“I’ll never forget this as long as I live,” Katie said.
“And now you get to honeymoon in Italy.” Jo grinned as Derek hooked his arm over her shoulders where they stood nearby. “Thanks for trusting me with your special day.”
Derek shook his head, his eyes wide with awe. “How did this happen? How did we get here?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
McKenzie nodded her head toward Jo. “Well, your lady is kind of a miracle worker slash uptight control freak, so I’d say that had something to do with it.”
“Hey,” Jo said, with mock indignation.
“I didn’t say those weren’t some of your best qualities.” McKenzie held up her hands like a shield where she sat at Katie’s other side.
Derek chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. I just…It seems like yesterday we were kids playing in your garage, dreaming of the big lives we wanted to live someday,” he said, looking at Dallas before turning to me. “Then meeting you and finally becoming a band and traveling the world. Everything is so different now. Now we have marriages, love, families...entirely new careers. How did it happen?”
Dallas’ mouth curled into a smile, and he shrugged. “We grew up.”
“It’s pretty weird, isn’t it?” I asked. “In so many ways, things are the same.” Like us. Somehow I knew that no matter where life took us, we’d always have each other.
“But things are different too,” Derek said, reaching over and giving my shoulder a squeeze. “We’redifferent.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and smirked. “I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t think I’ve changed at all.”
“You have,” Dallas assured me, the words heavy with pride.
He gave me a knowing glance, the kind that said everything without him saying a word. The kind of look born from a lifetime of friendship.
I cleared my throat. “Thanks, Dal.”
“We better get going,” Jo said. “We’ve got to get back to relieve the sitter.”
Katie rose to her feet, holding her hand out to Dallas. “Yeah, we need to get home too. Our flight leaves bright and early tomorrow.”
Dallas pressed a kiss to her temple. “We’ll sleep on the plane.”
Together, we blew out all of the candles and turned off the heaters before heading inside so everyone could grab their things.
“I’ll come back tomorrow and help clean up,” Jo said, starting toward the front door.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you sure?” Jo asked. “I don’t mind.”
I nodded. “Really, it’s fine. It’s not like I have anything going on anyway.”
We walked outside together, stopping at the bottom of the porch steps.
“Thanks again for keeping Emilia,” Katie said to me.
“Glad to do it,” I replied.
McKenzie and I exchanged hugs with our friends before they drove away, leaving just the two of us standing side by side beneath the glow of the moon.
She ran her hands over her bare arms to ward off the chill. “Are you sure you don’t want help cleaning up?” she asked, tilting her face up to me. “I can stay.”
My breath caught in my throat as I gazed down at her. God, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to tell her all the things I’d been dying to say for weeks. She was right there. All I had to do was…
“That’s okay,” I said, immediately kicking my own ass inside my head.
