I laugh, half joy and half disbelief. “Now I know you’re making shit up.”
He scoops me off the wall and starts walking toward the car. “Then I guess maybe I’ll just let you see for yourself.”
I still have doubts and fears. I’m still furious about all the years I spent believing he didn’t care, and I’m scared to let myself see it differently. But as he sets me so carefully on the passenger seat, as if I’m precious to him—which is the way he’salwaystreated me—hope begins to replace all that wariness.
When he climbs in beside me, cupping my jaw, then leaning over to press a quiet kiss to my mouth, I nearly believe it’s real.
He carriesme into the kitchen, where one of the staff helps him locate alcohol wipes and bandages.
He’s just torn open a wipe when Kelsey enters the kitchen with the widest grin on her face, and pulls the door shut behind her. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she shouts, throwing her arms around me. “I can’t believe this was under my nose all along. So what’s the plan?”
Elijah frowns at her, though his mouth twitches. “I’m a thirty-five-year-old man figuring things out with my twenty-nine year old girlfriend and this doesn’t concern you.”
Kelsey laughs. “Fuck off, Elijah.” She pushes him out of the way to look at my foot. “He’s salty because Mom and I were talking and I told him it didn’t concern him, except now it sort of does.”
“Move,” Elijah says, shoving her gently. I smile—in some ways, the two of them are still ages seven and twelve. He sticks the bandage to my foot. “How does itnowconcern me?”
Kelsey bites her lip. “Because we were discussing my pregnancy and?—”
Elijah’s eyes widen. “What?”
“I’m pregnant,” Kelsey says, her eyes glimmering with tears. “Hawk’s relocating his business to New Orleans, and this plan we had—to go back and forth from New Orleans to St. Samuel’s—just isn’t going to work with a newborn. And Mom wants to move here, but she didn’t want to abandon you in Oak Bluff.”
He shakes his head. “Abandonme?”
Kelsey shrugs. “Your business is there, so she assumed you wouldn’t want to leave. She was worried you’d be lonely, so she’sbeen waffling about it all week.That’swhat we were arguing about.”
I jump down from the counter. Elijah pulls me tight to his chest, but I get the feeling I’m the one supporting him rather than the reverse. “But—” he says hoarsely. “Mom loves the beach house. All her friends are there.”
Kelsey glances over her shoulder as voices rise on the other side of the door. “She loves New Orleans too. And she wants to be near her grandkids.”
Elijah turns me toward him. “You know what this means, right?” he asks, his voice nearly mute with shock. “It means I can move.”
It means we don’t have to give up all the things we thought we’d have to give up.
We are still smiling at each other as Kelsey opens the kitchen door. “You can come in now, weirdos. You were makingsomuch noise.”
Hawk, Judy, and Mrs. Cabot all enter.
Judy comes over first, pulling me away from her son and turning me to face her. “I had no idea,” she says, tears running down her face. “I had no idea you two wanted to be together.”
I smile. “To be fair, I had no idea either.” I’m not a hugger, but Judy is, and I sort of want a hug, just this once, so I wrap my arms around her.
When she steps backward, Mrs. Cabot clears her throat. For the first time in my life, she is not scowling at me. “I suppose you can call me Carol. And your jokes about Christopher Columbus won’t seem so funny once your kids have Cabot DNA.”
The smile she is currently fighting, I realize, is a little lopsided like her grandson’s.
“So what happens now?” Kelsey asks breathlessly, looking between me and her brother. “You guys are moving in together in Boston?”
“If Easton decides she wants to stay in Boston, then yes,” says Elijah firmly, and gives me a look. “None of this bullshit about how you like your space.”
I laugh. I can’t see myself needing any space from him, to be honest. “We’ll figure it out,” I reply. “But I have no idea how breaking up with Thomas is going to affect everything next year.” Even if the funding issue is sorted, no one is going to be quite as warm toward me as they once were.
“If they give you any problems, let us know,” Hawk says. “No matter how much Thomas matters to the university, I know people who matter more.”
Kelsey kisses his cheek. “I knew all that money and power would come in handy eventually.”
Eventually, everyone heads outside to the after-party, but Elijah remains in the kitchen with me while I make one last call.
