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“Jesus, this place is huge,” I said as I stepped out, slinging my Blaire Blush bag on my shoulder.
“In LA, this place would be ten million dollars,” Campbell said.
“Or more.”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“What’s your place like in LA?”
“Not like this,” he said with a laugh, sliding an arm across my shoulders.
I chuckled as we headed toward the front door. I couldn’t imagine Campbell having a massive house like this. It would be a lot of space for one person. At least Jensen was married to Emery and had two kids that lived with him. Plus, his son Colton from his first marriage. He lived full-time in New York City but was in Lubbock for holidays.
Campbell knocked on the front door, and before he even finished, it sprang open. Emery stood in the doorway with her three-month-old, Logan, on her hip. “Hey!” she said. “You made it.”
“We did,” I said, giving her a quick hug and pinching the baby’s adorable cheeks.
Emery’s eyes drifted up to Campbell’s, and she blushed a little. Someone was a Cosmere fan. “Hi, Campbell.”
“Emery,” he said with a head nod.
She noticed we were joined at the hip, and her smile widened. “I see the rumors are true.”
“Rumors?” I asked as we stepped inside.
“That you two are dating,” Morgan said, appearing around the corner.
“Who is spreading that rumor?” I asked.
“No one.” Morgan sealed her lips and threw away the key. “I mostly guessed.”
I glanced at Campbell to see if he was worried by that news. It wasn’t that we were hiding it. Well, we were but not from our friends and family. I didn’t want to be mobbed again like on the Fourth of July. But I didn’t want to hide away in his hotel room forever, as much fun as it’d been.
“You guessed right,” Campbell said.
“Are you getting excited for the wedding?” I asked Morgan.
Patrick had proposed last Fourth of July, and Nora was the wedding planner for their upcoming nuptials at Wright Vineyard.
Morgan gulped. “I left Patrick in charge of a lot of it.”
“No, you didn’t,” Emery said with a laugh. “You’re delegating by sending him to meetings and then having him call you to get your opinion.”
Morgan huffed. “I might be a bit of a control freak. But it’s going to be beautiful.”
“Hey, y’all,” Jensen said, stepping into the entranceway. He took Logan from Emery’s arm and then shook Campbell’s hand. “Glad you could make it. Help yourself to drinks. The rest of the party is out back at the pool.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Emery said with a teasing glint in her eye as she snaked an arm through mine and carried me away from the guys.
We grabbed drinks from the kitchen and then stepped outside in the July heat. She headed for the pool to check on her daughter, Robin. Austin and Julia were playing with her in the pool, and she kept gurgling excitedly.
My friends had staked out a row of chairs poolside. Annie posed for Jennifer’s camera while Sutton watched her son, Jason, cannonball into the pool with their two-year-old, Madison, toddling behind fearlessly, jumping into her husband, David’s, arms. Piper and Nora were slathered in sunscreen and tanning oil, evading the kids splashing.
Landon and Heidi were in the pool with their three-year-old, Holden, while the two babies, Hudson and Harrison, were passed out under an umbrella. Emery’s sister’s kids, Lilyanne and Bethany, were playing in the deep end with Aly. And Jensen’s son Colton was egging them on. A bunch of kids I didn’t recognize were there, too. They must have all invited friends. New, unfamiliar faces. I loved it.
Though I didn’t see the birthday girl or any of the rest of Campbell’s family, except Nora. I flopped down on a chair next to her. “Hey, where’s your family?”
“Inside,” she said. “Being grown-ups.”
“Hollin is inside with them, too,” Piper said with a devious grin. “So, they can’t be that grown-up.”
Nora snorted. “So true.”
“Campbell stayed inside, too.”
Nora arched an eyebrow. “You came with my brother?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “Yeah, I did.”
Nora looked between me and Piper. “Am I the last to know?”
“No, no one knows really. We haven’t made any public statements about it.”
“Why would you? That sounds terrible. You know what his life is like.”
“See,” Piper said. “You don’t have to go public.” She added air quotes on the words. “Just enjoy your time while he’s here.”
I hadn’t seen much of Piper since I’d started dating Campbell, but the time we’d had together at the house, I’d confessed all my fears about the relationship. About him leaving and no one knowing we were dating or everyone knowing we were dating and what the future looked like. I didn’t worry about any of it when we were together, but it crept in when I was alone. I didn’t have answers, and I didn’t know if I was ready to ask for them.
