I did my best not to react, but I had a feeling it was pointless. The way Carter cocked a brow told me he’d seen right through me — which meant I’d been doing a shit job hiding my feelings for Ari.
Still, I didn’t entertain him with a response. I just sipped my wine and dug into my plate while he chuckled from beside me.
Dinner went on like that — loud and fun and messy in all the best ways.
Aleks was mostly silent, but he watched Mia dumbstruck as she regaled the table with her tales from her tour; Chloe kept disappearing inside to grab “just one more thing,” even though the table was already perfect, and apologizing for the cat hair that no one else seemed to notice; Livia kept swearing her daughter Lennon said her first real word (“no”) when Carter tried to wipe her face; Maven and Grace ganged up on Vince about how he was, in fact, the softest girl dad in the world as he attempted to wrangle Rowan’s hair into tiny pigtails; and Jaxson tried — unsuccessfully — to convince Ava to stop calling him “Uncle Four Eyes,” a nickname Vince had suggested when Jaxson had taken out his contacts and switched into his glasses.
Ariana watched it all with wide, dazzling eyes. She helped pass dishes. She teased Vince right alongside the girls, throwing in how she was soft for her brother in the same way. She let Ava braid a section of her hair with sparkly butterfly clip-ins. She somehow got Aleks to talk to us about growing up in Switzerland, which was a feat. She ended up with both babies in her lap when dessert was served, and she laughed and used her fork as a choo-choo train to shovel pie into each of their little mouths, not caring in the slightest when blobs fell onto her sweater in the process.
She was a part of them — effortlessly.
A part ofus.
Like she’d always been meant to be here.
I watched her in the soft glow of the patio lights, the breeze lifting her hair, her laughter drifting across the table like a song I still knew by heart.
For the first time in a long time, Thanksgiving didn’t feel like just another day at the office.
It felt like hope.
I did my best to squash it before it swelled too deep in my chest, but it was useless. I couldn’t help but watch her andwonder if she was feeling it, too — if that joy radiating off her felt like the relief I’d been so desperate to give her.
I walked Ariana out to her car around eight. I didn’t want to leave, didn’t wantherto leave, but she told the crew she needed to get home to FaceTime Georgie, and I used it as an excuse to head to the arena to prepare for tomorrow’s game.
The quiet of the night surrounded us once the door was shut, a jolt of laughter following us out into the cool night. I smiled, stuffing my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t reach for Ariana.
“That was so fun,” she said, digging in her purse for her keys. She unlocked her car with two beeps and a flash of the lights. “I can’t remember the last time I had a Thanksgiving like that.” She shook her head. “I never have, actually.”
“Not even with Nathan and his family?”
She snorted. “Please. His family is so hoity toity, they wouldn’t be caught dead at a table with babies. They had enough trouble the first year I brought Georgie, and he was a teenager.”
Her eyes widened, like she just realized she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
“Don’t take it back,” I said. “This is a safe place. You can say whatever you want, no judgment.”
She sighed, looking down at the keys in her hand as we reached her car. “It’s terrible, though, isn’t it? How easy it was for me to talk shit about my husband?” She shook her head.
I wanted to say so many things, but I kept quiet, afraid she might change the subject or backtrack if I spoke too soon.
“I just…” She blew out a shaky breath, her free hand slipping into her hair. “I just don’t know how I got here.”
Her voice was small — not fragile, but honest in a way that made my chest tighten. She looked up at me, then down again, like the words were fighting their way out.
“One moment I’m just a young girl falling in love,” she said softly, “and the next I’m… I’m this woman I don’t recognize atall. I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any purpose outside of Sweet Dreams, which wasn’t even mine to begin with. I don’t feel butterflies anymore. I don’t feel…anything.”
My heart cracked open.
“And I love Nathan,” she added quickly, instinctively, reflexively — the way someone says “I’m fine” after they’ve been limping for miles. “I do. He’s… I know he’s a great man, a great husband. I know I’m lucky. I just…”
Her voice thinned.
She swallowed hard, eyes shining.
“Sometimes I…” She shook her head, wiping at tears before they fell. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Don’t apologize,” I murmured, stepping closer. “Not to me.”
