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“She had a love of learning, always wanting to visit the historical sites. I didn’t need to open a book to learn about Niagara Falls. We drove there on my day off from school. When I had a research paper to do on Ulysses S. Grant, she took me to Grant’s tomb. Lauren did hers on the Statue of Liberty. The family went together to learn as much as we could.”
“Makes sense why you’re a country boy who loves big cities and travel.”
“It was all my mother’s doing. She also loved to dance and insisted we each learn how. Friday nights in the winter were reserved for dance parties in the living room. She had this incredible smile that lit up the room—always when she was looking for me, Peyton, and Lauren. We knew she loved us because she told us every chance she had. I have dozens of cards, all with long write-ups of how proud she was to have me as a son. How much she loved me. Those cards stopped a few years before she passed—when her hands started to cramp and her mind began to wander.” He sighs, deep and heavy.
I look up at him and watch his eyes close with a loose tear falling down the side.
“How someone with so much joy in her smile, who moved with grace, and had a voracious passion to learn could turn to jelly before our eyes is something I will never understand. The fact that I was too preoccupied with myself to not care as much as I should have, until it was too late, will live with me forever. I was too young and dumb to understand.”
I lean up and wipe the tear from his face.
He looks down at me with a sad yet loving crinkle to his eye. “I’m going to give this blanket to Ainsley. I think my mom would have loved that.”
I kiss him on the cheek. “She’d have loved everything about it. Ainsley will too.”
With a shimmy into Luke, I sigh as I watch a tale of unrequited love, a man traumatized by his fate of having children, and a woman desperate to keep him forever.
I know how you feel, girl. I know how you feel.
twenty-eight
“CHEERS TO ADULTS’ NIGHT!” Melissa hollers as she holds up her glass close to her chest. On her count, we all move our bottles and glasses toward the center as we cheers for her Boomerang video. “Wait! Don’t go anywhere.” She looks at the video and then declares, “I cut out Tara’s glass. We have to do it again.”
We all groan at having to retake the video yet laugh because, aside from Luke, we’re used to Melissa’s antics. She takes her social media accounts very seriously, whereas I absolutely despise it.
“My arm’s longer.” Will grabs the phone from her hand and holds it up high. “Let’s try this again.”
We do the cheers push-in-and-pull-out motion again and wait until Melissa shouts, “This is a good one! I’ll tag you guys.”
Luke and I flop down in our seats at Lone Tavern, a country bar in the nearby town of Castleton, and drink from our respective glasses—a wine for me and a beer for him.
“Is she always like this?” Luke asks, motioning toward Melissa, who’s thumbing away at her phone, posting her video onto her stories.
“Delightfully so. She’s a genius at wedding design and manages our social media.”
“Good thing since you don’t have it. Or has that changed? I tried to find you over the years. See how you’re doing. I couldn’t find you.”
“My parents forbade it when it first came out, and after seeing how it’s ruined people’s lives, I’ve stayed away. I don’t even like to get in shots on the company page. Thank God for Melissa. She loves to get on camera, and her social media magic is what put us on the map.”
I smile at the thought of how fortunate I am to have Melissa in my life. As I watch Will slide an arm across her chest and pull her in for a backward hug, I beam at how happy I am that she’s found her happiness.
Luke glides his arm across the back of the booth. I settle into his side as he pulls my chin toward him and kisses me on the lips. “I’m glad you went with your gut on a lot of things.”
“Look at you two, all cute and kissy!” Tara gushes, about three drinks deep. “So glad we didn’t have to chop your balls off.”
Luke lifts a brow, and I rub his thigh as I explain, “It’s her favorite appendage to verbally attack when she’s upset with men.”
“I get that. Just keep her away from my appendage.” He takes a draw of his beer.
“Don’t worry, man. Tara’s threatened to cut mine off more times than I can count,” Will says.
“That’s because you have been a shit more times thanIcan count,” she counters.
“And she’s an accountant, so she knows her numbers,” Melissa jokes, to which Will playfully squeezes his bicep along her chest in response.
We’re out tonight for the first time in a while, as Melissa and I hardly get a Saturday night off. Lone Tavern is a raucous bar with a band playing music at the far end of the room, which is blaring through the bar. We’re lucky we secured a booth because the place is jam-packed with young locals, all decked out in their hippest attire. If it were up to me, we’d be at a wine bar or someplace a touch more refined. Still, the fact that everyone is out tonight and having fun makes this the perfect choice.
“Luke, do we know if you’re gonna die from some crazy, horrible disease yet?” Tara asks, to which Luke nearly spits out his drink.
