“I’m going to be the worst bridesmaid,” I warn her. “I’ll cry during the ceremony and probably trip walking down the aisle.”
“You’re a dancer. You won’t trip.” She laughs.
“I’m so happy for you, Win.”
“I’m happy for all of us.” She squeezes my hand.
Archer catches my eye from the grill. He’s holding a spatula and wearing the old Knights t-shirt I’ve stolen and returned a hundred times, and he tips his beer toward me—just a small lift, just a look—and I tip my wine glass back.
After the burgers and the cleanup and the goodbyes—after Ollie has somehow gotten Lauren’s number despite her insisting she wasn’t interested, after Winnie has shown me fourteenpotential bridesmaid dresses on her phone, the house is finally quiet.
Lauren is asleep in the guest room by nine-thirty. The champagne and the wine and the Ollie situation wore her out.
I’m on the back porch with a glass of wine, my feet on the railing, listening to the neighborhood settle.
Archer comes outside and sits next to me. I lean into him, his arm comes around my shoulders, and my head finds his chest.
“Good night,” he says.
“Really good night.”
“Ollie seemed interested in Lauren.”
“She’s going to dinner with him.”
“Wow. Didn’t see that coming,” he says.
We sit in the quiet together replaying the day.
“Arch?”
“Hmm.”
“Do you ever think about what would have happened if you’d said something back then? After that night?”
He’s quiet, his thumb moving along my shoulder. “I think we would have been a disaster. We were kids.”
“And now?”
He gives me a soft look. “And now I’m ready.”
I kiss him, and he pulls me into his lap, and the porch chair creaks under both of us and I laugh against his mouth and he holds me tighter.
“I love you,” I say. “I’ve loved you since you walked into my ballet class looking cute and clueless and couldn’t do a plié to save your life.”
“I love you too.” He presses his forehead against mine. “And for the record, I could do a plié.”
“You absolutely could not.”
He grins against my mouth and kisses me again, and the city hums around us and the house is warm behind us.
This is my life. Not borrowed. Not temporary. Not a guest room and a suitcase and a story I told myself about helping a friend.
Mine.
And it was worth every year of getting here.
Chapter Thirty-Two
