Chapter 8
Barrett
The council denies the eminent domain proceeding on a Friday afternoon, and by Friday night, Halcyon Coastal Partners has formally withdrawn.
It's over. The marina, the boardwalk, the clinic, the bakery, the bookshop, The Crow's Nest, The Siren — everything my father built and everything this town has built around it — stays exactly where it belongs, in Anchor Bay's hands instead of some corporate portfolio.
The news arrives while I'm in a meeting with Councilwoman Ortiz's office, going over a follow-up matter neither of us realizes has already become obsolete.
My phone buzzes with a text from our attorney — three words, They withdrew.
Done. — and I have to read it twice before the reality of it sinks in.
Weeks of eighteen-hour days, of legal filings and coalition-building and one terrifying public hearing, and it's finally, actually over.
I call Wren before I've even left the building.
"It's done," I tell her, voice rough with disbelief. "They withdrew. We won."
There's a pause on the line, and then a sound that's half laugh, half sob. "Barrett. Barrett, we did it."
"You did it. All those calls, the testimonials, the whole medical community mobilized behind us—"
"We did it together," she corrects firmly. "Get to the compound. I'm telling everyone."
By the time I arrive, the news has already spread through the club like wildfire, and the compound throws the biggest party in club history that night, and it isn't close.
Every couple from every chapter of this club's story is there.
Dominic and Piper, her hand resting on the small curve of her stomach that the whole compound has been pretending not to notice for weeks.
Callum and Marlowe. Silas and Nadia. Jensen and Haven.
Rhett and Gemma, Rhett still smug about being right about me for fifteen years and unable to stop mentioning it.
Maddox and Tatum. Weston and Lennox. Theo and Daria.
Lawson and Savannah. Griffin and Brynn. Ezra and Waverly.
Nash and Catalina. Orion and Lucia. Kieran and Freya.
Declan and Josie. Ronan and Petra. Sullivan and Darcy. Holden and Ivy. Corbin and Stella.
I move through the crowd accepting congratulations, hugs, the particular boisterous celebration this club specializes in, but my eyes keep finding Wren across the compound, laughing with Piper near the fire pit, radiant in a way that makes it hard to focus on anything else.
Rhett catches me staring and elbows me in the ribs.
"Go get your girl," he says. "You've waited fifteen years. I think you've earned a night where you don't have to share her with the rest of us."
He's right, of course. He usually is, in his own irritating way.
And me. And Wren, once I finally cross the compound to reach her.
Twenty couples. Twenty love stories that all somehow trace back to this same stretch of coastline, this same brotherhood my father started with nothing but a borrowed dock and a belief that family could be chosen as much as it's born into.
I find Wren in the middle of the celebration, laughing with Piper about something I don't catch, and I take her hand without a word and lead her away from the noise, up the path toward Driftwood Point — the cliff overlooking the ocean, the place where this club has always marked its most important moments.
"Where are we going?" she asks, though I can tell by the look on her face she already suspects.
"Somewhere quieter."
The party sounds fade behind us as we climb, the ocean opening up wide and dark below the cliff, stars scattered thick overhead in a way they never quite manage over the compound itself.
I stop at the edge, Wren beside me, and for a moment neither of us says anything, just breathing in the salt air and the particular relief of a fight finally over.
"Twenty-five years," I say eventually.
"Is that your opening line?" she teases, but her voice is soft.
"You've been my best friend for twenty-five years.
" I turn to face her, and my hands aren't steady, not because I'm unsure but because this matters more than anything I've ever said in a hearing room.
"I want the rest of them to look different than the first twenty-five did.
I want to wake up every morning knowing you're mine, not just hoping you'll show up.
I love you, Wren. I've loved you longer than I understood how to say it. Be my wife for the rest of them."
Her hands fly to her mouth. For a second she doesn't say anything at all, and my heart pounds hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.
"I've been waiting for you to ask since I was fifteen," she finally says, voice breaking on the words.
I pull the ring from my pocket — my grandmother's, the one Dominic helped me have resized in secret three days ago — and slide it onto her finger with hands that are shaking now, no point pretending otherwise.
