“It’s okay, guys—the party has officially arrived!”
I look up through tears to Camilla, striding in like a queen.Oversized sunglasses, designer bag, all of her presence filling the doorway.
Mom glances sheepish.“Camilla wouldn’t forgive me if she wasn’t invited.”
I laugh softly.“Smart move.”
The Country Clubis the kind of place that hums with old money rather than flaunting new wealth—weathered cedar shingles, ocean air carried across manicured lawns, and the quiet confidence of a place that’s known itself for generations.
The engagement dinner is held in the Sunset Room, where the floor-to-ceiling windows catch the dying light in a way that makes everything look intentionally cinematic.Crystal chandeliers scatter tiny rainbows across ivory linens.
White roses and eucalyptus fill the air with something clean and elegant, while thirty or so guests drift through the room—friends, colleagues, the people who’ve stitched themselves into the fabric of our lives.
Lydia outdid herself.I mean, of course she did, it’s Lydia.The string lights overhead cast everything in a warm, enchanted glow, and every table setting sparkles as if it has been waiting its entire life for this exact hour of golden light.
My dress—the sage silk one I found in a tiny Barcelona boutique—skims over my body.
“Nora!Holy shit.”
I turn just as Jay steps toward me, wearing that easy grin that made Camilla quietly fall in love with him, although she won’t admit that to herself yet.
The past few months have been kind to him—tan skin, dark hair slicked back, a black shirt unbuttoned just enough to remind me that Jay has always been a little too charming for his own good.
“Jay,” I say, pulling him into a hug, and surprisingly, it feels grounding.“You clean up well.”
“Not as well as you,” he says, pulling back to look at me properly.“You look… look, is it weird to say you look really beautiful when you’re my best friend’s?—”
He cuts himself off before he steps on a landmine.
I laugh, because the alternative is acknowledging whatever complicated, delicate thing sleeps under the surface.“Not weird at all but thank you.”
We fall into easy conversation—London, work, everything except Spain.Spain hangs between us like smoke, unspoken and omnipresent, the one chapter nobody knows exactly how to reference without opening something sharp.
But I’m surprised by how light I feel, how settled in my own body for once.When I laugh at his story about attempting to surf with Nick, my chest expands in a way that feels almost foreign.
Then I see Mom scanning the room with that restless flicker of expectation in her eyes.
“I’ll catch you later,” I tell Jay, touching his arm before making my way to her.
“Where’s Nick?”I ask when I finally reach her.
She glances toward the entrance—and then her whole face brightens, softening into something radiant.
“Right there.”
I follow her gaze.
Nick walks in wearing a beige linen suit that makes him look like he stepped out of a magazine editorial without trying.His blondish hair catches the warm light, but it’s the way he looks at Mom—like she’s gravity itself—that hits me squarely in the chest.
Dad used to look at her like that.
A devoted, unmistakable sort of love.
Mom floats toward him, and when they kiss, the room around them blurs.Something inside me softens, then cracks open just slightly.
And then?—
Behind him.
