Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
The blanket ripped off my body before I was fully conscious.
I shot upright, blinking against the sunlight. “What the—”
Tuesday and Katie stood at the edge of my bed, arms crossed, eyes narrowed like a pair of judgmental angels.
“What the hell are you doing?” I rasped, clutching my pillow to my chest.
“An intervention,” Tuesday said simply.
Katie nodded. “You haven’t left your apartment in a week.”
My brain lagged. “That’s not true.”
“It’s very true,” Katie countered, stepping over a pile of laundry. “Your landlord confirmed it.”
My jaw dropped. “You talked to my landlord?”
“We paid him to spy on you,” Tuesday said, unbothered.
My mouth fell open wider. “You what?”
But they weren’t listening. Katie was already pulling open my curtains, sunlight spilling across my messy floor—takeout containers, an unwashed coffee mug, a half-folded blanket. The air smelled faintly of old pizza and sorrow.
“Oh my god,” Katie muttered. “You live like a college freshman.”
Tuesday clapped her hands. “Alright, shower. Let’s move.”
“I don’t need—”
But she was already yanking me out of bed, her mom-strength impossible to fight. She shoved me toward the bathroom, and when I resisted, she pushed harder.
“Tuesday!” I yelped, stumbling into the tub. “I’m wearing my nightshirt!”
“Even better,” she said, turning on the water. “Kill two birds with one stone.”
The spray hit me, cold, then hot, soaking the fabric against my skin. I sputtered as she slammed the curtain closed behind me.
“Thirty minutes,” she called. “You’re coming to Jake and Katie’s, whether you like it or not.”
“I vote not!”
“Noted,” she said cheerfully.
By the time I was dressed—in jeans I didn’t remember owning and a tank top that probably belonged to Katie—I’d been dried, brushed, and lightly bullied into mascara. My apartment looked like a tornado had swept through, but honestly, I didn’t care.
They’d done the impossible. They’d gotten me out the door.
Jake and Katie’s house was quiet when we pulled into the driveway.
Too quiet. No cars, no movement. Just a stillness that pressed against my chest as though it knew something was about to happen.
I followed Tuesday through the entryway, mentally calculating how long I had to stay to appease them.
To make them feel they’d done their job in getting me out of the house.
John was in the kitchen when I walked inside, leaning against the counter with a beer. When he saw me, everyone else disappeared. Katie, Tuesday, walking away as though they had no idea he’d be waiting for me there.
“Well, look who decided to rejoin the living,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes, though my voice came out thin. “This was your idea, wasn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I might’ve had a hand in it.”
I crossed my arms. “You actually told Tuesday and Katie to drag me out of bed?”
He grinned. “They actually did it?”
I wanted to be mad, but there was something about the way he said it—soft, careful—that cracked me open a little.
He set his beer down on the counter and turned to face me. “How are you doing, Em?”
I swallowed hard, wanting to lie, but something inside of me wouldn’t. As if I couldn’t do it any longer… not even a little white one. “My heart hurts,” I said, my voice almost breaking.
He paused for a moment, as though my pain hurt him, too. “Yeah. I know.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same again.”
“You will.”
“How do you know?”
Silence stretched between us, so long that I wasn’t sure whether he was going to answer me or not—then a sound came from the backyard—a low hum, followed by—voices.
I turned back to John. “What was that?”
His mouth twitched and he lifted his shoulders.
“John…”
He held up a hand. “Before you freak out, just remember—I did this because I love you. And because it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
He tilted his head toward the back door. “Go outside and see for yourself.”
My pulse spiked. “John, what did you—”
“Go.” His voice softened. “Trust me.”
The moment I stepped into the backyard, I stopped, and my mouth dropped open.
Jake, Katie, and Tuesday were standing in the middle of the deck—along with Dean’s entire family. They stood like a wall. Mason. Blair. Thomas and Trisha, little Emma…every single one of them, at least twenty, and at the center of them all was Mr. McHenry—the heartbeat which held them all together.
I froze, and my stomach dropped. “Oh, my god.”
I spun back toward the door, but John was right behind me. He caught my shoulders, turned me around, and gently nudged me forward.
“You deserve happiness, Em. More than anyone I’ve ever met.”
I swallowed hard, unsure how my happiness had anything to do with this.
“Emily,” Mr. McHenry began, his voice warm and steady.
He used my real name—oh, God he used my real name. My chest twisted, yet I forced myself to hold still.
He stepped closer to me, his smile soft but weighted. “Dean told us everything.” He nodded, giving me a moment to let the information settle.
