I sit down next to him. “Great surprise.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” He grins. “Wasn’t easy to keep it a secret from Mom, that’s for sure. And thanks for the speech. It meant a lot to both of us.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And thanks for bringing Zane. He fits, you know? With the family.”
“Yeah, he does.”
“You thinking about making it official?”
“Official how?”
“You know how. Ring, ceremony, the whole thing.”
“Maybe someday.”
“When you’re ready, we’ll throw you a party just like this one.”
“Deal.”
I hug my brother, congratulate him one more time, and walk around to the front of the house where Zane waits by his truck.
“How do you feel?” he asks as we drive away from my parents’ house.
“Good. Different, but good.”
“Different how?”
“Like I’m watching everyone else’s life move forward while I’m still figuring out what I want mine to look like.”
“What do you want it to look like?”
“I want what Mark and Tessa have. The honesty, the acceptance, the... ” I search for the word. “The certainty.”
“Certainty about what?”
“About this. About us. About the fact that we’re not going anywhere.”
Zane pulls into the parking garage of our new condo complex and turns off the engine. We sit in the dark for a moment, silent.
“Are you going somewhere?” he finally asks.
“No.”
“Do you think I am?”
“No.”
“Then we have certainty.”
“Do we?”
“We have survived FBI investigations, criminal syndicates, hospital stays, and your mother asking when we’re going to give her grandchildren. If that’s not certainty, I don’t know what is.”
I laugh, because he’s right. We’ve been through hell and back, and we’re still here. Still choosing each other every day.
“My mother really did ask about grandchildren?”
