“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“You’re beautiful.” I pulled her down for another kiss. “And you’re going to be my wife.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” I grinned against her mouth, though the smile didn’t quite reach my eyes. “Think Vegas is ready for us?”
“Vegas has no idea what’s coming.”
We lay there on the kitchen floor for a while, tangled together, the ring glinting on her finger and the burned smell of my failed dinner hanging in the air. The candles were still flickering on the table. The pregnancy test was still waiting in the bathroom, and somewhere across the country, my best friend was probably throwing his phone against a wall.
But Harlow was in my arms. She’d said yes, and tomorrow, she’d be my wife.
The rest we’d figure out. Together.
CHAPTER 38
HARLOW
The December airwas cold against my cheeks, but I couldn’t bring myself to go inside.
Owen’s second-floor patio wasn’t much, just a narrow strip of concrete with a rod-iron railing and barely enough room for two chairs. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders, tucking my knees up to my chest in the plastic chair. My phone was pressed to my ear.
“I just want to make sure you’ve thought this through,” Kaia said, her tone careful. “Owen is... he’s complicated, Harlow.”
“I know.”
“And after everything that happened with Cam…”
“I know, Kaia.” I stared out into the darkness.
“I’m not saying he’s a bad person. I’m just saying that he has a pattern and they don’t usually change overnight.”
I wanted to explain to her that he was different with me, but there was no use. She needed to see for herself to believe it.
“Harlow, why didn’t you tell me?”
The question landed like a punch. Not because it was unexpected, I’d been bracing for it since I dialed her number, but because of the hurt in her tone. She was my sister. I’d always told her everything, but this was different.
“I...” The words stuck in my throat. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” She huffed out a humorless laugh. “Harlow, we talk every week. Sometimes every day. You told me about the barista who spelled your name wrong three times. You sent me a twenty-minute voice memo about whether you should get bangs. But this you kept from me for months?”
My eyes burned. “It’s not that simple.”
“Then explain it to me. Because I’m sitting here trying to understand how my little sister fell in love, and I had to find out through Jax, after he got a text, instead of from her.”
I pulled my knees tighter to my chest. “I wanted to tell you. So many times. But Owen and Jax... their friendship goes way back, Kaia. I felt like he needed to be the one to tell Jax first. Before anyone else knew. It was their thing to work out.”
“And what about us? What aboutourthing?” Her voice cracked on the last word. “I’m your sister. I don’t care about the order of operations or who tells who first. I care that you were going through something huge and I wasn’t there for it.”
“You’re two thousand miles away…”
“Don’t.” The word was sharp, final. “Don’t you dare use that as an excuse. Two thousand miles doesn’t mean anything. You know that. If you had called me at 3 a.m. and said you needed me, I would have been on the first flight out. I would have droppedeverything.”
The tears spilled over, hot against my cold cheeks because I did know that.
“Jax isn’t the only one who loves you, Harlow. He isn’t the only one who gets to be protective. He isn’t the only one whose feelings matter in this. I’m your sister, and I’ve been over here living my life, thinking everything was normal, while you were falling in love and hiding it from me.”
