Chapter 19 — The Seven Stay #2
That was probably for the best. If I had tried to write it down, I'd have edited the heart out of it. I'd have tried to make it reasonable. I'd have softened the edges until the truth became something neat enough to survive.
Nothing about this had survived because it was neat.
I stood at the head of the table with a champagne flute in my hand and six women looking at me like they already knew and were waiting for me to catch up.
"I need to say something to each of you," I said. My voice came out steadier than my hand felt. "In order. The order matters."
Kiki was first.
She looked up at me, golden hair loose over her shoulders, blue eyes already bright in a way that nearly undid me before I started. Her champagne sat untouched in front of her. Both hands were in her lap, fingers laced tight enough to make her knuckles pale.
"Kiki," I said.
Her mouth softened.
"You were the first one brave enough to change everything.
And I know everyone looks at you and sees sweetness first. They aren't wrong.
You're sweet in a way that makes a room better.
But that was never the whole of you." I swallowed, because the memory of her walking into my model-ship room still had teeth.
"You were brave. You were certain. You crossed a line I was too scared to admit I wanted crossed, and then you made the other side feel like morning.
Coffee. Showers. Breakfast. Your mug in my cabinet. Your voice in my kitchen."
Kiki blinked fast.
"You made me feel wanted," I said. "Not managed. Not handled. Not forgiven for wanting too much. Wanted. You made this house feel like it could become a home before anyone else had proof. I love you for that. I love you for all of it."
Kiki's lower lip trembled. She reached for my hand across the corner of the table, and I gave it to her. Her fingers closed around mine, warm and certain.
"You were worth the line," she whispered.
I couldn't answer that and keep going, so I squeezed her hand once and turned to Shay.
Shay had her champagne lifted already, like she was prepared to toast herself if I failed the assignment. Her blue eyes were bright, amused on the surface, dangerous underneath. The joke was ready. I could see it waiting on her mouth.
"Shay," I said.
"Don't make it too wholesome," she said. "I have a reputation."
"Too late."
The table laughed softly. Shay's smile widened, but her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.
"Your chaos has always carried truth underneath it," I said.
"You say the thing nobody else is willing to say.
Sometimes filthy. Sometimes laughing. Usually both.
But underneath the joke, you see the thing.
You saw me hiding before I admitted I was hiding.
You saw the line I was using as an excuse to be alone, and you kicked it over with both feet. "
Her smile faltered at the edges.
"You forced me to stop pretending that wanting this was something I could talk myself out of. You made the risk look like winning. You made truth feel possible because you refused to let it stand there in a suit and apologize for itself."
"That sounds like me," she said, but her voice had gone softer.
"It's you." I held her gaze. "I love you because you make every room more dangerous and more honest. I love you because you saved me from the version of myself that would have called loneliness noble and believed it."
Shay stared at me for one long beat.
Then she said, "I'd like everyone to remember that he said I was honest. Dangerous was also said, but the honest part feels legally useful."
Tatum made a tiny sound that was half laugh, half sob.
Shay looked at me across the table, and the joke fell away enough for me to see the shine in her eyes. She tapped two fingers against her heart, quick, almost hidden.
I saw it.
I turned to Tatum.
Tatum had stopped moving, which was how I knew I was in real trouble.
Her knee was still against mine, but the rest of her had gone still.
Copper hair over one shoulder. Big eyes fixed on me.
Mouth parted like she had forgotten what she had planned to say and was deeply offended by that development.
"Tate," I said.
"Oh no," she whispered.
"Oh yes."
"Full name would have been safer."
"Nothing about you is safe."
That got the smile. Bright. Immediate. Trembling at the edges.
"You're joy with a running start," I said. "You're noise and motion and need and trouble, and somehow all of that makes the world less terrifying. You don't enter a room. You launch yourself into it and make everyone else admit they were half asleep before you got there."
She pressed both hands over her mouth.
"But the part that gets me isn't the chaos," I said.
"It's the way you trust your own need. The way you reach for me like reaching is allowed.
