Gabe lets me go and gives me a smile. “I know.”
“This is so exciting,” Maddy squeals, throwing her arms around me. “I love you both, and I love this so much.”
“Come on, Little Red,” Jeremy says. “Let’s give Liv and Brian a few minutes alone. We can go find you a Shirley Temple and some athletes to talk to.”
“Say less,” Maddy replies, making everyone laugh.
Emma takes my hand and gives it a squeeze, and Jeremy claps me on the shoulder before walking away with everyone else, and then it’s just Olivia and me. Grabbing a couple champagne flutes from a passing server, I hand her one and then lead her over to one of the Christmas trees flanking the massive window overlooking the football field.
“So…that went well,” Olivia says with a grin, taking a sip of her champagne.
I laugh, wrapping my free arm around her waist. “Sorry I jumped the gun. I forgot literally everything the second I saw you in that dress.”
“I meant for you to.” She turns to face me, laying a hand on my chest. “Thinking I could spend tonight pretending we’re anything other than what we are was stupid.”
Leaning down, I press a kiss to her forehead. “And what are we, Liv?”
“I don’t know, Bry. Want to be my boyfriend?” Her eyes sparkle with amusement, and her mouth tips up in a smile as I press my lips to hers, wanting to taste all that happy for myself.
“There is nothing in the whole world that I want more.”
That’s not entirely true. What I want is everything with her. I want to take her in my arms and tell her I love her. I want her to go to Italy and think of me when she’s there, and then I want her to come home to me so we can start a life together. I want her career and mine. A home we build together. Love and kids and family and forever.
But for right now, this seems like the perfect way to start.
So we stand wrapped together and drink champagne and laugh and talk and steal kisses in the dim ballroom light. We dance under the Christmas lights strung across the ceiling and sit at a table with all our friends and talk and laugh some more. I get to eat the food she made, and watch everyone eat it too, my heart swelling with pride as I watch my girl in her element, doing the thing that she was born to do.
We go home together, and I peel off her dress and slide inside her, whispering all the different ways that she’s perfect. Mine. Everything. And then we go to sleep wrapped around each other, ending a night and starting a new day just the way we were meant to.
Together.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OLIVIA
“Merry Christmas, you two!” Rachel Parker greets me and Brian at her front door on Christmas Eve with a wide grin. Ben and Julie’s mom is adorned for the holiday in a bright red dress with tiny Christmas trees dangling from her ears. The foyer is decked out with a low table sporting a Christmas train set and a kid-sized Christmas tree covered in child-friendly ornaments. The house is warm and bright and smells like apples and cinnamon, and the entire atmosphere gives cozy,come on in and stay for a whilevibes.
Not that I would expect anything different from Rachel. Ben and Julie may be her only biological children in the bunch, but she and her husband, Steven, have kind of become everyone’s default parents over the years, and they’re grandparents to everyone’s kids. When Jeremy found out he had a brother, Brian was swept up into the Parker fold immediately. And as soon as Gabe came back to Pittsburgh to re-connect with Molly, Rachel claimed him as their own. He was Molly’s, so he was theirs. Andwhen I moved back to Pittsburgh, because I belonged to Gabe, I belonged to the Parkers also. That’s the way Rachel works.
In this group, family isn’t what you’re born into. Family is what’s inside. Family is made. And there is no better family than this one.
“Thanks for having us, Rachel,” I say, letting myself be swept up into her comforting arms. When I first moved here, her hug was the first mom hug I’d had since my own mom died, and somehow, Rachel knew.
Rachel always knows.
It’s her superpower.
She kisses me on my cheek and then wraps Brian in a hug. “You can both thank me by telling me literally everything. How did this happen? How long has it been going on? What did Gabe’s face look like when he found out? I’m so mad I was out of town for the gala last weekend. I would have paid actual money to see that.”
I laugh, slipping my arm through Brian’s. “Apparently, he’s been obsessed with me forever. I got snowbound at the loft a few weeks ago. The rest is history.”
Rachel gives Brian a sly smile. “Finally got around to making your move, huh? You held out longer than I thought you would.”
“You knew?” Brian laughs.
“Oh, honey, of course I knew. There is not one single thing that goes on with one of my children that I don’t know about. Also, not for nothing, but you haven’t been able to take your eyes off of her for, like, three years. You weren’t subtle.”
I look up at Brian and see his face turning a little red, and it’s so fucking cute I could die. “Subtlety is for losers,” I say, leaning my cheek against his shoulder.
