Somewhere inside me, the adopted child still lived—the one who had learned not to ask too much, not to need too loudly, not to make love contingent on answers.
But today—today I refused to dwell.
Today, I chose joy.
Which felt poetic in a way my momma would’ve teased me about, because my name had always been a prophecy. Not a mood. Not a performance. A direction.
I stood at the top of the wide staircase inside Dominion Hall, looking down at the chaos of women and garment bags and laughter spilling across the marble like sunlight.
There were a lot of them—wives and fiancées and one very pregnant woman who had turned waddling into a power move.
Hallie Mae—Noah’s Hallie Mae—rested a hand on her belly like she was already holding the future. She was close enough to her due date that the whole room seemed to orbit her carefully.
These women weren’t strangers anymore. Somewhere between late-night planning sessions, borrowed lipstick, shared confessions, and the kind of laughter that only comes after surviving something together, they had become my people. Iknew their rhythms now. Their tells. Who swore when stressed, who went quiet, who took charge without asking permission.
I felt it then, clear and steady: I didn’t feel like a guest standing above them. I felt like I belonged among them—woven into the noise and the affection and the beautiful, unhinged energy of women who loved dangerous men and refused to be small beside them.
“Joy!” Portia called, like she hadn’t already been calling my name all morning. “Tell me you have the ring.”
I lifted a small velvet box and shook it once.
Portia’s eyes lit up with pure, feral delight. “Oh, we’re doing this. We are absolutely doing this.”
Amelia swept by with a garment bag that looked like it contained something fragile. Natalie was filming—holding her phone up high and narrating to no one in particular like the world needed to know that Dominion Hall was currently full of fourteen women with a mission.
“Okay,” Natalie said, panning. “So, what you’re seeing here is the calm before the most iconic chaos event of our lives. We have blindfolds. We have wedding gowns. We have men who think they’re in control. We love that for them.”
Hazel adjusted the silk scarf in her hands like it was tactical equipment.
“It’s not a blindfold,” she said dryly. “It’s a compliance test.”
Lexi cackled. “Lucas is going to hate this.”
“He’ll survive,” Anna said, serene as ever.
Isabel moved through the group the way she did at The Palmetto Rose—hotel-owner energy that could calm a hurricane with one look.
“All right, ladies,” she said. “We have fifteen minutes before the men arrive. If anyone still needs safety pins, now is the time. Then hide the dresses.”
Natalie lifted her chin. “I don’t need safety pins. I need someone to confirm Ethan is actually blindfolded.”
Camille, sun-kissed and calm in that marine-biologist way, grinned. “Jacob’s blindfolded. I saw him try to cheat and got his hands slapped.”
Meghan rolled her eyes. “Caleb said blindfolds were ‘unnecessary theatrics.’”
“Micah said that, too,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone.
Portia heard me, anyway. Portia always heard everything.
She drifted close and lowered her voice. “Are you ready?”
It was the kind of question that meant:Are you okay underneath all this? Are you okay in the places you don’t show?
I met her eyes and let myself be honest.
“I’m … healing,” I said. “And today, I’m choosing to be excited.”
Portia nodded, understanding softening her face. “Good. Because we’re about to do something that will make fourteen men lose what little composure they have left.”