The way you climbed into my arms after the Ferris wheel and didn't apologize for needing me.
The way you make me feel like being needed isn't a burden. It's a gift."
Her eyes filled.
"You make the house brighter. You make me braver. You make love feel like something that should be loud enough to hear from the dock. I love you, Tatum Bell. Trouble and all."
"Especially trouble?" she asked, voice small for once.
"Especially trouble."
She nodded hard, like the answer had been filed somewhere critical, then leaned sideways and pressed her face into my shoulder. The table waited while I kissed the top of her head.
Penny was next.
She sat across from me with her back straight, one hand around her champagne flute, the other resting on the table.
She looked composed because Penny Rourke could look composed while the building burned down around her.
But her thumb was moving slowly against the glass, and her eyes had gone bright in a way she couldn't file under strategy.
"Penny," I said.
Her chin lifted a fraction.
"You make me stand in the truth where people can see me," I said. "You always have. You don't let me hide behind foggy language. You don't let me pretend something matters less because admitting it matters would complicate my life."
Her mouth curved, barely. "That sounds exhausting for you."
"It's." I smiled at her. "I love it."
Her expression changed.
"You chose me in public before I knew how badly I needed that. You took my hand at the fair. You called me your boyfriend at a party full of people who had opinions. You looked at me like standing beside me wasn't a risk you were tolerating, but a standard you expected the world to meet."
Penny's throat moved.
"You make me feel chosen," I said. "Not by accident.
Not because the night got away from us. Chosen with your eyes open.
Chosen in the kitchen. Chosen in a crowd.
Chosen when it costs something. I love your clarity.
I love your standards. I love the way you turn want into a decision and then stand there like the rest of the world can catch up or get out of the way. "
For a second, Penny looked like she might say something sharp enough to save herself.
She didn't.
She reached across the table, set her hand over mine, and said, "I chose right."
There it was.
Quiet. Certain. Penny.
I turned to Reese.
Reese already had tears in her eyes. She didn't bother pretending otherwise.
That was one of the things I loved about her.
Reese could be quiet, but she wasn't a coward about feeling.
Her hand was curled around her champagne flute, and her other hand rested near the edge of the table like she wanted to reach for me and was waiting for her turn.
"Reese," I said.
She smiled through the tears.
"You feel like every good thing I almost forgot how to keep," I said.
Her breath caught.
"You carry years with you. Photos. Lake days. Storms. Old summers. The version of me who was younger and didn't know what he was going to lose, and the version of me now who got to watch you put our history on the wall and call it family."
Reese wiped one tear away with the heel of her hand. Another followed it.
"You make love feel like memory and future at the same time," I said.
"You make this house feel less like something I bought and more like something that grew out of every summer we survived together.
You looked at a blank wall and saw all seven of us there before the rest of us had language for it. "
Her hand found mine.
"I love your warmth," I said. "I love your patience. I love the way you make ordinary things sacred without making them heavy. I love that you knew this was family before I was brave enough to say it."
Reese squeezed my hand, her palm warm and damp.
"I've always known," she said.
I knew she had.
Eden was last.
She had gone very still. Eden stillness wasn't empty. It was weather held behind glass. Her face was calm, chin slightly lifted, shoulders relaxed in the way people relax when every muscle is doing exactly what it has been ordered to do. Her hazel eyes stayed on mine.
"Eden," I said.
Her fingers tightened once on her glass.
"You scared me," I said.
Shay made a tiny sound. Eden's eyebrow lifted.
"Good start," Eden said.
"You did," I said. "Because you saw the whole board. You saw what everyone wanted. You saw what I was afraid of. You saw the shape of this before I could admit there was a shape at all."
Her expression didn't change, but her eyes did.
"But the thing I love most about you isn't the strategy," I said. "It's what happens when the strategy fails because the feeling is too big for it. I love your control, Eden. I love the mind behind it. But I love you most in the moment after control breaks and you reach for me anyway."
She looked down then.
Only for a second.