I’m trying to process that news when a blond woman touches Molly on the shoulder.
“Allie! I’m so glad you came!” Molly stands up and hugs her.
Allie looks about Molly’s age but is much taller than her. She’s also thin, like model thin. I wonder if she smokes to look like that or if it’s just God’s gift to her. Like Molly said, she’s gorgeous, and she smiles at me like we’re old friends.
“I’ve heard so much about the three of you,” she says to Nadine, Celie, and me.
I go into my socially awkward routine, the same one I pulled the first time I met Brad and then Pru. But Molly’s more sensitive than my other two sisters, and she’s eyeing me suspiciously.
“Hi, Allie,” I say in a forced polite tone. “It’s so great to meet you.”
Nadine breaks the awkwardness more easily than I ever could have by inviting Allie to join us for a drink. And while Molly’s introducing Allie to everyone else, Nadine pulls me aside.
“You need to make an extra effort tonight to include Allie. This is really hard for Molly—she’s so nervous. Did you see her shaking? Remember what it’s like to go on a date for the first time!”
“Of course I remember,” I murmur. “I just entered that jungle a few weeks ago.”
“So use your experience to help Mol,” Nadine says. “I know you’re naturally shy, but put on your big girl pants, and be sociable.”
“I’m going to need another beer,” I say to Celie.
“Way ahead of you,” she says as she beckons to her husband. “Pru will help us out.”
* * *
Cameron
“I had no idea you were so into someone,” Ayden says to me a couple of hours later as we stand apart from the rest of the group.
Like they’ve been waiting for this chance all night, Jenson, Brayden, Colt, and Dylan amble over just as Ayden’s finishing his sentence.
“I would never have put you with her,” Colton says. “You’re such opposites. But now that I see you and Savannah together, I can’t imagine you with anyone else. She really cares about you.”
I look from one to the other of them—my best friends, the people who’ve been there for me through all the shit with Amy and all my crap with my dad. And I stop holding back.
“I’m going to marry her.”
Dylan spits out the sip of whiskey he just took.
Colton drops his beer onto the bar counter, and Ayden grins. Jenson lets out a low whistle and Brayden just studies me, his expression neutral.
“Christ, Cam,” Dylan gets out. “Give us a chance to realize she exists for five minutes, would you?” He pulls me in for a hug. “Bray predicted this, you know.”
I glance at Brayden, my oldest cousin and the guy I’ve leaned on for so much throughout my life. He’s been my hero for so long, I take it for granted more than I should. I can always call him, can tell him anything, and he never judges me or tells me to be anything other than exactly who I am. While Declan and I have grown closer as adults, Brayden was always like a big brother to me.
“What did you predict?” I say to Brayden, my lips twitching as I try to hold back my grin.
He taps my shoulder with his fist. “That you’re the wild-card Wild, and you’d be the one to shock the shit out of everybody when you met the one. That you’d give us no warning, and we’d be lucky if we met her before you tied the knot.”
I tilt my head in Savannah’s direction where she’s laughing with Jasalie and Leleila. “Consider yourselves warned.”
Brayden lifts his chin at me. “I’m proud of you, little cousin. You did good.”
His praise means so much, and I nod at him before saying to them all in a low voice, “And just between the six of us—nobody else but Savannah knows yet—I’m quitting hockey after this season. For real this time. I’m ready to go into business for myself. I’ll fill you in more later.”
“Finally,” Brayden says, his expression softening into relief.
Ayden and Jenson give me a thumbs-up, and Dylan just nods at me with a proud expression like I’ve won the Super Bowl.
