Zane
Six Days After That
I’d been to Glenn and Sylvie’s house a hundred times.
Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, the occasional family dinner when Sylvie decided I looked too thin and needed feeding.
I knew which floorboards creaked, which bathroom had the good towels, and exactly how many beers I could drink before my aunt started giving me the look.
But I’d never walked through the front door feeling like I belonged here. Not really.
Not until tonight.
“Stop fidgeting,” Melina murmured beside me as we stood on the porch, the cold air biting at our cheeks.
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“You’ve had your hand in your jacket pocket since we got out of the truck.”
She had no idea what was in there. And I had no idea when the right moment would be. But fuck, I couldn’t stop touching it.
“Just cold hands,” I lied.
“Uh huh.” She reached up and smoothed the fabric of my new shirt flat against my chest, her fingers lingering. “You look good. Relax.”
Easy for her to say. I was about to walk my girlfriend into a room full of Alexanders who’d spent the last decade wondering if I’d ever get my shit together.
They wouldn’t say it—the Alexanders were too polite for that.
They’d just smile and pour wine and silently assess whether this was real or another one of Zane’s phases.
Except it wasn’t a phase. And the ring box in my jacket pocket was proof of that.
The door swung open before I could knock, and Sylvie appeared in a cloud of warmth and the smell of frankincense and pine. She was in her sixties, silver-haired and sharp-eyed, with the kind of elegance that didn’t need effort. She took one look at Melina and her whole face softened.
“Ah, so this is her,” Sylvie said, pulling Melina into a hug before either of us could get a word out. “Glenn has not stopped talking about you since the dance.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Alexander,” Melina said, hugging her back with only a slight hesitation.
“Sylvie. Please.” She released Melina and turned to me, cupping my face in both hands. “Et toi. You look happy, mon coeur.”
“I am happy.”
“Bien. It’s about time.” She kissed my cheek, then ushered us inside. “Come, come. The house is already full. Coats go in the bedroom at the end of the hall.”
She wasn’t kidding. The place was packed.
Music pumped from speakers someone had set up in the living room.
People filled every corner—family, friends, neighbors, a few faces I didn’t recognize.
The dining room table was buried under trays of food, and the kitchen counter had been converted into a bar that could’ve given The Summit a run for its money.
Kids were everywhere. Hunter nearly bowled me over as he tore through the hallway after Brooklyn, who was shrieking with laughter and clutching a stolen party hat.
At seventeen, he was too old to be chasing his younger siblings, but that had clearly never stopped him.
Mia toddled behind them, determined not to be left out.
“Welcome to the chaos,” Eric said, appearing from the kitchen with a drink in each hand. He passed one to Melina with a grin. “You’ll need this.”
“Thanks.” Melina took the glass and glanced around the room with wide eyes. “This is…a lot.”
“You should see Christmas,” Eric said. “This is the restrained version.”
Jamie appeared behind him, scooping Mia up before she could follow her siblings into the living room.
“Melina. So nice to finally meet you.” She balanced the toddler on her hip with the practiced ease of a woman who’d done it a thousand times.
“Come with me. I need adult conversation before I lose what’s left of my mind. ”
Melina shot me a look—half nervous, half amused—and I squeezed her hand before letting her go. “You’ll be fine. Jamie doesn’t bite.”
“Much,” Jamie added, already steering Melina toward the couch.
I watched them go, and something settled in my chest. Melina was here. In this house, with these people, being pulled into a conversation by a woman who’d decided on the spot that they were going to be friends.
She fit. Just like that. Like I’d always known she would.
“You going to stand there all night, or are you going to come say hello?” Dylan’s voice came from somewhere to my left.
I turned to find him leaning against the wall near the front window, a beer in hand, Chantel tucked under his arm.
They made a striking pair—him all sharp jaw and quiet intensity, her all dark hair and effortless grace.
Whatever arrangement they had going on was none of my business, but it clearly worked. I’d never seen him look this relaxed.
“Hey, man.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see you.”
“You too. Heard you’ve had an interesting month.”
“That’s one word for it.”
Chantel smiled. “Congratulations on the resort. And on Melina. She seems lovely.”
“She is.” I couldn’t help the grin. “She’s also terrifying. But in the best way.”
Dylan snorted. “The good ones always are.”
I made my way through the crowd, stopping to say hello to Marc, who was deep in conversation with one of Glenn’s colleagues, and Celeste, who was holding baby Logan on her lap and somehow making it look elegant. The kid had a fistful of her necklace, and she didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
“Zane!” Caleb’s voice cut through the noise, and I turned to see my youngest cousin pushing through the crowd with Hope cradled against his chest. She was wide-eyed, chubby, and wearing a onesie that said My First New Year’s in glittery letters.
