Chapter 22
LILY
This little sleep means a disastrous day and actions I can't be held responsible for.
Callahan left at dawn, which should have been the end of it, but then we started texting, and suddenly it was six in the morning.
Callahan, despite his size and frown, is adorable. Confused and lost and fumbling over his words, and I loved every second of it.
The Callahan of last night on the other hand, is a very intense surprise, one I will never get enough of that I have gotten a taste of. I wish I could call the girls and tell them they were right, so right.
Fuck pleasant, that is bullshit. What he made me feel last night, the way he took me and spoke to me, was everything.
But I can't tell them anything yet. This has to be ours for a while, before everyone starts grabbing at it and ruins it.
Now I'm lying here with my body buzzing and my brain refusing to shut up, and the sheets smell like him.
I pull his pillow to my face and inhale, letting the scent fill my lungs, and I must fall asleep like that because the next thing I know my phone is screaming at me from the nightstand and the clock says 7:45 a.m.
Poppy's name flashes on the screen. I answer, and I have to hold the phone far from my ear because she's already screaming.
"HE PROPOSED."
"What?" I'm still half-asleep, still smelling Callahan on the pillowcase, still trying to remember what year it is.
"RAMSEY. PROPOSED. LAST NIGHT. LILY, GET DOWN HERE."
She hangs up before I can respond. Three seconds later, a text from Erin arrives.
Erin
Shop. Now. Bring coffee. She's nuclear.
I roll out of bed like something that's been dead for three days, and I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror on the way to the shower.
My hair is a disaster. Unfortunately not cute-messy, but genuinely wrecked like either a windstorm or a man's hands fisted in it for hours. My lips are still swollen, pink and obvious in a way no amount of lip balm is going to explain.
And there, just above my collarbone, is a bruise. Thumbprint-sized. Turning purple at the edges. I press my finger to it and wince. Then I smile.
Concealer. Turtleneck. Ponytail. Coffee. Go.
The shop is chaos when I arrive. Poppy is sitting on the counter with her legs swinging like a kid on a sugar high, holding her left hand up to the light like she's trying to catch the ring on fire.
Erin is holding that same hand, squinting at the stone like a jeweler, already on the verge of tears.
"Girl." Poppy sees me and grabs me before I can even set the coffee down, pulling me into a hug so tight the cup sloshes against my fingers. "Look at it. Look at my hand. Look at what he did."
I look. The ring is rose gold, oval cut, delicate but tough. It looks like it's always been on her finger. Like it grew there.
But it's her face that stops me. Poppy is always bright, always radiating something warm and chaotic and impossible to ignore, but this is different.
She's glowing from somewhere deeper. This is the face of a woman who has been loved loudly and completely by Ramsey King for years, and who finally gets to wear the proof of it on her hand.
"Tell me everything," I say, climbing onto the counter beside her.
Erin hands me tissues I don't need yet, but will soon. She knows me.
"It was private," Poppy says, looking at the ring again like she still can't believe it's there.
"Just us. At the house, on the back porch, after dinner.
He said just the best things ever, and I was a sobbing mess, I tell you honestly.
Got down on one knee and asked me, and I said yes before he finished the sentence. "
She wipes her eyes. "He laughed and I cried and then he cried, which he will deny, and then we just sat on the porch for an hour not saying anything."
Erin makes a sound like a small animal being gently crushed. I put my arm around her.
"And then," Poppy adds, grinning now, "he fucked me so good."
And now we're all crying and laughing at the same time, and I am genuinely, bone-deep, tearfully happy for her.
Poppy deserves this. She deserves a man who cries when she says yes.
She deserves porch silences and rose gold rings and someone who looks at her the way Ramsey does, like she's the only interesting thing in any room she walks into.
She elaborates on the proposal while Erin and I listen, passing the tissue box back and forth. The dinner Ramsey made. The way he kept touching his pocket all night. How she knew something was coming because Ramsey can't keep a secret from her now, and the anticipation was almost unbearable.
I listen and try to follow, but underneath it all, there's this low current running through me. Callahan's mouth on my neck. His voice in my ear. The way he said my name like it hurt him.
I shift my focus back to the ring, the porch, Ramsey's tears. I exhale into my coffee cup and let my friend's happiness carry me through the morning.
