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Thirty
DAKOTA
By the time I finished we were huddled together, our faces so close we practically looked like a married couple ourselves. Naomi was six shades redder than when she’d first walked into the place. Her mouth hung all the way open.
“Oh my God…” she breathed, when I was finally finished.
I nodded numbly. “I know.”
“Oh myGod,Dakota!”
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, even as my shoulders slumped with something akin to relief. Having finally unloaded the tale to someone else, I felt physically and emotionally drained.
“And have you heard from them?” Naomi asked.
I shook my head. “When they kissed me goodbye at the airport, Jace said something about letting me decompress. Since then, only Aurelius has reached out. He sent a single line text-message telling me they missed me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I sent back a heart emoji,” I shrugged. “Actually, I sent three of them.”
In a lot of ways it was sad, not speaking to the guys or even hearing from them at all. But I knew where they were coming from. After all, I’d been the one who’d downplayed the seriousness of our time together. I’d been the one who told them I wasn’t “that woman” — the one they were ultimately looking for — and I was the one who used the words ‘meaningless fling.’
“So theyreallywant one wife?” Naomi was asking. “Like, they’re actually serious about it?”
“Dead serious.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Iknowthem,” I told her easily. “These aren’t just men, they’re soldiers. Heroes. They’ve been bonded in ways you or I couldn’t even begin to imagine, and they’ve relied on each other for so long that—”
“So why not you?”
Naomi’s question stopped me dead in my tracks. It was four simple words. But four words with an insane impact.
“What do you mean, why not me?”
My new friend smiled and rolled her eyes. “Dakota, look at you right now. You’re happy, you’re animated, you’re all lit up. It wasn’t like this when I first walked in. This all happened the minute you started talking about them.”
The door to the place kept jangling with every new customer. The holiday songs kept playing merrily on the speakers, overhead. But I couldn’t hear any of it anymore. Christmas was in three days, and still nothing mattered.
Nothing butthem.
“You’re even carrying the rings around for shit’s sake,” Naomi pressed. “So in the end, what’s stopping you?”
It was the last thing in the world I expected, being talked into it. My other friends would’ve shoved each other aside to talk meoutof something this crazy.
“I can’t dothat!” I gasped.
Naomi chuckled. “Seems like you might’ve already done it.”
“I mean long term! It’s not feasible. It’s not something people do.”
“But they’re doing it, right?” she pointed out. “Or at least they’re trying to. And you don’t see a problem withthat, do you?”
I pondered her point. “A problem? No. Not a problem.”
“Then they have your blessing?”
