The bracelet warmed against my wrist.
And for the first time since I made the stupidest rule of my life, midnight did not feel like an ending.
It felt like something we were going to survive.
Chapter Nineteen
DREW
Jace’s familyhad no shame.
None.
Zero.
The woman who gave birth to him cried into a dish towel when Isa and I came back inside. His grandmother hugged Isa like she’d personally ended a war. One of the cousins slow-clapped until Jace threw a pillow at his head.
“Texas and the snow,” the kid said, grinning at me like he’d just been handed blackmail for life. “Legendary.”
“Say that again and you’re sleeping outside,” I told him.
“It’s my house.”
“I’ll buy it.”
Isa elbowed me. “Do not threaten teenagers with real estate.”
Jace’s mom pressed mugs of hot chocolate into our hands like the entire emotional crisis required marshmallows. “You two look frozen.”
“We’re fine,” Isa said, visibly shaking.
“No athlete says that and means anything but catastrophic denial,” I said.
She looked up at me.
My chest did that stupid thing again.
Because she was standing in Jace’s kitchen in my hoodie, snow melting in her hair, the bracelet I gave her on her wrist and the ring she gave me heavy on my hand.
No midnight.
I kept looking at it. Couldn’t stop.
The engraving sat against my skin like a promise and a threat and a miracle I didn’t know how to trust yet but wanted to.
Jace leaned against the counter, mug in hand. “So. Are we pretending no one saw the legal documents, or are we discussing how Texas brought a prenup to a love confession?”
Isa lifted her chin. “It was not a prenup.”
“It was prenup-adjacent.”
“It was a financial waiver.”
“Hot,” Jace said. “Nothing says romance like asset protection.”
I pointed at him. “Out.”
“This is my kitchen.”
