She leans in conspiratorially. “Did I ever tell you how we ended up married?”
Maisie grins. “Accidentally?”
“Vegas,” Pen announces. “A dare gone sideways. Silly T-shirts from some novelty casino shop. We were giddy with infatuation and filled out the paperwork while laughing too hard to take it seriously. I knocked a bottle of water over, soaking the officiant’s clipboard. He nearly walked out thinking it was some kind of joke.”
“To be fair,” Marty cuts in, sliding into the booth with his towel flung over his shoulder, “it looked like a prank. You were wearing a shirt that said ‘Buy Me Tacos and Tell Me I’m Pretty.’”
“And yours said ‘Game Over’ with a cartoon groom,” Pen fires back, grinning. “We were a walking warning label.”
“The officiant wasn’t wrong to hesitate,” Marty adds with a chuckle. “I had to bribe him with a bag of vending machine Oreos and swear we’d stick it out for at least thirty days. That convinced him.”
Pen nods thoughtfully as she listens. “We planned to annul it in a month.”
Marty checks his watch casually. “But then she kissed me in the hotel elevator and changed everything.”
Pen squeezes his arm. “And now we argue about buttercreamversus cream cheese icing and live happily-ever-after in a kitchen.”
I raise my milkshake. “To accidental love.”
Maisie lifts her coffee cup, her eyes dancing with amusement. Marty raises his mug as in a solemn oath, then grins at Pen. “It wasn’t the Oreos that convinced the officiant,” he says. “It was your promise to cook him dinner if we made it to our first anniversary.”
Pen snorts. “He never collected. Probably for the best. I hadn’t figured out how to make anything but boxed mac and cheese back then.”
I lift the milkshake—still cold in my hands, still ridiculous in size—and meet their cups halfway. The glass bumps gently against Maisie’s mug.
“To accidental love,” I say again, and add quietly, “or maybe not so accidental.”
“And to sticking it out,” Marty echoes.
Pen winks at Maisie. “And to knowing when an impulsive choice turns out to be the best decision you never saw coming.”
We toast again, laughter softening into something slower, deeper.
When we’re all quiet again, Pen looks at Maisie and then at me.“Word of advice?” We nod in sync.
“A successful relationship means falling in love again and again, but always with the same person,” she says with a glimmer in her eye but a tone full of wisdom.
Marty adds, “Don’t ever go to bed angry. Stay awake and fight it out…or just forgive the other person already, then laugh together about it afterwards.”
Later, we walk slowly through the empty streets of Sweetpines. The early evening air is crisp, clean, and wrapped in the scent of soil and distant woodsmoke. Porchlights flame to life. Our shoulders brush. Her hand finds mine, fingers curling around mine with certainty.
“I think I’m in love with Sweetpines’ most mysterious man,” she says.
I glance at her. “That so?”
“Tall. Reserved. Hides a secret identity. And a guitar. Definitely suspicious.”
I bump her shoulder gently. “You’ve got your secrets, too.”
“True.” She looks up at me. “But you still picked me.”
“I think I was always going to.”
She quiets, and our steps slow, as we stop outside Botaniqûe. A few blooms press against the glass, as though they’re listening in.
I take a breath, grounding myself.
“I’ve spent years hiding pieces of myself.”
