Page 155 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

I walk straight into him.

He braces as my arms wrap around his waist. One hand settles on the back of my head.

“Well,” I say against his chest, “apparently I’m getting my best friend back.”

His hold tightens.

“That so?”

“She invited us to dinner.”

“You told her I don’t eat vegetables?”

“I told her nothing that would embarrass you. Plus, we’re working on the vegetables. Vegetables are good for you.”

“Then you definitely didn’t tell her the truth.”

I smile into his shirt.

For years, happiness felt like something that happened somewhere else. In other people’s homes. To women who were easier to love or better at recognizing danger before it sat down at their kitchen tables.

Now it is here, so ordinary I almost miss how miraculous it is.

It’s August’s hand rubbing slowly over my back while tattoo machines buzz around us. It’s Owen’s laughter when Goblin knocks a cup off the counter. It’s two kittens destroying every room we clean. It’s a message already waiting on my phone from a woman I thought I had lost forever.

Jake stole years from me, sure.

But every one from now on out I claim as my happily ever after.

EPILOGUE

LENNON

August won’t tellme where we’re going. He just keeps glancing over at me at every red light on 290 like he’s checking to make sure I’m still willing to be dragged into whatever this is.

The Austin skyline drops away behind us and the strip malls thin out into dark pasture and cedar breaks, one gas station glowing alone on a hilltop like a lighthouse. Dripping Springs comes and goes, just a blink of a Main Street.

He turns off onto a ranch road I couldn’t find again if my life depended on it, gravel popping under the tires, his hand resting on my knee the whole way like he can’t stand not to be touching some part of me.

“A friend of a friend’s owns this land,” he says. “There’s no lights out here for miles. I checked.”

I checked.Like he sat down at some point this week and thought about light pollution on my behalf.

He parks in a clearing at the top of a rise and cuts the engine. When I climb out of the cab, the cold hits different out here—sharper and without the city’s exhaust-and-concrete smellunderneath it. Just cedar and cold dirt and, faintly, cattle lowing somewhere off in the dark.

“Look up,” August whispers, coming around to my side.

I actually gasp, which is embarrassing, except August grins like that was exactly the reaction he was hoping for.

I’ve seen stars my whole life. I did not know I had never actuallyseenthem until right now, out here, away from every streetlight and porch light and gas station sign, the sky is so thick with them it looks less like a night sky and more a spill of glitter.

“Okay, hang on,” he says, climbing into the truck bed, and I hear him wrestling with something back there, swearing softly.

When he saysokayagain, I turn around to find he’s turned the entire back of the truck bed into a cozy little space—a thick quilt laid out, two pillows from his own bed that I recognize, a second blanket and sleeping bag zipped open and already folded back like an invitation. There’s also a battery lantern turned down low and warm instead of white, and a thermos I already know, without opening it, is going to be cocoa with too many marshmallows.

“August.”

“I might have gone a little overboard.” He rubs the back of his neck, and for just a second there’s something almost frantic underneath the grin, like he’s been turning this night over and over in his head all week. “I wanted— I don’t know. I wanted it to be right.”