Chapter 19 — The Seven Stay #3
"You love hard," I said. "Harder than you want people to know.
You claim what matters because losing it scares you, and you're not a woman who likes being scared.
But you stayed scared and came closer anyway.
You let me see the need under the plan. You let me hold the part of you that doesn't have an angle. "
Eden's mouth parted. Nothing came out.
"I love the possessiveness," I said, and that got the faintest, wettest laugh from Shay and Tatum both.
"I love the courage under it more. I love you because once you chose this, you chose it with your whole self.
And because when you wrapped around me and said you didn't know if you could let go, all I could think was that I hoped you never had to. "
Eden's eyes shone.
She didn't cry. Not quite.
But her hand shook when she lifted her champagne.
I raised my glass.
All six women raised theirs with me.
"To you," I said. "To all of you. To what you changed. To what you built. To what we're."
Shay swallowed hard. "If you say journey, I'm flipping this table."
"To forever," I said.
That shut her up.
It shut all of us up.
The word settled over the table, warm and heavy and alive.
Seven glasses touched in the summer dark.
We drank.
Nobody rushed to fill the silence after. The lake made its small sounds below the yard. Somewhere across the water, somebody laughed too loudly, a different party in a different life.
At my table, six women held champagne and looked at me like I had given name to something they had been carrying for weeks.
This wasn't a summer thank-you.
It wasn't a promise I could make legally or publicly or cleanly.
It was still the truest thing I had.
Forever.
***
I could have let the moment stay beautiful.
Part of me wanted to. A weak part. The part that still thought if something was perfect for ten seconds, the moral thing was to avoid touching it before it broke.
But love didn't make the world outside my property line disappear.
The champagne was half gone. The plates had been pushed back. The table was still warm with everything I had said. Six women watched me with soft eyes and guarded hearts, because they knew me well enough by now to know I wasn't finished.
I set my glass down.
"Which brings me to the most important question."
Shay groaned softly. "I knew there was a quiz."
"You're currently failing."
"Impossible. I studied Tatum's notes."
"Tatum's notes are drawings of fire."
"Accurate drawings," Tatum said.
The laugh moved around the table, but it faded faster this time.
I looked at them. All six. "Now that you're basically living here every night, what exactly are you telling your parents?"
The quiet changed.
The toast quiet had been warm. Full.
This was the sound of six women realizing the outside world had finally been invited to sit down at the table.
Kiki looked at Shay. Shay looked at Penny. Tatum suddenly became very interested in the rim of her glass. Reese's hand moved toward Kiki's, then stopped. Eden sat back, expression smooth.
"Ah," Shay said.
"That wasn't an answer."
"It was a genre of answer."
Kiki took a breath. "We've been covering for each other."
I looked at her.
"Mostly sleepovers," she said. "At each other's houses. If my mom asks, I'm at Shay's or Reese's. If Shay's dad asks, she's at my house or Tatum's. We rotate it enough that it doesn't look like a pattern."
"It's absolutely a pattern," Penny said. "It only works because parents are very committed to believing friendship is logistically exhausting."
Tatum lifted one finger. "Also because I have always been everywhere all the time, so nobody questions my location unless furniture is broken."
"That isn't as reassuring as you think," I said.
"No, but it's useful."
Reese's mouth tilted, but her eyes stayed nervous. "My parents know I'm here a lot. They don't know how much. I think if Mom knew how many mornings I've had coffee in your kitchen, she'd start asking questions."
"My dad would ask questions," Shay said. "My mom would answer them for him in a way that let everyone survive breakfast."
Penny set her glass down carefully. "My parents think I'm with the girls most nights. Which is technically true."
"Technically doing a lot of work there," Eden said.
Penny's gaze flicked to her. "You're one to talk."
Eden lifted a shoulder.
I looked at her. "What about Dana and Miles?"
"My parents?" she asked, as if there were another Dana and Miles in the room.
"Your parents."
She leaned back in her chair and studied the champagne in her glass. "I think they know where I am."
The table went still again.
"Know know?" Tatum asked.
"Not everything." Eden's mouth twisted. "But enough.
Dad saw me on your lap in a wet bikini while he talked about a baseball card for twenty minutes.
My mother has eyes and a functioning brain.
They know I'm here. They know I'm not sleeping in my own bed every night.