My body quietly reminds me with every shift on the counter exactly what I was doing a few hours ago.
After that, instead of going home to sleep, I call my doctor and schedule a copper IUD at Harbor Hill General for tomorrow. If Callahan thought I'd hesitate about the no condom thing, he was about to learn how little he knew me.
The compound looks like a magazine shoot at golden hour.
Warm light spilling from every window, cars lined up along the drive, and the smell of roasting food hitting me before I even close my car door.
Poppy insisted on a proper dinner to celebrate, which means the whole family, good plates, enough food for a small army.
I walk in with Erin and Rome. Rome has his hand on Erin's lower back, guiding her through the door like she might float away if he doesn't anchor her. It's sweet. Also mildly nauseating, but mostly sweet.
The kitchen is already full when we arrive.
Beth has claimed the stove and is doing something with root vegetables that smells like autumn in summer, all caramelized and warm.
Vera is setting the table with her usual precision, each fork aligned to the millimeter.
And Gran is in her chair at the head of the island, wine glass already half empty even though the evening hasn't technically started.
Does no one question the amount of wine this woman consumes?
"There she is." Gran points her glass at me like she's selecting me from a lineup. "The beautiful one. Come here."
I go to her happily. Gran grabs my face with her free hand and inspects me, turning my head left then right like she's checking for defects.
"Tired," she announces. "Why are you tired? Twenty-two-year-olds don't get tired."
I shrug. "I had a long night."
"Doing what?"
"Existing, Gran. It's exhausting."
She releases my face, satisfied or distracted, and turns to Rome, who is opening a bottle of wine.
"Rome, darling. Pour me another before that one's even open, would you?"
"You haven't finished the first one, Clara," he says without looking up.
"I'm planning ahead. It's called efficiency. You of all people should appreciate that."
He pours a second glass without comment and sets it beside the first. Gran surveys both glasses with deep contentment, like she has the world exactly where she wants it.
At the far end of the kitchen, Ramsey is leaning against the counter.
He's not doing anything, just watching Poppy move around the room, beer in hand, his mouth relaxed into an almost-smile.
He's unfairly hot tonight, and he's absolutely radiating, like getting engaged has unlocked some new level of smugness in him.
Poppy catches his eye and blows a kiss across the kitchen. He catches it. Actually catches it, pressing his hand to his chest. I should find it corny, instead my heart goes stupid.
Dinner comes together in the usual chaos. Too much food, everyone talking over everyone. Gran provides commentary on everything from the roast to the state of modern romance, which apparently isn't what it used to be.
I end up between Vera and Beth. Callahan is across from me and one seat to the right, next to Ramsey. Close enough to see his hands when he reaches for his glass. Close enough that I could stretch my leg under the table and reach him if I wanted to.
Which I won't. Because I'm an adult with self-control. And because Rome has a radar for anything fun.
Rome has his arm around Erin's chair, and during the second course he leans over and says something against her ear, something low and private that I can't hear. Erin turns pink, staring at her plate like it might save her.
I make an involuntary face. Watching my brother make women blush is somewhere between disgusting and medically distressing.
"Rome Moreland." Gran's voice carries across the table like a foghorn. "Leave that girl alone or she'll be telling the whole town about whatever filthy thing you just said. Don't test that filter. We all know she doesn't have one."
Erin buries her face against Rome's shoulder. Rome doesn't flinch, just holds that cool expression of his. I wish I could be as unbothered as him.
"I do as I wish with my girl, Clara," Rome says evenly, his hand still on Erin's shoulder. "What she tells the town after is none of my business."
There's one second of silence, then Gran raises her glass with visible pride. "To shameless Rome and unfiltered Erin. God help this town."
Everyone drinks. Erin emerges from Rome's shoulder and shrugs with her palms up, the universal gesture for when the accusation is accurate. Rome kisses the side of her head and returns to his food like nothing happened.
I drop my eyes to my plate because if I watch them any longer I'm going to burst with happiness.
This is my life now. Once it was just me and Rome.
Now it's Erin and Poppy and Beth and Vera and Gran and Ramsey.
Callahan and Will. All these people who took us in without hesitation, without question, like we'd always been theirs.