Her words hit me straight in the chest. Seeing her so vulnerable, so unsure, made my heart twist.
“What’s going on?” I asked gently. “I’m sensing something more than those two women earlier. Did something happen? Did someone say something to you?”
She let out a short breath and looked down. “That loud guy next door parked in my spot this morning, and I completely lost it. Had to drive up and down the street looking for parking and still couldn’t find anything. I had a full-on hissy fit in my truck.”
“So that’s why you parked across the street?” I said, the puzzle piece falling into place.
“Yup,” she replied with a humorless laugh. “It’s stupid. I know it is. But I’ve been so irritable lately, everything just sets me off. I’m quick to anger, and it’s exhausting. It’s like… it’s not even about the parking spot. It’s this town. It’s everything.”
I knew what Faircloud was to her now. I knew how her opinions had changed after everything that happened.
When she left, she shut nearly everyone out.
Everyone except me. I was the one person she stayed in contact with the majority of the time, and I never told anyone.
I didn’t give up, even when she ignored my texts. There was a time Boone told me he’d heard from her, and I lost it. I couldn’t take the silence, so I reached out again. I kept reaching. And one day, finally, she called me back.
Eventually, I even drove out to see her.
“It’s going to take time, Ace,” I said.
She let out a soft sigh and nodded. “I know, but I’m impatient, and it doesn’t make the feeling any less there. I need something good to come soon.”
The waitress came by with our food, and we both dug in, switching the topic to something lighter and less emotionally taxing. We decided to focus on our friends instead.
“Can you believe Penny and Mac moved in together?”
4
LOGAN
“The party is here!” Penny called, striding toward the fire pit with a box of her favorite wine hoisted proudly in her arms. Behind her, Mac followed at an easier pace, shaking his head with that signature crooked smirk tugging at his lips. A cigarette balanced between them, the smoke curling upward into the night sky like a lazy ribbon.
“We would’ve been here an hour ago,” he said, nodding toward Penny, “but someone couldn’t manage to be on time.”
Theo, perched sideways on Rhodes’s lap, raised a brow. “Did you not tell her the time was an hour earlier than we were meeting? We gotta keep her under control somehow.”
Mac let out a dry laugh and shrugged. “Tried. She’s catching on.”
Penny shot him a playful glare as she set the box of wine down at the edge of the picnic table, pulling out a Solo cup and filling it to the brim without apology.
Before they arrived, it had been Boone and Aspen in their chairs, Theo and Rhodes sharing one, and Ellie and me sitting side-by-side, close enough to feel the warmth of her arm againstmine. There was comfort in these moments—these people, this space.
Penny and Mac claimed a spot together on the log bench across from us, settling in as the glow from the fire lit up everyone’s faces in soft flickers of orange and gold.
We all slipped into easy conversation, the kind that comes only from long histories and years of entanglement. I’d known most of this group most of my life, except for Aspen, Penny, and Theo. Even though we all did go to high school together, it wasn’t until Boone took a liking to Aspen that brought everyone together, making an unlikely paring of friends our reality.
We joked about old flames, terrible habits, the chaos of our youth, and how, somehow, most of us ended up paired off.
“It’s kind of wild how it all worked out,” Aspen said, her smile tender as she looked at Boone, who reached for her hand without missing a beat.
Those two had been the first—the spark that lit the rest of the fire. Then came Theo and Rhodes, bonded not just by love but by the love for their daughter, Frankie. And now, the newest pair: Mac and Penny. He’d clawed his way back into her heart after blowing it once, but damn if he hadn’t put in the work. Now they were living together, smiling like love was something easy.
“Isn’t it?” Theo laughed softly, her palm tapping against Rhodes’s cheek. “Who would’ve guessed we’d end up here?”
Penny and Aspen exchanged a quick glance and burst out laughing, their voices echoing over the firelight. “Us!” they said in unison.
Ellie raised her beer bottle, nodding toward Mac and Penny. “And then there’s you two. Clearly meant to be. Mac, you’re one lucky bastard for her to have forgiven you.”
