Chapter 15
AMELIA
Everyone’s arriving for the weekend in waves.
Lunch is already half-set. The kitchen smells like garlic and rosemary, and is alive with movement and the kind of conversations that spill over like wine.
The voices aren’t loud, but they’re layered.
With belonging, memory, and the slow unfolding of forever.
The house feels like it’s waking up fully.
Somewhere outside, Luna is yelling about fairies, while Sarah can be heard saying, very seriously, “You can’t just make up fairy rules, Luna. Fairies don’t use glitter like that.”
Inside, Gage is slicing tomatoes. Calm as ever. Fully in control. I know there’s nothing this day could throw at him that he wouldn’t handle with ease, because that ability is wired into him. I’m trying to help, but mostly I’m just watching him and wishing I had even half that ability.
And then, the front door creaks open, and Tim’s voice echoes dramatically through the house. “IF THERE AREN’T ANY SNACKS, I’M STARTING A COUP.”
He enters the kitchen a moment later, grinning. He’s louder and more theatrical when he says, “THIS KITCHEN BETTER HAVE A CHEESE BOARD!”
Marin, seated cross-legged in the window nook, doesn’t look up from the herbs she’s lining up on the sill. “You could summon that man with a Brie wheel and a chant.”
Gage doesn’t say a word. Just moves to the left, opens the fridge, and starts pulling things out.
Brie. Manchego. Sharp cheddar. A wedge of aged parmesan that I know he picked up just for this.
Sliced apples in a sealed container. A little dish of candied walnuts.
And of course, the jar of fig jam with Marin’s name labeled on it in glitter ink that he ordered for her from the little shop in Avelen Hollow he knows she adores.
He starts building the board like he knows exactly how many cheeses it’ll take to keep Tim from emotionally collapsing before 2 p.m. Because the Sinclair siblings run on cheese and dramatic coping mechanisms. And Gage never forgets what people need. Even when they don’t say it out loud.
I don’t think he and Tim fully understand each other yet. But Gage always matches chaos with calm, and Tim seems to find it fascinating. Like he’s still poking the edges to see where the bite lives.
We’re all still learning each other. The Blacks and the Sinclairs.
That’s what this is. This weekend, this wedding, this very full kitchen.
A learning curve made of fairy crowns, crystal bundles, Tim and Colin opening the fridge like they’ve lived here for months, and a fantasy football standoff between the Black brothers that started in the driveway earlier and hasn’t stopped since.
Tim goes quiet for exactly two seconds after Gage starts laying down cheese. Then, “Okay. This is rude. Honestly? This is an emotional ambush.” He gestures at the board. “Brie, Manchego, parmesan, apple slices, candied walnuts? Are you trying to seduce my loyalty?”
Marin looks up at him now. “You don’t have loyalty. You have cravings.”
“Yes,” Tim agrees. “And this is meeting all of them with a tiny golden spoon.”
I glance down, and of course there’s a tiny golden spoon resting next to the truffle honey. Because Gage doesn’t just make a cheese board. He orchestrates a full-sensory offering to emotionally feed everyone I love like it’s a tactical mission.
Colin’s leaning against the counter beside me, arms folded, watching the whole thing in the same way one would watch a scientific case study. He likes Gage. I know that. But Colin doesn’t rush in like Tim. He watches and waits. Makes sure.
He hasn’t said it out loud, but I know what he’s doing. Logging data. Watching Gage move through my life. He’s not looking for a reason to doubt it. He’s just making sure I was right to bet my forever on this.
Tim eyes the glittery sticker on the jam jar that reads: MARIN’S. DO NOT OPEN UNLESS ENERGETICALLY READY. “You labeling jam now, Black?”
“Wasn’t me,” Gage says, still focused on assembling cheese. “It came that way.”
“You get extra parmesan?”
Gage eyes him. “You think I’d forget yours and your sister’s love of parmesan? There’s enough in the fridge to feed you both for a week.”
“That’s what I thought,” Tim says, awe in his voice. “I, for one, am ready to crown you a Sinclair.”
I bite down on a laugh and immediately tear up. I’m already emotionally unstable and it’s not even 1 p.m.
The side door swings open, and Gage’s brothers join us. They’ve been settling into their cottages and out walking the property. Doing whatever it is Black brothers do when they’re relaxing together. Probably talking football. And just letting the quiet do what it does out here.
Callan’s first, beelining for the bread basket. “Smells like Marin’s casting something.”
“Only blessings,” she says. “Unless someone touches the moon jam without permission.”
