Chapter 23
SAWYER
There are way too many kids with glow sticks in this place.
I’ve stopped counting how many of them are tearing through here, all sugar and static and wild energy.
They weave between chairs and skid across the floor, high on sheet cake and the sheer thrill of being a child at a wedding.
One of them is blowing bubbles straight into the appetizer tray. No one tells him to stop.
The whole place smells like eucalyptus—earthy and warm, the sort of scent that settles in and lingers between bursts of laughter and the soft clink of glassware.
Garlands hang from the ceiling beams, draped with string lights and dotted with white flowers that look like they were just clipped from the garden.
Round tables fill the room, dressed in sand-colored linen and lit with low votives, the centerpieces overflowing with roses and wild greenery that spills out in every direction.
Every seat is full. The air buzzes with conversation, the scrape of silverware, the rise and fall of music that lands somewhere between old-school country and a beat that pulls people to the dance floor.
The whole room feels alive—crowded and glowing, pulsing with soft, electric energy.
We’ve already cut the cake. It was messy and Wren threatened me with the knife. When I dared to smear a little frosting on her face, she actually laughed—genuine and startled, like she forgot for a second that this whole thing is pretend.
And maybe I did, too.
Dom’s busy flirting with someone in a red dress that I’m not sure is even from Summit Springs.
Mom is talking to Molly like they’ve been best friends for twenty years.
Crew’s got Nora on his hip while he tries to talk football with Boone and I’m halfway through a glass of whiskey when an older couple walks up, hand-in-hand.
The woman’s in a pale pink suit, pearls at her throat.
Her husband’s wearing a bolo tie and boots so polished they reflect the candlelight.
“Well, if that ain’t a jawline carved by the good Lord himself. You must be the groom. I’m Irene, a good friend of your mother,” she says, smiling up at me with bright eyes that don’t miss much. “And your bride, my goodness—she’s stunning.”
“She is,” I say honestly.
The man claps a hand on my shoulder, steady and firm. “You did good, son. She’s got some fire in her, it seems. Those are the ones who’ll change your life.”
The woman steps closer, lowers her voice conspiratorially. “Of course, you’re not bad to look at, either. If I were forty years younger…” she winks, “I’d climb you like a tree.”
I bark out a laugh before I can stop it. “Appreciate the honesty, ma’am.”
Her husband grins, totally unfazed. “She says that to all the tall ones.”
“Only the ones with biceps like that,” she adds.
I shake my head, smiling, and glance out across the room again—just in time to catch Wren mid-laugh, her head tilted back, that white dress hugging her like it was stitched to her skin.
Her cheeks are flushed, one hand wrapped around a wineglass, the other gesturing as she talks to someone.
She looks relaxed. Happy. Light . Loosened up in a way I haven’t seen before.
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
Not just in the conventional sense—even though she definitely is that, too—but in the way she takes up space without trying to.
In the way people lean in a little closer when she talks.
In the way her silence feels like a presence, not an absence.
That kind of beautiful. The kind that sneaks up on you and ruins your defenses in the quietest way possible.
And that kiss—I wasn’t ready for that.
I thought it would be awkward. A little sloppy. Mechanical, at best. But then my hand was on her neck and her mouth was on mine, and everything else just went quiet.
It was soft at first—careful, almost like she didn’t mean to like it—and then something shifted. Her lips pressed back, slow and sure, and that was it. My brain went still, even though my body didn’t. It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t staged. It felt like something I’d been missing without realizing it.
And I didn’t think about Julia. Not once.
Not until it was over. Not until I realized I didn’t want the kiss to end. And even then, I only thought of her long enough to realize she hadn’t crossed my mind at all. I don’t know if that makes me a shitty person or just someone who’s finally tired of living like a ghost.
It’s been years since I kissed someone. Years since I let anyone touch me in a way that meant something.
I haven’t lived with anyone since Julia. And earlier this week, Wren moved into my house. She didn’t bring much—just a few boxes, a duffel bag, a basket full of boots. Some worn paperbacks and her painting supplies. But it was enough to shift the feel of the place.
Her mugs sit next to mine in the cabinet now. Her boots are by the door. I catch her scent in the hallway—something like citrus and flowers, and her shampoo is tucked onto the shelf in the guest bathroom like it’s always been there. None of it takes up much space, but I feel it anyway.