My throat worked. I was having a hard time breathing. “He did?”
Mr. McHenry nodded. “He did.”
Dean’s grandmother came forward, her eyes bright and shining. “It’s awfully romantic,” she announced. “Like Pretty Woman!”
A wave of laughter circled the crowd, but Mr. McHenry lifted one hand, and everyone quieted again.
“I’ll admit,” he chuckled under his breath, “I was a bit stunned to hear Dean had hired an escort… but not nearly as stunned to learn the reason why he did it.”
Heat crawled up my neck, embarrassment threatening to choke me, but Mr. McHenry’s gaze was steady, kind.
“The boy was so afraid of losing Pine Ridge—and the firm—that he built an entire story just to keep it safe.”
He moved closer to me, slow and thoughtful, as though any wrong move may scare me off.
“At first, I was sick over it. Truly. I thought, My God, what have I done? I’d backed the boy into a corner—made my grandson feel like the only way to protect our legacy was to lie—about a fiancée of all things—about a future that didn’t exist.”
His voice wavered, hand pressing briefly to his chest. “But then I started to think. Do you believe in fate, Emily?”
My breath trembled, because I could already see where he was going with this.
“If all of this hadn’t happened exactly how it had… if I hadn’t pushed, if he hadn’t come up with this elaborate lie… if one of his clients hadn’t given him that picture frame of a woman with short hair…” He shook his head slowly, eyes bright with conviction. “What began as a story—”
A throat cleared somewhere behind him—loud enough to make Mr. McHenry stop mid-sentence. Heads turned. Bodies shifted. A subtle ripple went through the crowd, like everyone felt it before they even saw him.
And then Dean stepped through them.
“I’ll take it from here, Grandpa.”
My breath caught—
Because he looked… different.
Not just tired—though the shadows beneath his eyes told me he hadn’t slept—but he looked lighter in a way that made something inside my chest loosen and ache all at once.
As if he’d been holding the whole damn world together with his bare hands and, for the first time, had finally let someone help him carry it.
He wore a slate gray henley and blue jeans. Simple. Familiar. The shirt clung in all the places I remembered, sleeves shoved haphazardly up his forearms, revealing those tanned, corded muscles I’d felt under my palms on too many occasions to count.
But it wasn’t just that.
It was the way he stood—shoulders squared, jaw steady, eyes softening the moment they found mine.
He looked more handsome than I’d ever seen him.
More Dean than he’d ever been.
And the force of it—the sight of him after everything—hit me so hard I had to curl my fingers into my palms just to stay grounded.
His hair was tousled, like he’d dragged his hands through it a hundred times. And his eyes… God. They were raw and pleading and so unwavering on mine that my knees threatened to give way beneath me.
He moved toward me slowly, deliberately, until only a few feet separated us. His shoulders broad, his breath unsteady. “I wanted to do this alone,” he whispers, “But they wouldn’t let me,” he began.
A shaky breath escaped me—something between a laugh and a sob—as I glanced at the crowd behind him. His family. My friends. All of them here… together. For him. For me. For us. Hope and terror twisted so tightly inside my chest I could hardly breathe.
Dean stepped closer, and that’s when I noticed it—his hands were trembling.
“I tried to call you,” he said, voice roughened at the edges and quiet, “but you blocked me—everywhere.”
A tiny, broken sound caught in my throat.
“So I did the only thing I could think of.” He gave a breathless, almost disbelieving laugh. “I went to your friends.”
His gaze flicked to John then—and something flickered in his eyes. A vow or promise I could feel deep in my ribs.
John lifted a hand in a small salute, and I could’ve sworn he swiped a tear from his eye before he lowered it again.
My chest tightened.
Growing up, people left—and that was always the end of the story. No apologies. No explanations.
No one came after me. No one ever fought for me.
But Dean had brought an entire family here. He’d crossed miles and pride and fear just to stand in front of me now.
It knocked the breath from my lungs.
It felt overwhelming.
Unreal.
Like someone had cracked open a door to a life I’d never dared imagine for myself.
Before I could open my mouth to say anything, a bark split the air.
I turned just in time to see George let out of the back door by one of Dean’s uncles—tail wagging like a metronome, and a blue bow tied around his neck.
My eyes filled with tears at the sight of him. I dropped into a squat and opened my arms, and he barreled straight into my chest—pressing his snout into my shoulder.
“George…” My voice cracked. “Oh, George.”
I buried my fingers in his fur, while his tail thumped wildly against my side, his whole body vibrating with joy.