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“Because you’re falling in love with your wife,” she declares. And before I can even respond, she cackles, then pumps a fist. “And I knew it. I knew it the night you two were flirting at the bar. I knew it when you went to the back of the bar and she was waiting for you, looking for you, hoping you were going to come back out.”
My lips twitch in a smile I try to fight off. “She was?” This detail makes me unreasonably happy.
“Yes. And I told her to keep coming back…so I’m going to take credit for this union.”
“Because you told her to return to Sticks and Stones? You tell everyone to return,” I say, dumping the final scoop of shredded coconut into the bag. “That’s just good business practice.”
“And good meddling grandma practice, so yes, I’m officially responsible for the glow on your face.”
“I’m not glowing,” I grumble.
“You are,” she says matter-of-factly.
“I do not glow.”
“Yes, you do.” She doesn’t stop gloating till we’re out of the store and loading the cookie ingredients into her car.
But before she starts the engine, she fixes me with a serious look. “You don’t dispute you’re falling in love with her?”
Lying to myself has come somewhat easily from time to time. But I’ve never been good at fibbing to Grams. Especially when my heart feels ten times lighter just thinking of Elodie. But also heavier, since there’s a part of me—the dark, heavy part of me—that keeps wondering…what if this romance ends the way the others have?
“I am falling,” I admit, and this feels like stepping off the ledge of a tall building. “And it’s really fucking scary, Grams.”
She pats my shoulder sympathetically. “All good things are. Love, roller coasters, and eating shishito peppers.”
An hour later, I’m buying round-trip tickets for the ferry, setting my hand on Elodie’s back, and walking with her onto the big boat.
My palms are slightly sweaty. My heart is jittery. Grams was right. This is scary. It’s one thing to want to romance my temporary wife. It’s another to realize I’ve already fallen in love with her.
Pretty sure I know exactly when it happened too. Gradually, as I got to know her, then all of a sudden. The other morning when we talked in the kitchen and she helped me to see my past differently—that was when I knew I’d broken my own rule.
The one I set in Vegas when she was walking down the aisle.
When I warned myself to be careful or else I might fall.
Lot of good that rule did.
I’ve broken it, and I need Elodie to know what the other morning meant to me.
A December breeze whips by, blowing strands of her blonde hair as we board. Once we’re on the boat, I snag a seat by the window since it’s too cold on the deck. “Remember the other morning? When you asked about Hailey?” I ask immediately.
“Of course.”
Travelers shuffle past us, slumping down into seats, toggling onto laptops, tapping away on phones.
“I don’t think I realized I’d been carrying that for so long,” I admit. “How heavy it was too. You helped me to see that.”
Her smile is bright and hopeful. “I’m glad you could start to let that go.”
“I feel lighter in my own shoes,” I say, and holy shit. Nerves roar through me. It’s like I’m stepping into the future, leaving my old ways behind. It’s nerve-wracking, but exhilarating too. “For years, a decade, I held on to that. Kept it to myself.”
The horn blows and the ferry pulls away. “It’s a relief to let things go.”
“It sure is. So thank you for helping me.”
She nods, then she’s quiet for a beat before she says, “For a long time, too, I thought my parents became super parents with Amanda. I thought I wasn’t good enough. But a few weeks ago, she told me she liked that I shared my life with her, that she got to work with me, that we could walk to school together. And it meant the world to me that the things I’d been doing were the things she needed.”
“You’re a great mom, Elodie,” I say, wrapping an arm around her. “And sister.”
