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Good night, Bode.

It was only a minute or so later when he replied.

Good night, Bird.

I sent him a heart and felt my small smile widen when he sent one back. Setting my phone on the end table, I decided that I could debrief my brain tomorrow while talking to Ville. I needed to sleep.

Like almost every morning since I got there, I halfway woke up when Emery left the cabin to go grab breakfast at the house and then head to work. I fell asleep easily in the peace and quiet of the ranch now, and then I’d wake up for real when my brain decided it was time. Or when Ville did.

This morning, he was being a bit more subtle about it. I woke up to a rare scent of bacon and the pop of the toaster.

“Morning,” I rasped out, detangling myself from the covers.

He smiled over his shoulder. “Morning. Go get yourself presentable, food’s ready soon.”

I grumbled, but dragged myself into the bathroom anyway. I did feel a bit better by the time I got back and grabbed my phone. There was a good morning message from Bodhi, and I couldn't help the sappy smile. Even something as mundane as that felt different now. It felt more.

“Oh gods, it’s just gonna just get worse, isn’t it?” Ville teased, but I could tell he was happy for me.

I was sure everyone’d started to put two and two together after last night. It probably wasn’t a mystery to his family why Bodhi had acted the way he did after my joke.

Ville plated the breakfast, plopped a mug of coffee in front of me, and sat on the other chair at the tiny kitchen table.

“I assume Bodhi finally figured himself out?” he started once we’d dug into the food.

I nodded. “Yep.” I blew into my coffee, then murmured, “Feels weird, man.”

Ville grinned. “Getting everything you ever wanted feels weird?”

I kicked him gently under the table.

“He said the only person I’m gonna marry is him.” I snorted, then shook my head before cracking the fuck up.

My best friend looked at me fondly, then chuckled. “Well, fuck. Never thought I’d like that guy.”

“Hey!”

He lifted his hands up in surrender, then got serious again. “Honestly, your lifelong dream is coming true. Hold onto it. It’s gonna be scary as fuck but totally worth it.”

I scanned his expression, his resting Finnish face as familiar to me as my own face and Bodhi’s.

“You got yours,” I murmured.

Ville smiled slightly. “Yeah. It was a dream I didn’t know I had, though.”

I personally thought that he’d wanted Emery from the first time they ever got together, but there was no reason to point that out.

“That’s what makes this….” I sighed. “I don’t know. The scariest thing I’ve ever done?”

He thought for a moment. “Scarier than the first CMAs?”

I frowned. “Yeah, but in a different way.”

The Country Music Awards had been a lot for my twenty-year-old self. It was wild to think about that young man, shaking in my boots backstage before I was to perform my first hit single. I hadn’t been that man in such a long time.

I’d told Ville about that night, about my fear and how I still flashed back into that terrifying moment when I’d hired him a couple of years later. Just so he knew that it still wasn’t easy to get on those kinds of stages.

“Well, I’m gonna reiterate the fact that it’s gonna be worth it.” He shrugged as he picked up a piece of bacon with his fingers. “And I’m not going anywhere.”