I face forward again, eyes back on the sky. It’s easier to keep him on the hook if I’m not looking at his face. “I expected it,” I say. “So did Rhoswen.”
I feel his curiosity pulsate through the air. “Really?”
I hum in ascent. Then I let out the real reason I had to escape. “What I didn’t expect was to validate who we are to each other by dragging everyone through my past.”
Keene is quiet, absorbing my words. The house behind us is illuminated with life—laughter, shouts, singing.Oh, god. I hope Jake keeps Emily away from the karaoke machine.My stomach pitches and rolls at the thought of that topping off the evening.
Then Keene vocalizes what he’s thinking, “I don’t think you ruined anything.”
I glance at him again. His lips are in a firm line, eyes steady on mine.
“I just made half the room cry.”
“Yeah,” he replies. “Because they love you, you stubborn bastard.”
A choked laugh escapes before I can stop it. It comes out rougher than I mean it to.
Keene continues, voice lower now. Words careful. “I think you just gave us more to celebrate about who we are—how we became this family.”
I still. It’s such an unexpected sentence from him that it takes a second to land. “What do you mean?”
“Amaryllis. Alteo. Our women wear the mark symbolizing pride, determination, and beauty. The men, the arrow that pierced Amaryllis’s heart to make her bleed while falling in love. You? You’re the original person who wears both marks. Isn’t that what tonight’s really all about?”
My throat tightens as Keene’s words penetrate. He continues. “When we decided to celebrate Twelfth Night, we came together. We ate and drank. But did we ever stop to celebrate the reason we even have this. The reason we’re together at all?”
I can’t do anything but stare at him. My earliest memories of Keene aren’t of the man he grew into but as the sanctimonious prick who was searching for his long lost sister. He used his vicious tongue as a sword to wield off any more emotions to cause him pain.
Until this family rescued him as much as it did me.
“You saved them long before you found a way to keep the rest of us steady.” Keene swallows. “When things got ugly. When…” He trails off, then shakes his head like he’s refusing to name old wounds. “You’ve been by our sides. Every time.”
My throat tightens. I look away quickly, back to the stars. “Keene, there’s no need for this.”
“Don’t. Please.” He steps closer, just one pace, so he’s beside me now instead of behind me. He doesn’t crowd. Just aligns.
“The stories you told tonight?” he continues. “They weren’t just about wives. They weren’t just about you getting screwed over or making bad calls or being too damn honorable for your own good.”
“Too damn stubborn,” I correct automatically.
Keene’s mouth twitches. “That too.” His chin jerks in the direction of the house. “They were the groundwork for how we live the way we do, love the way we can. Why we found our families and not once had to let them go.”
I swallow hard.
“You didn’t ruin anything, Charlie.” Keene says. “You reminded us what we’re celebrating.”
I stare at him before swallowing down my tears. Then I ask him, “Did you practice that on your way out here?”
He growls, “Shut up.”
I laugh quietly. The routine of Keene being, well, Keene eases something in my chest. “You’re impossible. But I love you too.”
He snorts, then sobers again. “You didn’t have to tell us all that.”
“I know.”
“But you did to shield Rhoswen.”
“Yeah,” I admit quietly.
