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“We’re gonna try a lot more than that,” he growls, pulling me close, but allowing himself only a single, closed-mouth kiss.

He steps away once more then hisses under his breath, looking at the pavement around us. “There's oil on the ground. It's going to stain your dress.”

I laugh. “That's okay. I'm not sure I'll be getting a lot of use out of it after this.”

“You're going to need a wedding dress eventually,” he says softly, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Just let me get my degree first.”

I raise a brow. “I thought you said no romance that starts when you’re eighteen can last.”

“I have no memory of saying that,” he says, swooping me up to carry me over the oil spill, as if I'm a bride being carried over a threshold. “And I’m nineteen next week, which is entirely different.”

“Entirely,” I agree, and then he presses his lips to mine, and yes...

I do think it’s going to be entirely different.

EPILOGUE

FORD

Four Years Later

Moonlight glints off the pool in Lauren’s backyard, the place where I once saw Grace in shorts and a tank top and nearly lost my mind. It’s a beautiful night for a going-away party—the breeze is soft, the insects are mysteriously absent—and my fiancée, in a dress that matches her flushed cheeks, is the most beautiful thing about it. We’ve been living together for three years now, ever since she joined me at Fenwick after a year at community college, yet I’m still struck by her every time she comes into view.

“What do we even call a diamond that small?” asks my sister, grabbing Grace’s hand. “A diamond chip? A diamond speck?”

I give Leila the finger.

“It’s perfect,” Grace says, plopping into my lap. “He wasn’t supposed to get me any ring at all. We’re saving money.”

We’d talked about the trip we’re taking for two full years before we decided to actually do it—ten months in Europe, just the two of us, after graduation. Life has a way of making you think you can put the best parts off, and then you just keep putting them off. There was never going to be a time when ten months in Europe made perfect sense, not until our kids were out of the house and we’d retired.

I want to do all those things with her now. Law school and her design business can wait.

“What’s the rule for rings?” asks Kappy, digging into the cooler for a drink. “Three months’ salary?”

“Ford, surely that campus job paid you more than fifty bucks a month?” says Leila, who’s really dialing up her pain-in-the-ass quotient tonight. Her weird way of telling us she’s sad we’re leaving.

“You’re the worst,” laughs Grace. “It’s a good thing I love you.”

Leila kicks Grace’s foot. I love you too, Leila-style.

Meeting Grace was the turning point for my sister, the moment when she finally started to improve. To have Grace take a stand against her own father was what Leila needed—it allowed her to truly believe she hadn’t been at fault. And Grace was pretty broken up, at first, about losing her family, which gave Leila someone to take care of, to worry about, instead of herself.

“One day I’m gonna buy you a diamond so huge that everyone assumes it’s fake,” I tell Grace.

She tucks her head into the curve of my neck—my favorite place for it. Okay, my second-favorite place for it. “Don’t you dare. I adore my ring. And every time I look at it, I’ll think about our trip.”

Since it’s summer, we’ll start in the north—Norway to Sweden. The Baltics to Denmark. From there we’ll slowly weave west, then south. We shared a single room in a group home and worked part-time to save for the next ten months, but it still won’t be fancy—mostly youth hostels and Airbnbs, aside from a few spectacular exceptions: Karla, Kappy’s mom, got us a 14-day cruise through the Mediterranean and JJ—who dropped out of college as a freshman because his side hustle was making millions—got us two weeks in a villa in Santorini. His way of apologizing to Grace, which he’s been doing for the past four years.

Somewhere along the way we’ll get married. I’ve wanted it for years and so has she. It would be cool if we could hold out until Greece, but I’m ready for the moment when I can say, “This is my wife, Grace.” The sooner the better.

Leila, who still has a year left of school, will join us over her fall break. Kappy, in her first year of med school, plans to meet us around the holidays.

“Hey Matt,” Nico says from across the fire. “Tell everyone what Ford said to you that first time he saw Grace.”

I raise a brow. “We don’t need to discuss this.”

“This I need to hear,” says Alex, because no matter how friendly and chill he is, that fucker still likes my fiancée slightly too much.