Millie appeared at my elbow.
She'd traded her heels for something flat and her cheeks were flushed and her hair had come half loose from wherever she'd pinned it and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. She leaned into my side. I put my arm around her and felt her belly against my hip—round and solid and real—and thought:mine. All of it. Finally.
"Your dad is explaining limestone to my dad," she said.
"I see that."
"My dad looks genuinely interested."
"Your dad is a good man."
She smiled. Her eyes moved across the lawn to where Daniela stood at the edge of the dance floor, head tipped back, laughing. Sawyer beside her, saying whatever had made that happen. The distance between them was not very much distance at all.
"They've been like that all day," Millie said.
"I know."
"You're not going to do anything about it."
"Not my business."
She looked up at me. "Since when."
"Since the last time I tried to manage something it resulted in an eleven-minute courthouse wedding."
"You loved that wedding."
"I did. Eleven minutes was exactly right."
Across the lawn, Haven said something to Wyatt. He shook his head. She said something else, and he looked at her for a moment with that flat, unreadable expression he used on everyone, and then he let her pull him toward the dance floor. He danced the way he did everything—correctly, no wasted movement, one hand at her waist and his eyes somewhere over her shoulder.
Haven looked up at him like he'd hung the moon.
My mother materialized beside me with a wine glass, watched them for a moment.
"She's sweet on him," she said. Fond, faintly amused, not concerned.
"She's twenty," Millie said.
"Mm." My mother watched Haven say something that made Wyatt's jaw move. "He's not interested. You can always tell with Wyatt." She took a sip of wine. "That boy would rather work himself to death than let someone take care of him."
Millie glanced up at me sideways. I kept my face even.
"What about you," my mother said, turning to me. "Did you give him trouble about dancing?"
"I haven't danced yet," I said.
She looked at Millie. Millie looked at me.
"That's a Holt trait," my mother said. "Making things harder than they need to be."
"Eleven minutes," Millie said solemnly.
My mother laughed and kissed her cheek and moved back toward Elena, toward the food and the string lights and the ongoing limestone situation at the far end of the lawn.
Daniela drifted past on Sawyer's arm—he'd steered her onto the dance floor and she'd apparently decided to allow it—and she caught Millie's eye over his shoulder and made a face. Millie pressed her lips together.
"Don't," I said.
