“Impossible. It’s adorable.”
“You are not naming our hypothetical baby Reverie and then calling her Pipsqueak.”
“Pipsqueak wouldn’t eat Grandpa’s burnt chicken either.”
Her laugh broke harder through the tears. “Because we bought the barbecue to save everyone.”
I nodded, brushing my thumb over her cheek. “We bought the barbecue, Pip.”
She cries, nodding her head and I know she can see it.
“And I want to love you, Pip, because nobody will ever love you as much as I appreciate you letting me love you.”
“Yes, Cade. Yes.”
She pulled me closer and pressed the hand with the marble against my chest, right over the place where my heart was trying to leap from my ribs.
“I’ll wear my mom’s ring. I’ll wear yours too. I’ll be your fifty-five reasons. I’ll be Bliss Mercer someday, even though that sounds like a woman who probably owns horses and yells supportive burns at your rival team because mean people suck, but also—supporting my man.”
Laughter broke through the room, wet and relieved and loud enough to make my ribs remember their trauma on principle.
I didn’t care.
I cupped her face and kissed her.
Carefully at first, because we did have an audience, including both our fathers, my mother, her brothers, my teammates, her best friends, a private nurse off duty and invited because Steve had become weirdly beloved, and possibly the chef pretending not to cry near the kitchen.
Then Bliss made a tiny sound against my mouth and kissed me back with the kind of trembling devotion that made every scar, ache, and memory disappear for one reckless second.
The room erupted.
Briggs shouted something incoherent. Charm sobbed louder. Kellen yelled, “Family history!” and lifted his phone. Ryker threatened to throw it out the window. Easton laughed. Aura cried. Rider clapped once, then pretended he hadn’t. Ryan said, “About damn time,” like he hadn’t seen me almost die and kept me alive through sheer refusal.
My father’s hand landed carefully on my shoulder when Bliss pulled back.
I looked at him.
For a moment, Harrison Mercer did not look polished or cold or untouchable.
He looked like my father.
Exhausted. Relieved. Proud in a way he had never figured out how to make gentle until right then.
“Well done,” he said quietly.
Two words.
That was all.
But from him, it felt like a speech.
My mother kissed my cheek, then Bliss’s, then immediately started crying harder, which made Bliss cry again, which made Daniel Bennett wipe his face and mutter something about allergies even though we were thirty floors above the nearest tree.
The chef announced dinner like he was trying to save all of us from drowning in feelings. No one moved for a second. Then Bliss looked up at me, still holding the marble and wearing her mother’s ring on one hand and mine on the other.
“You planned all this?”
“Some of it. I required emotional supervision and access to a jeweler.”
