Makenna bustled about making sure the younger kids had food, drinks with lids, and napkins tucked into their shirts.
“Phew,” she said as she finally took a seat, long after everyone else had begun to eat.
He cleared his throat.
Makenna’s eyes popped when she looked at him, almost as though she’d forgotten he was there. “Are you not hungry?” she asked, gaze on his empty plate.
He lifted the giant bowl of spaghetti and held it out to her. The ceramic had chipped in multiple places, same with the plates, but no one seemed to notice or care. Not that he did. Hell, he knew firsthand what it meant to live without. “Ladies first,” he said.
Makenna made a small sound of disbelief with her jaw hanging open then she gave him a smile that lit his insides. “Thank you,” she said as she took the offered bowl. Her cheeks pinked and the two words held sincerity and a bit of awe. As if no one considered her or put her first.
Hell, taking care of all these kids, which it seemed was exactly her responsibility, had to be a thankless and draining job. If she did indeed have guardianship over all these kids, she was a twenty-three-year-old single mother of five. The stress and hardships she must deal with day to day boggled his mind. Suddenly he saw her in an entirely different light. Makenna was as unselfish as they came and absolutely incredible. The things she must sacrifice for her family…
Damn, he’d given away that houseplant Shell brought him when he rented his place. Keeping the thing alive had been more responsibility than he’d been willing to undertake. Hell, keeping himself breathing took all his energy some days, and here she was, younger than him and so together.
After dishing out about a third of the portion size he’d have taken for himself, Makenna passed the bowl back to him. “Please, eat as much as you want. I always make extra pasta.”
After loading his plate, he gazed around the table at the happily eating children who spoke with their mouths full, giggled and teased each other. Now that they were eating, none of them seemed bothered by the stranger at the table, though the fifteen-year-old Amy sent him curious glances from the corner of her eye every so often.
The scene was so domestic it could have come straight from one of those made for TV movies. He shifted, tugging at the collar of his T-shirt. Felt like the damn thing was shrink-wrapped to his body and tightening down by the second. He could honestly say this was the first time in his twenty-five years that he’d ever sat through a family dinner. Hell, as a kid, he’d often eaten nothing but cereal and sandwiches for weeks on end. His mother had been too busy entertaining clients to come home for a meal, let alone cook one. Sure, the club got together for barbecues and meals on the regular, but that was more a loud, slightly less inappropriate than a typical party, not an intimate family gathering where people who loved each other talked about their day and shit.
Every few seconds, the urge to flee the table and run screaming out the door hit him full in the face. The only thing keeping his ass in the seat was fear over his club brother’s wrath. Zach would beat him bloody if he ditched Makenna mid-meal, and she vented to Toni. Christ, and if she said something to Jazz, he’d have Gumby and Screw looking to pound him to dust. Not to mention if Shell caught wind of it. Last thing he needed was to get on his president’s shit list five minutes after patching in. Even this family lovefest was preferable to an ass-chewing by Copper.
Makenna gave him a shy smile before holding up a bottle of wine. “You look like you could use some of this.”
Fuck yes. Wine wasn’t his thing, give him a beer or some vodka, and he was a happy man. But there was alcohol in that wine, and he needed it. “Thanks,” he said.
She wouldn’t meet his gaze as she picked up a plastic tumbler and filled it halfway with the yellowish wine. It was a white, not a red. That was about as much as he knew about the stuff.
“Sorry, I don’t have wine glasses. But I’ve got the wine. Comes in handy after taking care of these crazies all day.”
She probably meant it as a joke, something to ease the thick tension, but he didn’t laugh. He couldn’t. The real reason he didn’t leave despite being way outside his comfort zone was Mak herself. She didn’t deserve to have him act like a complete jerk and bail on her before he’d had a chance to eat the meal she’d probably spent hours pre—“Holy sh—shoot,” he said, glancing at the child across from him who was far too busy shoveling spaghetti in her trap to have noticed his near slip-up. “Makenna, this is delicious.” And it was. Easily the best meal he had in years, maybe ever.