“How does Owen feel about all of this?” Violet asks, looking concerned.
“He’s okay with it. Glad that we’re moving in with Ollie.”
Cami smiles. “Owen loves both of you. Pretend or not, he needs both of you.”
Yeah, he does.
Later, I elbow Ollie in the booth. “What the hell was that kiss in front of all of them?”
He grins. “Get used to it. We gotta make it look real. You’re gonna be my wife.Besides, you liked it.”
My thighs practically squeeze together when he says that because I like the sound of it more than I should, and I loved that kiss even more.
I give him a look. “Well,husband, maybe let me in on the plan next time.”
His eyes darken instantly. A subtle heat that flares there, sharp and unmistakable, like the word landed somewhere low and dangerous. The corner of his mouth twitches, and my breath catches before I can stop it. There’s a jolt that goes straight through me, awareness humming loud under my skin.
Then he leans back, easy and infuriating, like he didn’t just do that to me. “Where’s the fun in that,wife?”
I snort and take a sip of my water, trying to steady my nerves.“At least they’re going along with it.”
“Yeah,” he says, easy confidence in his voice. “I knew they would.”
My gaze drifts across the bar and lands on Ollie’s mom. Theresa Kendrick sits stiff-backed with her friends, lips pressed thin, eyes sharp as they cut in our direction while she murmurs something under her breath. Whatever she’s saying, it doesn’t look kind.
My stomach tightens. I glance back at Ollie. “Your mom is here. What are you going to say to her?”
“As little as possible,” he says.
“Well, you should probably tell her that you’re getting married. That way she doesn’t hear it from someone else.”
Ollie sighs and stands. I don’t envy the conversation he’s about to have with her. It never seems to go well with Theresa.
I watch them talk and I can’t hear much, but I see her shake her head, her mouth tight. She looks really mad. Ollie stays calm. When he comes back, I already know how it went. It makes me sad to think about how my own mom would have reacted to the news. She was always my biggest cheerleader. Even if it wasn’t something she necessarily wanted for me, she always supported me. And if I told her I was getting married, I’d like to think she would have hugged me and been happy for us. Watching Theresa’s reaction makes me sad. She has her kids right in front of her, yet she can’t do life with them, and she doesn’t even appreciate them. My mom would have given anything to be here.
“You okay?” I ask, searching his eyes as he sits next to me.
He nods. “She’s not happy. But she’ll have to get over it.”
He always guards his heart around his mom. Something I doto him. And that stings because Ollie doesn’t deserve that. He deserves to have real support and love. I love Ollie and support him. It makes me second-guess everything we’re doing. Could we be real? Could I let him love me and love him the way that both of us, broken people, deserve to be loved?
I squeeze his hand. “I’m proud of you.”
He smiles at me like that means more than anything. “I’m proud of you right back, future wife.”
And sitting there with him with the bar with his hand in mine, I realize something terrifying and wonderful.
I don’t feel like I’m pretending. It feels scary real.
Moving day is quieter than I expected. I thought it would be hard to leave our home. The only home either of us has ever lived in. But even though I lived there the first sixteen years of my life with my mom and we have memories, the last twelve have been hard. Because they are filled with grief and unpleasant memories of our dad, wiping away any of the good ones that we had with her. Owen has no memories of her because he was just a baby when she died, but I do. I remember everything about her. She was my best friend, and we were very close. It turns out, I just wanted her things. Her clothes that I kept, her recipe cards, and her books. Those are what I need, not the house. The house is just a house. It’s not our home. Our home is wherever we are, together. That’s what matters.
It was all very anti-climactic. There were no dramatic goodbyes. Just boxes, the creak of the worn floorboards, and the strange relief of locking the front door of a house that has felt like it was slipping through my fingers for months.
The apartment above the shop smells clean and new,like fresh paint. Ollie did a good job. Of course he did. He always does.
Owen drops his backpack by the door and spins in a slow circle. “This is kinda cool.”
“Kinda?” Ollie says as he deposits a stack of boxes in the living room. “It’s extremely cool.”