Zadie followed behind him, looking tired, beautiful, and completely unbothered by the chaos.
“Come hold your cousin,” Caleb said.
“She’s not—”
“Just take the baby.”
He deposited Hope into my arms before I could argue, and the weight of her settled against my chest. She blinked up at me with an expression that was one hundred percent Zadie, then immediately grabbed a fistful of my shirt and held on.
“She likes you.” Zadie smiled.
“Everyone likes me,” I said, but my voice came out rougher than I’d intended because the baby in my arms was doing something strange to my chest. Something warm, unfamiliar, and completely fucking terrifying.
Melina appeared at my side, and the look on her face when she saw me holding Hope nearly took me out. Her eyes went wide and soft, then dangerously shiny.
“Don’t,” I warned.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that while I’m holding a baby. It’s not fair.”
“You’re right.” She bit her lip, but the smile broke through anyway. “It’s really not.”
I handed Hope back before she could do any more damage and pulled Melina into my side. “These people are conspiring against me,” I muttered into her hair.
“These people are your family.”
My family. Fuck, they were. Every loud, chaotic, well-meaning one of them.
I spotted Glenn across the room by the fireplace, momentarily free from conversation, and caught his eye. He lifted his scotch glass in a subtle gesture. I kissed Melina’s temple, told her I’d be right back, and crossed the room.
Glenn clapped a hand on my shoulder as I approached. “How’s my co-owner?”
“Still figuring out what a co-owner actually does.”
“Mostly sign things and stay out of Wyatt’s way.” The warmth in his voice caught me off guard. He wasn’t a demonstrative man. Never had been. But the way he looked at me tonight was different. “I’m proud of you, Zane. I hope you know that.”
My throat tightened. “I wanted to thank you. For what you did. The buyout. All of it. I never asked for—”
“I know, and that’s exactly why I did it.” He sipped his scotch. “Your great-grandfather built the place with his bare hands. And you walked away from all of it because you loved someone more than you loved yourself. That’s not weakness. That’s the most Alexander thing you’ve ever done.”
I didn’t trust my voice, so I just nodded. Glenn nodded back. With the Alexanders, that was usually enough.
His eyes drifted to my jacket pocket, and the corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.
“Might want to work on your subtlety,” Eric said, materializing beside us. “You’ve been touching your jacket pocket every thirty seconds since you walked in.”
Glenn just smiled and sipped his scotch.
The hours blurred together after that. More food, more drinks, more conversations that overlapped and tangled into each other. Someone turned the music up. A few brave souls started dancing in the living room.
As midnight approached, Sylvie herded everyone toward the living room with champagne flutes and sparkling cider for the kids who were somehow still miraculously awake.
The TV was on, tuned to the countdown, but nobody was really watching it.
The room was loud and warm and crowded with people I loved.
And Melina was beside me, her hand in mine, looking out at the snow falling through the window. “You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I pulled her closer. “Better than okay.”
“What were you and Glenn talking about earlier?”
“Business stuff.”
“Liar.”
I smiled. “I’ll tell you soon. I promise.”
She studied me for a moment, then let it go. Because that’s who she was. She trusted me to tell her when I was ready.
The countdown started.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
I looked around the room. My family. Every complicated, beautiful, messy part of it.
The uncle who’d believed in me when no one else had.
The aunt who’d fed me and fussed over me and never once made me feel like an outsider.
Cousins building their own lives, making their own mistakes, figuring it out one day at a time. Just like me.
Seven. Six. Five.
And Melina. My firecracker. The woman who’d seen through every mask I’d ever worn and loved what she found underneath. Who’d fought for me when I was too busy fighting with myself.
Four. Three. Two.
I turned to her. She was already looking at me.
One.
The room exploded. Cheers, champagne popping, and kids screaming. Caleb was shushing everyone because Hope was sleeping. Dylan dipped Chantel so low her hair brushed the floor.
But I didn’t hear any of it.
I kissed Melina. Slow and deep, with one hand in her hair and the other pressed against the small of her back, and I poured everything into it.
The loneliness, the recklessness, the fear.
The moment on the porch when I’d kissed her for the first time.
The first morning I’d woken with her in my bed.
The night I’d walked away from the resort because losing her wasn’t something I could survive.
All of it. Every moment that had led us here.
When I pulled back, her eyes were wet, and she was smiling.
“Happy New Year, firecracker.”
“Happy New Year, Zane Alexander.”
I touched my jacket pocket one more time.
Thank You for reading Wild Promise!