I laugh through the tears that are suddenly pouring down my face. “Ten weeks. Halloween. It’s… It’s Oliver’s.”
She pulls back just far enough to look at me, eyes shining. “Obviously.” Then she smiles, “You’re going to be my sister.” Her voice cracks on the last word. “Like, actually my sister.”
I nod, crying harder. “Yeah. I mean, he hasn’t proposed or anything, but he loves me, El. He says it every five minutes like he’s making up for lost time. I love him so much it hurts.”
Ellie wipes her cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie. “I knew it. I knew the second I saw the two of you together. He’s never been like this. Not with anyone.”
We’re both sobbing now, hugging and rocking like idiots, when the door flies open.
Mrs. Adams stands in the threshold in a red apron dusted with flour, wooden spoon in hand, looking like she’s aged ten years in ten seconds.
“Girls?” Her voice wobbles. “What on earth, Savannah, sweetheart, why are you crying? Eleanor, what did you do?”
Ellie doesn't pause before blurting out the news. “Mom, Savannah’s having a baby! Oliver’s baby! I’m gonna be an aunt!”
The spoon clatters to the floor as Mrs. Adams’s hands fly to her mouth. Her eyes fill so fast that tears spill over instantly.
“A baby?” she whispers.
I nod, biting my lip.
She crosses the room in three strides and pulls me into her arms like I’m still the scraped-knee ten-year-old who used to cry in her kitchen over broken cookies. Only this time she’s the one crying.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” she says, rocking me. “A baby.”
Ellie is jumping on the balls of her feet, clapping like a maniac. “It’s a Christmas miracle! We need champagne! Wait, no, ginger ale for Sav. And cake! Mom, we have to make that coconut cake Grandpa loved—”
Mrs. Adams pulls back just far enough to cup my face, tears streaming. “Are you happy, darling? Tell me you’re happy.”
I look at her and reassure her I am. Terrified, overwhelmed, but so, so happy.
“I’m happy,” I say, and it doesn’t even shake.
Mrs. Adams kisses my forehead, then my cheeks, then pulls Ellie into the hug too until we’re a tangled, sobbing, laughing pile on the guest bed.
Ellie wipes her face on my shoulder. “I’m calling dibs on godmother. And I’m teaching this kid every embarrassing story about you two from age zero to now.”
I groan. “Ellie.”
Somewhere down the hall, I hear Oliver’s heavy footsteps. I smile through the tears, hand instinctively going to the tiny curve under the borrowed Henley.
He hasn’t proposed yet, but he will. When he does, I’ll be ready.
Chapter eight
Oliver
It’s New Year’s Eve, and the house is a glittering, chaotic wonderland.
Mom has outdone herself. There’s fresh garlands in every doorway, a twelve-foot tree in the great room dripping with crystal ornaments, champagne flowing like water, and a string quartet playing in the corner while cousins I haven’t seen in years try to outdo each other with increasingly ridiculous toasts.
I don’t see any of it.
I only see her.
Savannah stands by the fireplace in a dark-green velvet dress that hugs the new softness of her breasts and skims over the gentle curve of her belly. Her hair is loose, falling in waves down her back, and the firelight turns the tiny gold snowflake earrings I gave her this morning into sparks of light every time she moves.
She’s laughing at something Ellie is saying, one hand resting low on her stomach without thinking, and the sight of it hits me so hard I have to lean against the wall for a second to stay upright.
