At least we both felt the same way about each other.

I glanced at Dallas’s face as he stared hard at his brother. Huh. “Ready to eat?”

Silently, we headed over to the dining room, nestled in between the living room and kitchen. I wasn’t going to deny it. It was awkward. From Miss Pearl taking a seat as she scowled at something on the table—maybe I should have put names in front of the plates, I didn’t know—to the expression the two brothers shared, the weirdness was there. It was definitely alive and well.

“Need help?” Dallas asked as he stood behind Miss Pearl’s seat after pushing her chair in.

“I’ve got it. There’re only two more things I need to grab,” I explained, watching as Lou slipped out of his chair and darted into the kitchen ahead of me. “I have help already. Thanks.”

I’d barely taken a step into the kitchen when Louie said, “I can help, Tia.” Grabbing the bread I’d left warming in the oven, I slipped the sticks onto a plate and handed them over to him with a wink before nabbing the meatballs from the oven too.

The head of the table had been left empty and somehow Louie ended up sitting next to Miss Pearl while Dallas took the seat closest to mine with his brother on his right. I had to fight the urge to rub my hands over my pants. Fuck it. “We don’t usually pray, but if you want to…”

Miss Pearl guffawed. “Us neither. Amen.”

And with that, I started scooping pasta onto her plate first, following it up with sauce and meatballs. Dallas asked Louie for his plate and added pasta, and then taking the ladle from me, he put meatballs with a little marinara drizzled. “Is that good, Louie?” he asked my boy first, and then, “How many breadsticks do you want?”

“Parmesan?” I asked my neighbor, still watching the other two out of my peripheral vision.

“Load me up, if you will,” the older woman confirmed.

I was in the middle of sprinkling cheese when Dallas slipped my plate out from in front of me and started adding food onto it. “You want more?” he asked me just as I set the plate in front of his grandmother.

“Yes, please,” I said before telling him when to stop. No one, besides my mom, had ever served me food before. No one.

His wife was an idiot. His wife was a giant, fucking idiot with a little crazy sprinkled in.

Dallas finished serving me, then himself, and finally handed the serving utensils over to his brother. None of us talked much as we ate, but Dallas met my gaze more than a few times while we did, and we shared a smirk or two.

“I like my meatballs with more thyme and my sauce with more garlic, but I would come over for dinner again if you invited me,” Miss Pearl noted in that brutally honest way of hers as she was finishing up the food on her plate.

All I could do was hold back and smile and nod, biting the inside of my cheek the entire time. “Thanks.”

“I’m full,” Lou moaned from his spot.

I eyed his plate. “Two more bites, please.”

He sighed, blinked at his plate a couple of times, and nodded, shoveling the smallest forkful I’d ever seen into his mouth. Smart-ass.

“Any dessert?” Miss Pearl piped up.

Dessert? Shit. “I have vanilla ice cream.”

She was dabbing at the corners of her mouth when she answered, “That sounds lovely.”

“Okay.”

“Dallas, Jackson, would you like some?”

“I’d love some,” Dallas replied quickly, not so subtly eyeing his brother.

Jackson…

“No.” Silence. “Thank you.”

I nodded and headed into the kitchen. What the hell was wrong with that guy? Was he just embarrassed about what happened months ago? Someone needed to grow up.

I was in the middle of pulling the package of cones out of a cabinet when I heard, “Need help?” In what I now thought of as his usual spot, Dallas had a hip against the counter closest to the dining room, looking even bigger than ever before in his dark shirt.

“Sure. The ice cream is in the freezer, if you can grab it.”

Dallas dipped his head before going for the container as I found the scooper in a drawer. He handed it over while I pulled out a cone. I only managed to put one scoop into the first cone before I broke down. “Is your brother still mad about the thing outside your place or does he hate everyone?” I whispered.

There was no hesitation in his response, but he did lower his voice. “He hates everyone.”

I couldn’t help but snicker as I snuck him a quick glance. “I guess that makes me feel better.”

His chuckle was so low I could barely hear it, but it made me grin as I dug the metal spoon into the container. Dallas took the cone from me and handed me a new one. “He was a kid when our dad died. He handled it really bad,” he explained quietly, his voice a gentle rumble. “I left for the navy and he didn’t take that well either. Things went downhill from there.”

Something about that didn’t sound right. “Downhill how?”

His little hum didn’t sit well with me. “He’s been in jail.”

My hand only paused for a second halfway inside the container. “For what?”

“Mostly drugs.”

Mostly drugs. What the hell did that mean? How many times had that fucker been in jail?

“He hasn’t messed around with that in a while,” Dallas quickly explained as he must have noticed me not moving. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”