“Woman,” Cian growls.
And I see what I’ve seen so many times with them. The ease,the joy, the fun, the longing. The choice to show up for each other over and over, not out of obligation but out of desire that the other has what they need.
Fuck my life.
Could it be?
The clicking of metal on ceramic draws everyone’s attention. I didn’t know I was doing it.
“Holy diamond ring, Batman. Is that Lorien’s?”
“Damn, brother. Are you compensating for something?”
Sariah chokes on her coffee and spits it into her hand, dribbling it down her shirt. “Don’t, you two. Do not start this early. Damn, I need to go change.”
When she’s down the hall, I turn to my brother. “Not gonna whip it out or measure, but I can only assume, genetically, we’re”—I cough into my nearly empty mug— “comparable.”
“Whip out what?” a new voice asks, and I damn near pull a Sariah and choke on my coffee.
“The plans on the new house and this one,” my brother replies smoothly. “Renée, you’re up early.”
My niece is padding toward the kitchen, face glued to her phone. “I need to go to Sephora.”
What’s Sephora?
“Can we make it Ulta?” her mom asks from the hall. “I have points and it’s closer.”
“It’s only available at Sephora. Or you could drop me at the mall…”
“Nice try, Née, but no to that. Can you be ready to leave in thirty minutes?”
She grabs a can of something from the fridge and turns away again. “Yeah.” With that, my niece is gone.
“I didn’t understand anything about that conversation,” I put in, extending my coffee mug for my brother to give me a warm up.
“Be glad. You have no idea how much money I spend at stores that don’t sell camping gear.” My brother takes a huge drag of his coffee as his wife crowds me.
“Can I see?”
I extend my pinky and with a little grunt, she extricates the platinum from my finger. “Liam, this is… stunning. You don’t know how to do anything small, do you?”
“Go big or go home.”
“This is the price of a home, at least a down payment.”
I shrug, wondering if your arms ever get used to holding a baby like this. It’s not the weight. It’s the constant position for long periods of time.
“It’s an unusual setting, but striking,” she continues.
“Fitting for the woman herself, no?”
Sariah looks to her husband, communicating something I don’t bother to decipher, and I extend my pinky for her to slide it back in place.
“And why isn’t it on her finger?”
I lower into a chair in the living room, one near the wall of windows, and tell them the basics of Peoria, the Anderson family, and her brother’s birthday.
Sariah looks heartbroken. Cian looks worried.
