“And how’s your Mom feeling?” Mom asked when salads had been dished out.

The change in Jude was subtle, and if I didn’t know him so well, I would’ve missed it. His shoulders stiffened just slightly as he reached for his drink. He never once looked at her as he replied.

“Um…” He drew in a deep breath. “She’s okay. It’s been a harder few days, but she says she’s feeling on the up and up, so that’s good.”

The words were too casual, and so was his smile. My appetite disappeared as I watched him closely. I wanted to ask more—wanted to know what harder meant, whether Rhodes knew, and if there was anything I could do to help Mrs. Kennedy.

But Jude’s smile was already wider and easier. I could literally see how he transformed before he ever said a word.

“I’m supposed to invite all of you to Thanksgiving,” he began, “but I’m also supposed to warn you that Rhodes and I are doing the cooking.”

I choked on my food as I laughed, and Dad immediately slapped a hand against my back hard enough to nearly launch me into the table. It would’ve helped if I could stop laughing. The image of those two cooking together was too much. Rhodes, who approached cooking like a complex engineering problem, paired with Jude, who once managed to burn microwave popcorn so bad that we had to evacuate the kitchen.

Holy shit, Thanksgiving was going to be a disaster. I couldn’t wait.

“Tell your parents we’ll be there,” Dad said. His attention still lingered on me as I wheezed and tried to regain my composure. Mom just nodded in agreement.

“And if you need me to help with anything, you just let me know,” she offered. “You know I’m more than happy to pop over. I have so many great recipes I could share with you too. You know, if you two would rather I cook everything and bring it over, I could do that too. Lord knows you two have so much to deal with as is. You don’t need to add cooking a whole holiday meal to that list.”

“I think we’ve got this,” he told her, which only made me laugh harder.

Jude lingered after dinner long enough to help Mom clear the table, steal two leftover rolls for later, and give Roscoe another overly dramatic goodbye. By the time I followed him out the back door with Roscoe whining incessantly from inside, the sun had disappeared. The neighborhood was dark with a spattering of street lamps and driveway lights.

He was halfway across the yard when I caught up.

“You went hiking.” It wasn’t a question. I’d heard him say it but let it slide because that wasn’t a conversation to have in front of my parents. He would’ve blown it off anyway.

Jude didn’t hike. He barely tolerated walking somewhere if a car could get him there instead. His preferred relationship with nature involved outdoor workouts, football fields, and drinking on somebody’s porch. He didn’t just voluntarily put on hiking boots and flannel and disappear into the woods for fun. Which meant his clothes weren’t some Maine-fashion awakening. He was running to the woods for a reason, and that worried me.

“You caught that, did you?” Jude asked, glancing over his shoulder at me. A small half-smile lifted one side of his mouth and vanished quickly.

“Yeah, I did,” I replied. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I just needed a break,” he whispered. My mind went straight to his mom. It was the only explanation that made sense, especially after the way he’d talked about her at dinner. I didn’t push, but that didn’t stop the worry—not just for him but for his mom and for Rhodes. The weight of the situation was one I’d never truly be able to understand. “She’ll be okay.”

“Good,” I said. It was the only answer I could give him. I wasn’t convinced. Not by a long shot. But I also recognized that he’d probably repeated those words to himself so many times over the last few days that he needed them to be true. Maybe saying them out loud made it feel okay.

I just hoped to hell he was right.