Hugs and handshakes and promises to do this again. Cal clapped me on the shoulder. Riley pulled Grace into a hug that lasted longer than necessary, whispering something that made Grace’s eyes fill again. Liam shook my hand and gave me a look that said he understood more than I’d told him.
Then they were gone, taillights disappearing down the driveway, and the B&B went quiet.
I started cleaning up. Pizza boxes, beer bottles, and the paper plates someone had left on the railing. The work was mindless, automatic. My body moved while my mind stayed stuck on Grace’s face when she’d seen the nursery. Stayed stuck on the way Grace had laughed at Cal’s raccoon story. Head thrown back, eyes crinkling, the sound of it carrying across the porch. I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in weeks.
“Owen.”
I turned.
Grace stood in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes were wet, her hand resting on her belly, the baby visible now in a way that couldn’t be ignored. She looked exhausted and overwhelmed and something else. Something that made my pulse skip.
“Thank you,” she said. “For today. For all of it.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with gratitude I didn’t think I’d earned. “That’s what family does.”
Grace crossed the kitchen toward me.
I went still.
She moved slowly, deliberately, barefoot on the kitchen floor. I could hear her breathing. Could smell her shampoo, something floral and clean. Could see the way her throat worked when she swallowed.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, stopping too close. “Let people help. Let people in. My grandmother did everything alone. My mother needed people too much. I don’t know what the middle looks like.”
My hands were full of garbage. Pizza boxes and napkins, the debris of the day. I set them down carefully on the counter.
“You don’t have to know,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. “You just have to let it happen.”
Grace looked at me. Her eyes searched my face like she was seeing something for the first time. Like I was a question she hadn’t thought to ask until now.
Then she leaned up and kissed me.
My brain stopped working.
For half a second, I froze, my hands hovering at my sides, my whole body locked in place. Then her mouth moved against mine, warm and real and tasting like the pizza we’d had for dinner, and sixteen years of friendship caught fire.
I kissed her back before I could think. Before I could talk myself out of it. My hands found her waist, careful of her belly—always careful—and I pulled her closer. Her hands slid up my chest, over my shoulders, into my hair. She made a sound, small and surprised, like she hadn’t expected this either, and I felt it move through my entire body.
Her body was warm against mine, her belly pressed between us, the baby between us even now. Every warning I should’ve listened to went quiet at once. I just kissed her like I’d been waiting my whole life without knowing what I was waiting for. Like every Saturday morning and every batch of cinnamon rolls and every quiet hour in her kitchen had been building to this exact moment.
My hands moved to her face, thumbs tracing her cheekbones. Her fingers tightened in my hair. The kiss deepened, slowed, and became something that felt like falling and flying at once.
I was in love with her.
The truth hit me with devastating clarity: whatever this was, it wasn’t new—and it wasn’t going away. I was in love with my best friend, and she was kissing me in her grandmother’s kitchen, and Marcus’s baby was between us, and nothing about this made sense.
I didn’t care.
I just wanted?—
Grace pulled back.
Abrupt, like she’d touched something hot. She stumbled backward, one hand going to her mouth, the other to her belly. Her eyes were wide. Panicked.
I could still taste her. Could feel the ghost of her fingers in my hair. Could see the way her chest rose and fell too fast, the flush spreading across her cheeks.
“I can’t.” Her voice came out strangled. “Owen, I’m pregnant with Marcus’s baby. I’d be using you. I can’t?—”
“Grace—”
