Chapter 40 #3
Miller smiles like it’s the most delicious drama she’s ever heard and launches toward me at the same time as Sage and Lark. I’m still sitting on the couch when all three of them descend like a pack of affectionate wolves, wrapping me in a flurry of perfume and laughter and hair in my face.
“Oh my God,” Miller says, pulling back just enough to point a finger at Sawyer. “If you hurt her, I swear to God, I will make your life hell. Do you hear me? Wren is one of the few people I actually like around here.”
I laugh, but I’m slightly stunned. She’s always felt like Lark’s friend. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that maybe she was mine, too.
Sawyer lifts both palms. “You don’t have to worry. She’s one of the few people I love, too.”
I don’t look at anyone. I just drop my gaze to my lap and smile like a complete idiot.
“I knew it,” Miller says, wiggling her eyebrows at me. “It was the slutty bikini, wasn’t it?”
I shoot daggers at her, but it’s half-hearted. “Yeah. Thanks for that, by the way!”
Miller grins. “Lark’s the one who picked it out.”
Lark gasps and smacks her shoulder. “It was supposed to be a joke! I didn’t think you’d actually buy it.”
“It was the hottest bikini I’ve ever seen,” Miller shrugs. “I had a moral obligation.”
“That was not a bikini,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “That was dental floss with a price tag.”
Sawyer, somehow entirely too comfortable with all of this, leans in slightly. “It didn’t stay on long anyway.”
My jaw drops. “ Sawyer! ” I smack his chest and try not to melt into the couch.
The girls immediately lose it—Lark and Miller squealing and howling and collapsing into each other. Sage lets out a shocked little laugh and covers her mouth. Miller and Lark high-five right over my head.
Ridge gags. “Jesus Christ! That’s my sister, dude.”
Boone’s already shaking his head. “Can we not talk about Wren’s bikini? Or whatever didn’t stay on?”
Sawyer just smirks beside me, smug and content. And I sit there—blushing, mortified, and somehow…totally okay with it. Maybe even a little happy to be here in the middle of all of it. My life, as ridiculous and loud and unexpected as it’s turned out to be.
Mom’s voice cuts through the noise, clear and calm but unmistakably final. “I already knew this was coming,” she says with a smile, her eyes landing on me, then on Sawyer. “But I’m happy for you two. Really. We already love you, Sawyer.”
She turns to him, gesturing loosely to the group as Miller starts arguing with Lark about who’s responsible for making the salad. “And not to mention, you’ve handled this wild crew pretty well.”
Sawyer chuckles. “I appreciate it, Mrs. Wilding.”
She narrows her eyes. “It’s Molly. You’re married to my daughter, for God’s sake!”
That pulls a full laugh out of him. “Sorry. Molly. ”
She nods like she’s granting him permission to live another day. “That’s better.” Then she claps her hands once. “Now, time for lunch. Everyone—go set the table.”
It’s like she pressed a button. The entire room scatters in different directions, chairs dragging, someone yelling about which drawer the napkins are in. Sawyer stands and reaches for my hand, tugging me up from the couch just as the room starts to empty.
Before I can even brush the hair out of my face, his hands find my waist. He pulls me close and kisses me, right in the middle of the living room like the world isn’t happening around us.
I blink up at him when he pulls back. “What was that for?”
He gestures vaguely toward the ceiling. “There’s a mistletoe.”
I glance up and see nothing but wood beams and a crooked snowflake one of the twins must’ve taped there.
“There’s no mistletoe,” I say, raising an eyebrow.
He nods toward the front door. “Pretty sure I saw some back there.”
I laugh. “I think the rule is you have to be standing under it.”
He leans in, lips brushing mine. “Yeah, well…maybe I just like kissing you.”
He kisses me again—deeper this time. Warmer.
And then, quieter, he says, “Thank you.”
I look up at him. “For what?”
“For this. For once, Christmas doesn’t feel like this huge, looming thing I have to get through. It’s starting to feel like something I might actually…like again.”
I smile at him, soft and a little overwhelmed. “That’s all thanks to my crazy family.”
But he just shakes his head, brushing his thumb against my cheek. “No. It’s thanks to you. For letting me in, for letting me be here.”
He kisses me again, softer this time. In the background, someone drops silverware and someone else yells about rolls, but none of it touches this moment.
His hand’s still at my waist, his forehead brushing mine, and I’m standing here in a room full of noise feeling steady for the first time in a long time.
And for once, I’m not bracing for what comes next. I’m just here. Letting myself stay. Letting myself be his.
I used to think love was something you either had or didn’t. That it came easy for some people and skipped over the rest of us.
But I don’t think that anymore. Now I think love is messier.
Quieter. I think it sneaks up on you when you’re washing dishes together or sharing a blanket or saying nothing at all.
It’s someone pulling you closer in a crowded room just because they can.
It’s someone choosing you even when you’re not at your best. Maybe especially then.
It’s someone showing up again and again, even when you try to give them reasons not to. It’s someone like Sawyer—gentle, kind, a little bit battered by life, and still choosing to stay.
Love, in the end, is just two people, a little broken and a little brave, feeling their way toward each other in the dark.
And maybe that’s what makes it real. Not how certain it looks from the outside, but how safe it feels once you’re inside it.
Because that’s what Sawyer’s done for me.
He didn’t just make space for the parts of me I usually keep quiet—he waited there, patiently, until I felt brave enough to bring them out.
He never tried to fix me or figure me out.
He just saw me—really saw me—and made it feel like it was okay to stop hiding.
And somewhere in all of that, I started to see myself differently, too.
One who didn’t shut the idea of love out completely. One who still believed in soft things, in starting over, in letting someone in and not immediately bracing for the worst.
And I’m so glad it’s him.
Of all the people in the world—I’m so glad it’s him.