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Not that I’d been expecting a party, but my friends couldn’t help but celebrate at every opportunity. I hugged Lark, Katherine, and English. Before turning to the other friends that I didn’t know as well, but was getting to know.
Katherine and Lark’s old friends—the Crew. They were a knot of Upper East Siders that they’d known since they had been children. Natalie and Penn had their own private villa. Lewis and Addie, and Rowe and his husband had come in later and were on the other side of the island. I didn’t know them as well as the rest of the New Yorkers who had grown up there, but I was glad that the animosity had dissolved. That Court could be around his brother, Penn. That Katherine and Natalie were no longer at each other’s throat. That Camden didn’t want to kill Penn at every opportunity. It sure helped that Katherine was pregnant with their third child in so many years.
“Congratulations again,” Natalie said, pushing her signature silver hair off of her shoulders and grinning brightly.
“Thank you for coming.”
Natalie looked around at the world we’d both somehow ended up in. Outsiders to our core, but somehow belonging all the same.
“It’s who we are now, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “It sure is.”
Gavin grabbed my hand then, tugging me onto the dance floor as “Love Me Tender”filtered through the speakers.
“It’s our song,” he breathed into my ear.
Our song.
I loved that. Even if I hadn’t been able to listen to it since Halloween last year, when I’d sung it at my father’s funeral. He’d made it another couple of months after our wedding, but the prognosis had always been low. Gavin and I had spent as many weekends as we could back in Dallas, trying to get as many memories in as we could. But none of it had been as much as we all deserved.
Dad had passed.
I still mourned him every minute of every day. Sometimes, I’d find myself going a whole day without thinking about his absence, and then it would hit me. He was gone. Really gone. I’d never hear him call me honey again. I’d never hear his voice. Or his laugh. And then I’d freeze up, and deep sobs would rack through me.
Everything would be terrible. Despite my entire life being more wonderful than ever.
Luckily, Gavin was there every time. We talked about my dad. The highs and lows and everything in between. I didn’t want to forget him, and I was grateful that Gavin known my dad even briefly.
And maybe “Love Me Tender” had been taken from us at that funeral, but it’d also made it all the more special.
A tribute and a blessing.
Because my dad had loved me tenderly in his own way. He’d given his blessing to Gavin to love me forever after he was gone. Which was as good as I could have asked for.
“I love you,” I told Gavin, swiping at the lone tear that tracked down my face.
“I love you too, pixie.”
We kissed on the dance floor as our joy and sorrow mingled in an inexplicable way. The way only Gavin could ever know me, which was why we were perfect together. And I’d never choose otherwise.
* * *