She's crying and laughing at the same time, and when I kiss her, the ocean crashes against the rocks below and the party noise drifts up faintly from the compound, and none of it matters half as much as the woman in my arms.
"Yes," she says against my mouth, unprompted, like she needs to say it out loud even though the ring already answered the question. "Yes, Barrett."
"You're sure? I know it's fast, in some ways. We've only technically been together a few weeks."
"Barrett Voss." She pulls back to look at me, mock-stern despite the tears still on her cheeks. "We've been together twenty-five years. The last few weeks were just us finally catching up to what everyone else already knew. I've never been more sure of anything in my life."
That settles whatever small doubt had crept in, and I kiss her again, longer this time, both of us laughing between kisses at the sheer improbable joy of the night — a legal victory and an engagement in the same twelve hours, more good fortune than either of us quite knows how to hold at once.
We stay up there a long time, just the two of us and the stars and the ocean, until the party sounds fade further and the cliff belongs entirely to us.
"This spot," Wren says eventually, looking around at the moonlit grass, the dark water below. "This is where the Kings hold their most important moments."
"It is." I think about all the milestones this cliff has witnessed over the years — proposals, vows exchanged in secret before official ceremonies, quiet moments of grief and celebration alike, generations of this club marking the things that mattered most against the backdrop of the same endless ocean.
"My father brought my mother here, before they were married.
Dominic proposed to Piper here. It felt right, somehow, to keep the tradition going. "
"You planned this."
"I've been carrying that ring around for three days, waiting for the right moment. I didn't expect the right moment to also be the night we won the biggest fight of both our lives, but I'm not complaining about the timing."
She laughs, pulling me down into the grass beside her, the moonlight catching in her hair, the ring glinting faintly on her hand. "I think," she says, "we should make this one count."
I don't need to be asked twice.
We undress each other slowly under the open sky, no walls, no roof, nothing but stars and salt air and twenty-five years of history finally arriving at this exact point.
She's beautiful in the moonlight, laughing softly when a breeze makes her shiver, and I pull her closer, my jacket beneath us against the cool grass, my hands mapping her body with the reverence of a man who's just been handed the rest of his life.
There's something different about tonight compared to that first night in her apartment — a new layer of certainty, of permanence, the ring on her hand a physical reminder that this isn't just desire anymore but a promise made concrete.
I take my time with her, unhurried despite the anticipation building between us, my mouth trailing from her jaw down the length of her throat, over her collarbone, closing over one breast while my hand cups the other, thumb brushing her nipple until she arches up into the touch with a soft, broken sound.
"Fiancée," I murmur against her skin, testing the word.
"Say it again," she breathes, fingers tangling in my hair.
"Fiancée," I say, and she laughs, breathless, arching into my touch as my hand slides lower, over her stomach, between her thighs.
She's already slick and wanting when I touch her there, and the sound she makes — sharp, needy — is nearly lost in the wind coming off the water.
I take my time working her higher, feeling the exact moment her hips start rocking against my hand, her breath coming in short, desperate pulls.
"Barrett—" Her hand closes around my wrist. "I need you. Please."
I settle between her thighs and push inside her slowly, both of us groaning at the fullness of it, the ring on her finger pressing cool against my shoulder as she pulls me closer.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders when I finally settle inside her, and the sound she makes — half gasp, half sigh — gets lost in the wind coming off the water.
"I love you," I tell her, over and over, punctuating every slow, deliberate thrust with the words I spent fifteen years too afraid to say. "I love you. I love you."
"I love you too," she answers, pulling me closer, her legs wrapping around my waist to bring me deeper, her heels pressing into the small of my back. "I've loved you my whole life."
The pace builds, unhurried at first and then anything but, both of us chasing something that feels less like pleasure alone and more like an entire future finally within reach.
Her nails rake down my back, her hips rising to meet every thrust, and the friction of it, the sound of her gasping my name into the dark, drives me faster, deeper, both of us grinding toward release under the open sky.
"Barrett, I'm — right there, don't stop—"