They also have not asked which in Archer means either approval or a tactical delay. "
"Which one?" I asked.
"With my mother? Both."
That should have been funny.
It was funny.
It also pressed on the center of my chest.
I looked around the table. "I'm not angry."
Kiki's shoulders lowered a fraction.
"I'm not." I held onto the edge of the table because I needed something solid. "I know why you're doing it. I know why the cover matters. But I need to say this out loud because if I don't, I'm going to start pretending I'm handling it better than I am."
Penny's eyes sharpened.
"I'm terrified of losing you."
Nobody moved.
"Not because I regret any of this," I said.
"I don't. Not one second. Not one line we crossed.
Not one morning. Not one night. But summer has been protecting us.
The lake, the families, the usual excuses, everybody being everywhere.
And fall is coming. Parents are going to start asking questions.
School starts. Schedules change. The shape of this thing we've built is going to get pressure put on it. "
Kiki's hand found mine.
Then Tatum's hand landed on my thigh under the table. Reese's fingers curled around Kiki's. Shay's foot hooked around my ankle. Penny leaned forward, composed and pale around the mouth. Eden watched me like she was bracing.
"I don't want this to be a summer," I said.
The words came out rougher than I expected.
"I want you here. I want all of you here.
Not because it's easy. Not because I have any idea how to explain it.
But because this house without you in it isn't the house I want anymore.
I want you to stay past summer. I want to support you, whatever that looks like.
School. Work. Money. Cars. Flights. Rooms. Groceries. Space. Privacy. Whatever you need."
Penny's eyes went glossy.
"I know we can't solve the family part tonight," I said. "But I need to know whether we're talking about keeping this alive or saying goodbye to it slowly."
Kiki answered first.
"I'm not leaving," she said.
Her voice was soft, but there was no hesitation in it.
"I technically graduated in three years," she said. "I have a few administrative things to finish, but I'm done. I don't have a sorority to go back to. I don't have a fall schedule that pulls me away. And I have absolutely no plan to stop waking up in this house."
My grip on her hand tightened.
Shay raised her glass a little. "I signed up remote."
I looked at her.
She tried for a shrug. It almost worked. "Full fall schedule. Online. Which I did for many academic reasons, including flexibility, efficiency, and not wanting to leave you alone with your tragic drawer organization."
"Shay."
Her smile softened. "I wasn't planning to leave."
Tatum made a sound. "Same, but with more driving and fewer responsible decisions."
Penny turned to her. "That isn't a plan."
"It has days of the week in it," Tatum said. "Plans can grow from there."
I looked at Tatum.
She straightened. "I need to be on campus one day a week.
It's a long drive, but I can do it. I mean, I'll complain so much.
Like, historically much. Someone should prepare emotionally.
But it's one day." She looked at me, and the joke left her face.
"I'm not giving this up because I have to spend one day sitting in a classroom thinking about getting back here. "
Penny nodded once, as if approving a contract. "I already told you my schedule is light. Two days a week on campus. I can commute and live here the rest of the time."
"I remember," I said.
Her mouth softened at that. She knew I remembered more than the schedule. I remembered the way she had brought it up after we made love, the quiet hope beneath the practical language.
Reese leaned forward. "I'm working on the same thing. Penny and I are at the same school, and I can line up most of my classes on the same days if I push the registrar hard enough."
"Reese Madden bullying administration," Shay said. "I want tickets."
Reese smiled. "I was going to be polite."
"Terrifying."
Five answers.
Five women who had found a way to make fall bend toward home.
Eden was last.
She had not touched her champagne since the parent question. Her hands were in her lap now, fingers folded together with such control it made me nervous. The table turned toward her in pieces. Kiki first. Then Penny. Then Reese. Tatum stopped moving again.
Eden looked at the table instead of me.
"I'm not going back," she said.
The air left the night.
Not loudly.
No one gasped. No one spoke over her.
But something dropped.
"My school is three states away," she said, and her voice was calm in a way that told me calm had cost her. "There's no commuting it. There's no one-day solution. No driving back after class. No pretending the distance isn't what it's."
She looked up then.
"So I'm not going back."
"No," I said.
Her eyes flashed.
"Luke."
"No." I heard the hardness in my own voice and didn't take it back. "That isn't an option."
Her posture changed, small and sharp. "Excuse me?"
"You aren't dropping out of college because of me."