34. Twenty-Six #2
Black. Simple. The kind that requires no accessories because the woman wearing it is the entire event. Her hair is down, loose around her shoulders, and she’s wearing the earrings Sienna gave her for Christmas—small silver hoops that catch the candlelight when she turns her head.
She’s also carrying a gift bag that’s comically oversized for whatever’s inside, because Emma’s never once in her life done anything at appropriate scale.
“Happy birthday.” She kisses me. Right there. In the entrance of a restaurant where anyone could see. Where someone probably will see. Where the hostess is already smiling and a couple at a nearby table has glanced over with the reflexive curiosity of people witnessing public affection.
Four weeks ago, this would have been unthinkable. Now it’s just Monday.
“You made a reservation under Mrs. Patterson,” I tell her as we sit.
“It was the first name that came to mind.”
“You could have, you know, used your actual name.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” She slides the gift bag across the table. “Open it.”
“We haven’t even ordered.”
Still, I open it. Inside, beneath an excessive amount of tissue paper, is a frame. Simple. Black. Matching the two already on my bookshelf.
The photo inside makes me stop breathing.
A selfie she took the day on the sledding hill. Both of us smiling, my arm around her, our faces touching. The perfect day.
The kind of day we can soon make every day. At least until June first.
“For the shelf,” she tells me. “If you want.”
If I want . As if there’s a version of reality where I don’t want a photo that captures Emma with pure joy on her face.
“Not the shelf.” I run my thumb across the frame. “I think this deserves space in the bedroom. ”
“I’ve officially made it to nightstand territory, huh?”
I set the frame down carefully. Look across the table at the woman who has been rewriting my life since she picked up a phone at seventeen and told me I wasn’t broken. “That engagement photo was on my nightstand in Chicago,” I admit. “Looked at it every night.”
Every night. Even when we weren’t talking. Even when I was failing at forgetting about her. Because, like I said before, there’s nothing I delete about Emma Cole.
I clear my throat, fill the sudden silence. “Grayson texted today.”
I show her the screen. Three words in a gray bubble.
She reads them. Reads my response. Her eyes go bright in the candlelight.
“Sienna told me he watched the Elite Eight game from their living room. Yelled at the TV when Minnesota scored. Called their power play ‘a disgrace to organized hockey.’”
“That sounds like Gray.”
“It is Gray. And he’ll come back, Luke. All the way back.
He just needs to do it at his own speed.
” She reaches across the table. Takes my hand.
Threads her fingers through mine the way she did in the truck on the highway when everything changed.
“In five weeks, you’ll be standing next to him when he marries the love of his life.
And when he looks at you, he’s going to see the same person he’s always seen.
His brother. The rest is just scar tissue. ”
I want to believe her. Most of me does. The part that doesn’t is the same part that’s been expecting abandonment since my father stopped calling.
But Emma’s hand is in mine. And Grayson texted. And Addison brought a cupcake. And Zane sent a photo from Vegas. And Sienna confirmed the fitting.
People showed up.
“Thank you,” I say. “For the photo. For the dinner. For—”
“If you say ‘for everything,’ I’m going to throw this bread roll at your head. Be specific.”
“For making a reservation under Mrs. Patterson. That woman is going to be thrilled she’s famous.”
Emma laughs. The one that makes me want to record it and play it on a loop during the nine months she’ll be in Lake Placid or Colorado Springs, or wherever the most elite hockey players in the United States are housed .
“What are you thinking?” she asks, reading my face the way she reads defensive formations.
“That I’m twenty-six. That I’m having dinner with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
That in five weeks I’ll stand next to my best friend in a suit and try not to cry.
That in nine weeks you’ll be in Lake Placid becoming everything I always knew you could be.
” I squeeze her hand. “And that I’m the luckiest man alive.
Even on the days it doesn’t feel like it. ”
“That’s very poetic for someone who once described his feelings as ‘complicated logistical considerations.’”
“I’ve been coached. By this incredibly demanding woman who insists I use actual human words instead of hockey metaphors.”
“She sounds brilliant.”
I lift her hand. Kiss her knuckles the way I did on Christmas Eve, when I couldn’t give her more but gave her everything I had. “She’s alright.”
The waiter arrives. Emma orders something with an ingredient I can’t pronounce because of course she does. I order steak because I’m twenty-six and predictable and happy in a way that still surprises me every time I notice it.
We eat. We talk. About next season’s roster and Lake Placid logistics and whether Sloane will survive training camp without someone to provide running commentary on her love life.
About the wedding—seating charts, rehearsal dinner timing, whether Grayson will attempt to give his own toast or delegate to Zane, who will inevitably make it inappropriate.
About us. About the apartment lease I’m renewing in May.
About the toothbrush she left in my bathroom that I moved to the holder instead of the drawer because there’s no drawer anymore.
No hiding. Just a blue toothbrush next to my black one, visible to anyone who walks in, because that’s what we are now.
Visible. Real. Ours.
Twenty-six.
And I’ve never been more excited to see what this year brings.