I didn’t realize how empty the house had felt until she was in it. Like it had been holding its breath for years, and someone finally opened a window.
The couple’s still talking—something about their anniversary and a fishing trip in the spring—but I’ve stopped listening.
Wren excuses herself from the group she was talking to. I watch her slip through the French doors that lead out to the balcony, her silhouette framed in soft light, a wineglass still in hand.
And then she’s gone.
I nod to the couple, give them a polite excuse me for a moment, and make my way toward the doors.
I can’t help it—I want to follow. But I pause at the doors, my hand hovering over the knob.
There’s always that moment, right before you do something, where your brain pipes up with every worst-case scenario it can come up with.
What if she wants to be alone? What if I go out there and she looks at me like I’ve ruined the one quiet moment she’s had all night?
Or worse—what if she doesn’t want to be alone and I don’t go?
She’s my wife now. For better or for worse, for optics and paperwork and water rights and whatever the hell this is turning into.
Isn’t this what I’m supposed to do—go after her?
Make sure she’s okay, or not okay, or at least not about to climb over the railing and flee into the night?
I feel like that falls under the “bare minimum” of husband-ly duties.
“Alright, fuck it,” I mutter under my breath, and push open the French doors.
The cold hits first—Montana air, sharp and clean, enough to make my lungs tighten. The music fades behind me, dulled by the glass, replaced by the low scuff of heels on concrete.
Well, heel , singular.
She’s standing near the edge of the balcony, one shoe already abandoned by the planter, the other still on her foot and giving her hell. She’s got the wineglass clutched in one hand, the other yanking at the strap on her ankle.
“Come on ,” she hisses, the strap tangled around her fingers. “You stupid, overpriced little shit.”
The strap finally pops open and she yanks the heel off with a small, triumphant grunt. Then she winds up and launches it across the deck. It lands next to the first, both of them lying there like a pair of casualties.
She pauses, lifts her wineglass with one hand, and casually flips them off with the other.
I don’t mean to laugh. It just happens—deep, involuntary.
She startles and spins around. Her eyes find mine in the dark, and for a second, I think she’s deciding whether to throw the wineglass too.
“You’re sneaky,” she says, like it’s a personality flaw.
“You’re loud,” I counter, nodding toward the heels. “I heard a struggle.”
She lifts her glass. “They lost.”
“I can see that.”
She leans forward on the railing, elbows propped, half of her lipstick worn off. Her hair’s down—long and wild and a little wind-blown. Messy in a good way. It shifts across her back in waves, falling down her spine in a way I try not to look at too long.
The way she’s standing doesn’t help, with one hip popped out and that slit in her dress riding too high, putting an obscene amount of leg on display.
And of course I look. Because I’m human. And because I have absolutely no idea where the hell I’m supposed to look instead. I swallow and redirect my eyes to the string lights overhead. Then the ground.
She sets her own glass down and starts tugging at the top of her dress, adjusting it around her chest like she’s in the privacy of her own bathroom and not on a balcony where her very recent fake husband can see everything.
“God, this thing,” she mutters, pulling the fabric up, then down, then up again. “You’d think I actually had boobs the way it fits.”
Not where I thought this was going. “I’m sorry?”
“They’re small,” she says, lifting her hands to gesture toward herself. “I have tiny boobs. Like, baby squirrel-sized. Usually I can’t get anything to stay up. I used to safety-pin my dresses to my bra in high school.”
I blink.
“Now suddenly I put this thing on and boom—it looks like I’m smuggling cantaloupes or something. It’s suspicious, is all I’m saying.”
I nod slowly, taking in the sight of her—barefoot, flushed, a little unfiltered. I don’t think she’s drunk, but definitely buzzed enough to have this entire conversation without batting an eye.
She turns and looks at me fully, like she just remembered I was there. “What do you think?”
“About your…? You’re asking for feedback on your boobs?”
She tips her head. “Objectively. Not emotionally.”
I press my lips together to keep from laughing. I fail. A short, dry breath escapes.
“Objectively?”
She nods, serious. “Be honest, Sawyer. You’re a man with working eyes. So give it to me straight, Doc.”
I clear my throat, try to school my face into something resembling polite analysis.