“You saw her before the vows?” his mother practically gasps.
I glance over at her. “Your son is very impatient.”
Hillary nods, satisfied. “At least he has excellent taste. In jewelry and in wives.”
Scottie chuckles. “Yeah. But I knew it was the right one the second I saw it.”
For a beat too long, our eyes hold.
I can’t help wondering if he’s still talking about the ring…or if I’m the thing he knew was right, the moment he saw me.
By late afternoon, the backyard looks like a small festival.
Picnic tables covered in checkered cloths stretch across the lawn, plate after plate of food—barbecue, salads, casseroles, things labeled “Jell-O salad” that defy both Jell-O and salad. Children tear across the grass in packs, screaming, chasing, and having so much fun. Adults cluster in loose circles with plastic cups and easy laughter.
Scottie keeps one hand on my lower back as he steers me from group to group, the touch light but constant, like he’s drawing an invisible line that says, She’s with me.
“This is my Aunt Sue, Uncle Mike, cousin Jordan,” he says.
“The one getting married?” I ask, trying to keep up.
“Different Jordan,” he says. “That’s Jordan with a ‘y.’ This is Jordan with an ‘a-n.’”
I blink. “There are two Jordans?”
“Three,” he corrects. “But Jordan with an ‘i’ couldn’t make it.”
“Your family is chaos,” I chuckle
He grins. “Welcome to the Eastons.”
Later, after we make our rounds and get food, I stand back closer against the house with a paper plate in my hand, just… watching the party laid out in front of me while he keeps moving through friends and family all wanting a moment with him. The hometown celebrity who makes time to hug everyone.
He moves through this world as if it were built for him, but I guess it is. He stoops down to hug an aunt, clapping an uncleon the shoulder, letting a toddler climb his leg like a tree. When someone calls his name, he turns his whole body, paying full attention to whoever he’s talking to.
Everyone here loves him. It’s so obvious that it almost makes me wish this were another thing from this fake marriage I could keep. Even if all I got was to watch him like this—happy, smiling, making everyone laugh with a joke he tells. He’s so good at putting people at ease.
They light up when he gets close. They tease him mercilessly but with deep affection, pride woven through every joke. He’s the one they brag about, the one they worry about, the one they cheer for even when the TV is off.
He’s the golden boy.
But there’s no arrogance in it. No entitlement in his heart or ego. Just genuine regard returned for every ounce of love that’s poured into him.
My family gatherings were rigid, choreographed events. Long tables with real crystal and wait staff. The conversation sounded more like a strategy meeting than dinner. Everyone looking to have a tactical advantage over the other. Everything was about leverage and power and how things looked from the outside. Really… it was always about survival for the family name, not for the members that lived inside of it.
No one chased fireflies.
No one yelled across a yard just to share a story.
No one hugged you just because you were there.
It’s nearly ten when the party finally starts to wind down. Kids get gathered, wrapped in blankets, and deposited into cars. The grill goes quiet and cold. The embers in the firepit where one of Scottie’s uncles played the guitar all night are starting to burn out and turn to mere smoke.
I’m on the front porch, staring out at the stars overhead, bright and closer than I’ve ever seen them, just the way Scottie promised they would be. Then he finds me.
“Are you ready to head out?” he asks, stepping up beside me.
“Your mother offered to let us stay here,” I say.
