“Go,” I murmur, kissing her softly. “Hallie will boss you around. Bella will cry. Charlotte will pretend she won’t, but she will.”
“Excuse you,” Charlotte calls from the hallway, already in a dress that looks lethal. “I am not crying today.”
Hallie appears behind her.
“You’re crying,” Hallie says immediately.
Charlotte glares. “I’m not.”
“You literally look like you’re about to fight someone,” Bella adds.
Charlotte’s gaze flicks to me. “I will.”
“I know,” I reply calmly.
Lily laughs and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Don’t get emotional without me,” she teases.
I smirk. “I don’t get emotional.”
She arches a brow. “You cried when I sneezed last week.”
“That was allergy-related,” I mutter.
She giggles, then turns and follows the girls down the hall, Isabella trotting after them with a basket of petals like she’s carrying the crown jewels.
The second Lily disappears, the house shifts.
Still light.
Still warm.
But my chest tightens anyway.
Because this day means everything.
I head upstairs and knock once before pushing open a guest room door.
Lev is sitting on the edge of the bed, shirt half-buttoned, his posture straighter than it has any right to be after what he survived.
His face is still a little paler than it used to be. His body is still healing.
But his eyes… His eyes are alive.
And he’s wearing a suit like he’s going to war.
He glances up at me as I step inside. “Boy,” he says dryly.
I snort. “I think you mean son.”
Lev huffs a laugh, then winces like even that costs him.
I move closer instantly. “Don’t?—”
“I’m fine,” he cuts in, but his eyes soften as he says it.
I stand in front of him, hands in my pockets, trying not to look at the scar at his collar where the hospital line had been. Trying not to remember him bleeding out on my floor.
“You should have called me up here. I could have helped you,” I mutter.