Yes, Marin loves her jam. She got the moon jam from Bloom & Bury, the flower shop in Avelen Hollow. Well, kind of a flower shop. It’s also a little witchy. And maybe sentient. The same shop Gage collected the fig jam from this morning.
Ms. Rosewood runs it. She wears all black linen and talks like she once dated the moon.
Marin dragged me there the time she came with me to Blackbriar and said I needed to pick a flower that resonated with my heart wound.
I told her I didn’t have one. Ms. Rosewood looked at me for all of five seconds and then handed me a dried peony and said, “For the part of you that’s still learning how to be loved gently. ”
So now I go once a week and pretend it’s for the tea.
The jam came wrapped in velvet with a handwritten note about “lunar vibration and soft closures.” I don’t know what’s in it.
Marin says it’s safe but also told me only to eat it if I’m in the right emotional state.
Since I’ve no idea what the right emotional state actually is, I’ve made peace with never tasting it.
Ethan looks at Marin. “What the hell is moon jam?”
“It’s grief in fruit form, obviously,” she says, like why wouldn’t you know that.
“Right,” he says, looking even more confused. “Obviously.”
“It’s made under a waning moon,” she elaborates, “and blessed with rose quartz for soft grief extraction. Don’t touch it unless you’re emotionally fluent or spiritually flame-retardant.”
Ethan stares at her for a beat, then grins, wide and easy, like she just told him something important. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “I can respect that. That’s jam’s doing shadow work.”
Then he glances at Gage, still grinning, and adds softly under his breath, “Your people are intense.”
Gage, completely unfazed, just carries on with what he’s doing. Which is scanning the room, silently taking inventory of who’s arrived and what they might need.
Bradford walks a slow lap around the kitchen island, inspecting all the food. He zeroes in on the truffle honey, picking up the spoon with the confidence of a man who plans to enjoy this and apologize to no one for eating it.
Before he can sample it, Kristen walks in and is suddenly beside him, one brow arched. “You’re not actually going to eat that now, are you?”
“I was just inspecting the flavor profile,” he says smoothly.
“Mmhmm.” She plucks the spoon from his hand. “Don’t play cute, senator. I’ve seen this game before. You’ll eat half the damn jar before lunch.”
His lips twitch as if he wants to argue with her. But that’s not it at all because the look in his eyes says something very different. It’s love. Easy, open, deeply amused love. It says he’d let her steal the spoon and every single comeback from his mouth every damn time and still thank her for it.
Ethan shakes his head, grinning again. “Man, you are so gone for her. It’s honestly inspiring.”
“Inspiring?” Callan snorts. “It’s borderline alarming. Bradford folds the second Kristen even thinks about raising an eyebrow.”
“I value my life,” Bradford says, completely unruffled. “And my marriage.”
“Strategic surrender is still a win in his book,” Kristen says.
Ethan nods at her. “Yeah, that’s more like it. He values winning. Which is why he’s starting to get unbearable now that fantasy playoffs are rolling around.”
“He’s unbearable?” Callan says. “You lost one game and rage-dropped your entire bench. Except the undroppables, because the app wouldn’t let you be as dramatic as you wanted.”
“I had six injured players,” Ethan mutters. “And a baby who thinks sleep is negotiable.”
“Sounds like excuses,” Hayden murmurs from beside me, not bothering to look up from his phone where he’s tapping out a message.
“Sounds like facts,” Ethan retorts.
Kristen steals a grape from the board while eyeing Callan. “Careful, Callan, or we’ll bring up the time you lost a playoff game because you started a backup tight end ‘for the vibes’, even when Liv told you not to.”
Ethan grins. Bradford gives his wife a look that says that’s my woman. And Hayden chuckles next to me.
Gage, who is now slicing bread, just slides in with, “He played the vibes. He lost. Liv warned him. Seems fair.”
Maddie appears in the doorway as he says this, Annalise curled against her chest, asleep.
She’s wearing a rust-colored linen dress that cinches at the waist and dips low at the neckline.
The hem sways around her boots, soft and slow, and the folded leopard print cuffs make the whole outfit look even more unintentionally badass.
Her hair’s down, wild, golden, and beautiful. Her cheeks are flushed. And somehow, five months postpartum, holding a sleeping baby, she stops people in their tracks simply by existing.
Ethan’s whole face changes when he sees her. Grin gone. Banter forgotten. He looks at his wife with that wrecked softness that only shows when you’re looking at your reason for breathing.
Maddie sees it. Smiles. And walks straight to him.