Page 251 of What We Become

He raises his phone, arm extended, and I feel the moment he finds the angle because his body shifts—leaning into me, pressing into Sage, all of us fitted together like we were designed for this. The flash goes off. Then he pockets the phone and doesn’t let go of my hand.

“Micah,” Sage calls out, catching his eye across the yard. “Eli. Get over here.”

They don’t hesitate. Micah moves first, threading through the guests with the smile he’s had on his face since two o’clock. Eli follows, slower, his hands in his pockets, watching the three of us with a slight smirk on the corner of his mouth.

“Group activity,” Milo announces, throwing his free arm around Micah’s shoulders. “The Adams Family dance floor is now accepting all applicants.”

“There’s barely room,” Eli says, but he’s already stepping in, fitting himself against Sage’s other side. His hand finds her waist, tentative until she leans into it, and then his shoulders drop an inch.

Micah slots in beside Milo, completing the circle. The song changes to something faster, bass-driven, and Sage laughs as we all adjust our footing, suddenly too many limbs in too small a space.

“Knoxie,” she says, looking past my shoulder.

I turn. He’s standing at the edge of the light, massive and still, watching us in that way he does.

“Fury,” he says, not moving.

“Come here. You can’t watch on our wedding day.”

A grin tugs at the corner of his mouth, and he covers the distance in three strides and stops behind Sage, his hands settling on her shoulders. She tips her head back against his chest and smiles up at him, and his whole face softens into possession without jealousy.

“Okay,” Milo breathes. “This is happening. This is actually happening. All of us. Dancing. Together. In public.”

“Our backyard isn’t exactly public,” I say. “We all fucked in a room with more people than this watching.”

“True,” he says. “But we were wearing masks that day, so no one could tell who we were.”

Knox scoffs.

“Okay,” Milo admits. “Maybe you’re the one who gave us away, big guy.”

“Stop talking,” I tell him.

“Impossible. I’m documenting.”

He raises his phone again, arm extended until he finds the frame. The five of us press around Sage. Her face tipped up, laughing. My hand on her hip. Knox’s chin against her hair. Eli smiling. Micah’s arm thrown across Milo’s chest to keep us all together.

“Everyone look alive,” Milo says. “Or dead. Whatever, Knox, you do you.”

The flash goes off. Then he lowers the phone and stares at the screen, checking.

“Good?” Sage asks.

“Perfect,” he says, and his voice has gone strange—stripped of the comedy, just the truth underneath. “Fucking perfect.”

He pockets the phone and doesn’t let go of me. Doesn’t let go of any of us. The song builds toward something loud and celebratory, and we move together, six people who shouldn’t fit, who learned to fit anyway.

By the time we sit down to eat, Sage has lost her shoes, and Milo has sent the group photo to people who are standing twenty feet away.

Gloria waits until everyone has a plate before rising with her glass.

“I’ve already given one excellent speech today, so I won’t give another.”

“Thank God,” Milo mutters.

“I heard that, sweetheart.”

“Love you, Mom.”