The irony of that statement could have filled the entire county. The Batemans, who had spent decades propping up their son and diminishing their daughters, now retroactively claiming the daughters as their successes. Ben supposed that was how the Bateman machine worked. Rewrite the narrative. Adjust the scoreboard. Pretend the past happened differently than it did.
"What did you tell Celia?" he asked.
"I said that I'm not ready for any reunions. Celia can be the favorite. I'm planning to keep my distance for a while."
Her voice was steady. Not angry. Not bitter. Just decided. The voice of a woman who had drawn a line and was standing on the correct side of it.
Ben leaned closer. His lips found the space near her ear, and he whispered, "From everyone?"
He felt her shiver. Not from the cool evening air. The night was warm.
Kelly turned her face toward his. They were close enough that he could see the gold flecks in her brown eyes, the ones that only appeared in certain light. Her expression softened, the careful composure giving way to something open and unguarded that she only showed him.
"Not everyone," she said quietly. "Not...you."
Ben whispered that he loved her. Three words. Simple and direct and completely inadequate for what he actually felt, but language had its limits, and he'd accepted that. Some things were bigger than vocabulary.
They kissed, briefly and gently. They took their time, having nothing to prove and nowhere to be.
When they pulled apart, Ben's gaze drifted across to the house where his parents were standing on the back porch.
Looking at Ben and Kelly, and not bothering to hide it one little bit.
Presley was tucked under Seth's arm, both of them watching Ben and Kelly with expressions that required no interpretation. His mother's smile was the satisfied kind, the one she wore when something she'd been hoping for finally happened. His father's was subtler, a slight upward tilt at one corner of his mouth, but on Seth Reilly, that was practically a standing ovation.
And Chase. His younger brother stood by a picnic table, his grin so wide it threatened to split his face. He raised his coffee mug in their direction, a silent toast, and took a sip with the smugness of a man who believed he had orchestrated everything.
"Your brother looks like he's happy for us," Kelly said.
"Chase pushed me to get out of my comfort zone," Ben admitted. "Said I was hiding behind spreadsheets and avoiding real life. I think he might have been right."
"Might have been?"
"Was. Definitely was."
"And that worked out pretty well?" Kelly asked, one eyebrow lifting.
"Pretty well," he agreed.
She stared at him.
He amended. "Okay. Very well."
"Better."
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the party continuing around them. There was so much love and happiness that it was difficult not to feel it deep in his bones.
Someone had put music on, something old and slow that his parents probably danced to in their kitchen when they thought nobody was watching. He’d seen them when they were supposed to be doing the dishes, and he was supposed to be in bed.
"So what do we do next?" Ben asked. "Do we plan carefully? Make a spreadsheet? Assess the risks and potential outcomes like responsible adults?"
Kelly turned to him with an expression he'd come to know well. The nose wrinkle. The slight scrunch of her face. The look that meant she was thinking hard about something and had already arrived at an answer she liked.
"There are more cold cases out there," she said. "More families who don't have answers. More stories that deserve endings."
She took his hand. Her fingers laced through his with the ease of long practice, though it hadn't been long at all. Just long enough.
"Want to solve another murder with me?" she asked.
