Chapter 21
AMELIA
Breakfast felt like the calm before the chaos. Not quiet—god, no, not with our brothers and our daughters—but warm. Full. One of those slow, grounding hours where everyone’s talking over each other and somehow it still feels like peace.
Colin and Tim made sure I ate. Luna and Sarah talked non-stop about the book they’re writing.
Gage didn’t take his eyes off me. And everyone else made it feel like today mattered.
Like I mattered. Like this whole wild, holy thing we’re doing is something worth stopping the world for.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t fully notice the ache in my body or my nerves until now when Gage and I are alone in our bedroom after breakfast.
I’m elbow-deep in my dresser drawer, yanking out lace and mesh and every carefully packed fantasy I had of being a soft, sexy goddess under my dress today because none of that matters now.
The betrayal by my uterus means the thong I originally picked is dead to me, and what I actually need is the emergency pair of black seamless boyshorts I swear I packed.
The ones that don’t roll, don’t pinch, and won’t make me want to commit a felony mid-ceremony.
I wish I could be like one of those women in tampon commercials. The ones who float through life in white linen with a smile on their face. Joyful even, while their life is being sucked out of them via their uterus.
I am not one of them.
My periods are heavy and painful. They require black leggings, primal screaming into pillows, and a man emotionally equipped to survive the rage in my bones.
I don’t glide through life. I stomp. I whine.
I fling myself onto the couch dramatically and refuse to leave.
Sometimes I bleat like a goat. For emotional effect.
Gage is across the room packing his suit to take it to one of the cottages to get ready for the wedding with his brothers.
He’s all calm focus and quiet hands while I’m two seconds away from losing my sanity over missing underwear.
And all I can think is: men. They have no idea how easy they’ve got it.
No cramps. No blood. No hormones pushing them to cry and commit murder in the same breath.
I slam the drawer shut. “They were right here,” I mutter, throwing open the next one and digging through more underwear. “I packed them. I had a whole system to make sure I didn’t forget anything.”
Behind me, Gage doesn’t even pause his slow, methodical folding. “You sure you didn’t leave them in your overnight bag?”
“No,” I snap, eyeing him in the dresser mirror. “Did you move them from the piles I had laid out?”
That gets his attention. He looks up. “You think I moved your underwear?”
I pause. Because even I know I’m being irrational. But I dig my heels in anyway. “Yes.”
His lips twitch. “I value my life, Princess.”
I glare at him and then at the drawer. “This is how women end up burning kingdoms down.”
He chuckles. Of course he finds this funny. Of course he’s packed, dressed, calm, and carrying the energy of a man who doesn’t have to shove a pad into underwear today. This only serves to irritate me more.
I spin to face him. “This is how it begins.”
“How what begins?”
“Irreconcilable differences. This is how people spiral into it.”
He straightens, fully focused now. “By the wife misplacing her underwear?”
“By the husband forgetting which milk his wife drinks. Step one: he stops loving her enough to bring the right milk for her morning coffee.”
“You think I don’t love you because I brought the wrong milk?”
He did bring the wrong milk. Which means that not only am I a hormonal, slightly unhinged woman today, but I’m also an uncaffeinated one.
“I wrote you a list. I texted you the list. And I texted you while you were shopping to remind you about my oat milk.”
“I offered to go buy it this morning.”
He did. But we’re not talking about that.
“And now I don’t have the underwear I need to survive this day.”
My husband is the most patient man I know, and I watch every bone in his body work overtime to hold the line.
I know I’m being absurd. But there is nothing like a woman possessed by a period demon. I am unable to let this go.
“One morning without coffee won’t kill you.”
He says this gently. My demon brain hears it like a war cry.
I lift my brows. Say nothing. Just stare.
Gage exhales.
“This is how divorce starts,” I say solemnly.
He crosses the room, cups my jaw, and kisses me like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever touched. Like he’d still die for me even while I’m pelting him with outrageous accusations.
“You’re not divorcing me today,” he says when he’s finished with my mouth.
“You don’t know that. I might.”
“Fine.” His fingers tighten on my chin. His eyes lock on mine, dark and determined. “Then I’ll win you back. With the right fucking milk. And every goddamn thing you ever need.”
I hate him.
God, I love him.
And that’s the problem.
Because I’m sweaty, cramping, caffeine-deprived, one rogue pair of underwear away from a breakdown, and he’s just . . . standing there being perfect. Completely unfazed by the nuclear-level energy I’m radiating.
I don’t actually want him to snap. I don’t want him to fight with me.
But some traitorous part of me wishes he’d give me something—an eye roll, a sigh, a crack in that calm—just enough to make this feel less one-sided. To make me feel like I’m not the only one being pulled under by this feeling.
But no. He’s here, doing everything right, making it impossible to keep picking a fight I know I don’t actually want.
I blow out a breath. “You’re really annoying, you know that.”
His mouth curves. Then he brushes his lips over mine one last time before going back to packing his stuff. And I turn back to the drawer, still hunting for underwear I probably hallucinated packing in the first place.
I’m grateful for the distraction when my phone rings a few moments later, until I see the name on the screen.
“Hi, Mom,” I answer, already bracing for impact.
“Darling,” she begins, all efficiency. “Your father and I are running late. We’d hoped to be there by eleven, but something came up that couldn’t be avoided.”
My stomach sinks.
Something else took priority. On their daughter’s wedding day. I shouldn’t be surprised, because why would today be different to any other time in my life.
“How late?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
She doesn’t answer that. Just breezes right past it. “Oh, we’ll be there before the ceremony starts. Don’t worry about that.”
That’s not what I asked. But I don’t push.
I could. I’m allowed. But I’ve lived a lifetime in that gap between what I needed and what I got and learned at an early age not to push. And some patterns don’t change easily. Besides, pushing won’t change the outcome. They’ll arrive when they arrive. And I’m not here to beg.
“Okay. We’ll see you when you get here.”
I hang up and lower the phone slowly, my chest tight.
It stings. Even now, after all the therapy and the rewiring and the good days and the boundaries. It still fucking stings.
Gage watches me for maybe half a second before he moves. He rounds the bed and stops in front of me. “They’re running late,” he says quietly, looking for confirmation.
I nod.
He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t say anything else. Just waits.
He knows how I felt about my parents not coming for the entire weekend, so he knows this isn’t just about them running late. It’s about every time they’ve chosen something or someone else instead of showing up for me.
My eyes burn. I blink hard, but that doesn’t get rid of my tears. That old ache still lives in me somewhere, the one that used to feel too big to name. But today, I don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. Today, I say it out loud.
“I don’t know why I still get surprised.” My voice is raw. “You’d think by now I’d have learned not to expect more than they’ve ever given.” I swallow, but my voice cracks anyway. “And I hate that I’m crying because of it.”
A tear slips free.
Gage catches it with his thumb. “Let it out. I’ve got you.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me into his chest. No words. No fixes. Just silence and a steady hand running down my spine while I come back to myself.
When I finally pull back, he doesn’t mention the tears or fill the space with anything unnecessary. He just tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and gives me a look that says everything else.
I’m okay.
I’m always going to be okay.
Because even if my parents forget how to show up, he never will.