The win had a price tag, and Nadia could quote it to the cent. There was a year left to finish paying off Patricia Holt's fees. The second van, postponed twice. Maryanne Law's account, gone for good, because the new partners never circled back and Nadia had stopped waiting.
Jen, working at a bakery counter two towns over, because some things can be forgiven and still never be the same. What balanced the ledger was the collective. Fourteen businesses sharing clients and equipment and a lawyer on retainer split fourteen ways, with corporate work coming through the group that none of them would have landed alone.
It was a smaller business than the one she'd planned, and she'd told me once, sitting on my kitchen counter with her coffee, that she rated it higher for what it had cost to keep.
I watched her move through the room from across the venue and thought about the morning she'd stood in my apartment and looked around at Sofia's decor and laughed. About how certain I'd been, even then, and how long it had taken me to catch up with myself.
Not making that mistake twice.
"You're staring," said Malakai, appearing at my elbow with two drinks.
"I'm allowed. She's mine."
He handed me a glass. "Amelia thinks you're going to propose tonight."
"Amelia thinks a lot of things."
"She's usually right." He looked across the room to where Amelia was talking to Lindsey, both of them laughing at something. "You've got the ring."
It wasn't a question. I'd told him three weeks ago when I'd picked it up, because Malakai noticed everything anyway and it was easier to tell him than to wait for him to work it out. "I've had it for a while."
"What are you waiting for?"
I didn't have an answer. I wasn't scared. That was the thing I kept coming back to. Six months ago, the idea of this would have sent me to a bar in Millbrook. Tonight it felt like the most straightforward thing I'd ever done.
I wanted it to be right.
"I'll know when," I said.
Malakai gave me a look that suggested he had thoughts about that, then moved off to find Amelia.
Sofia found me twenty minutes later.
She was wearing her best dress, the burgundy one with the gold buttons, her expression warning me she was about to say something I'd remember for a long time.
"You look happy," she said, as if surprised.
"I am happy."
"Good." She patted my arm. "It took you long enough."
"Sofia—"
"I know, I know." She waved a hand. "You don't want the lecture. But I'm eighty-six, bambino. I give the lectures while I still can." She looked across the room to where Nadia was talking to a couple of the collective members, relaxed and confident in a way that was different from the early months I'd known her. More settled. "She is good for you. You are good for her." She nodded, satisfied with her own assessment. "Now stop being slow."
She moved off toward the dessert table, presumably to interrogate whoever was standing near it.
Nadia's parents arrived at seven, with her sister and the kids in tow. Emma held back and tried not to smile for fear of people noticing her braces. Jack spotted me from the door and made a beeline through the crowd with the focused energy that reminded me of his aunt.
"Uncle Daemon!" He hit me at roughly hip height. "Mom said we could stay for an hour."
"An hour's a lot." I crouched down to his level. "Have you eaten?"
"Not yet."
"Come on. Let's find your aunt and see what she can do about that."
Nadia's mother hugged me when I brought him over. She'd started doing that sometime around month three, without announcement or explanation, as if she'd simply decided it was happening and there was no further discussion needed. Nadia’s dad shook my hand with the firm grip he always used, which I'd learned early on meant approval rather than critique.
