“They want us to come to Thanksgiving dinner, but I told him we had already committed to your family.”
“Do you want to go to Thanksgiving with your parents?”
I shrug. “I feel like I shouldn’t want to go, but they’re my family. Mitch and Farah are moving the next week, and I don’t know the next time I’ll see them, and Bella is there.”
“Then we should go. My parents usually do an earlylunch, and then we can pop over to your parents’ house for dinner. Cody will probably be tired early anyway, so it’s no big deal. Plus, I’d really like to meet Bella.”
“You sure?”
“As long as you’re sure, I am,” she says. “How are you feeling about everything with him?”
“At the end of the day, I have you, and all of the people sitting in our living room. Soon I’ll have the bar, and one day you’ll have your camps, and I think I’m starting to realize I don’t need his validation to know that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”
She leans forward and kisses my nose. “I’m happy, too, T. I had this plan, this idea I was comfortable with, and you completely blindsided me and wrecked the whole damn thing, in the best way.”
“I love you,” I say, tugging her closer.
“And I love you.”
Banging erupts on my door. “Stop doing it, you two, and come eat!” Enzo yells.
A giggle bubbles out of Wren, and we stand to walk back out to join our friends.
“Who’s to say I wasn’t eating?” I joke.
“Don’t be so gross, Tanner,” Lacey says, throwing a wadded up napkin at my head.
Poppy passes out champagne, and Wren clears her throat.
“Thanks for helping me move twice; we promise to hire movers the next time.” She giggles. “If it hadn’t been for everyone here, Tanner and I would’ve never met, so thank you, and cheers to wrecked plans!”
“Cheers!” They all toast, raising their glasses.
As I look around the room at the people in front of me, pure happiness settles deep in my bones, and I know that as long as I can do life with Wren and our friends by my side I’ll always be happy.
CHAPTER 46: TANNER’S
WREN - ONE MONTH LATER - DECEMBER
It’s three days before Christmas, and Tanner officially owns The Local—or should I say, he officially owns Tanner’s.
He pushes the key in and unlocks the front doors, pulling me inside the empty bar where so many of my favorite memories have taken place.
“It’s so empty,” I say, walking with him towards the bar top and setting down the gift I brought with me.
“Weird, right?”
“Very weird. When does the new furniture arrive?”
“In a couple of weeks. Looking at it this empty, I’m wondering if I should’ve taken Jerry up on his offer to give me the furniture, but I think I made the right call.”
“I think you did too. And you kept the ping-pong table, which is the most important piece of furniture. Did you know that the girls think it’s magic?”
“Magic?”
“Yep, apparently all of us who are now together started by playing a game on that table.”
“Interesting.” He shrugs, running his hand along the bar top. “When do I get to open my present?”
