“It feels like home.”
She leaned further into me, simply absorbing it. I loved that about her—how she didn’t need to fill every minute with talk. Maybe it was because we’d both suffered loss early, both learned to savor every seemingly ordinary moment.
“Ember, come show Paisley how it’s done. She keeps setting hers up like little torches,” Sam called.
I kissed her forehead, and she crossed our combined backyard to the girls. I liked that there were no fences between our places. It would be easier for them when we were gone. Ember and Paisley would need to support each other this next year.
“How is Colorado?” I asked Grayson, walking over to where he flipped a shish kebab next to Jagger.
“Exactly what I needed,” he replied, his eyes drifting back to Sam. “How are you feeling about heading back?”
“You want to talk about feelings?” I shot him a little side-eye.
“No time like the present.”
Because there might not be a tomorrow.
I watched Ember laugh, the firelight playing along the lines of her face. My chest tightened. We were living in a vise, watching the edges come closer, helpless to do anything but wait to be crushed. Fuck, it sucked.
“I don’t want to leave her. We’re finally together and I’m leaving again. I guess I thought we’d have a minute or two, you know?”
“Embrace it,” Grayson said.
Jagger turned slowly, his beer bottle paused just under his gaping mouth. “What?”
“Use this time. Feel every stab of loneliness, relish every second you would rip your very limbs off if it meant you could spend five minutes holding them. Let it push you to be the men you’re capable of, the ones they deserve, and let it push you to be even better in the air so you come home to them.”
Come home to them.
“Sam turned you into a sap,” Jagger said quietly, but there was no teasing as we all stared over the grill at our combined lives.
The small smile on Grayson’s face caught me unaware. “No regrets.”
Once dinner was off the grill, we took up seats around the fire, the flames warding off the dipping February temperatures. Not that sixty-five had been a bad high for the day.
Ember closed the sliding glass door, four wineglasses clutched precariously in her hands while she managed to keep the bottle of wine under her arm. “Shall we?” she asked Sam once she reached us, pouring the wine like her answer was a foregone conclusion.
“Yes, please,” Sam answered, and I didn’t miss the glance she sent in Grayson’s direction.
“Jagger, can I get a beer?” Grayson asked as Jagger leaned over the cooler. “Don’t everyone look so shocked. It’s not like we’re going anywhere.” His eyebrows shot up as he looked at me. “Unless your guest room shares a wall with Jagger. I don’t need to hear that shit.”
Paisley shot Grayson a death glare while Jagger nearly choked on his beer with laughter. “No, our guest room does, and that’s just Morgan.”
“Just me?” Morgan asked Carter so quietly that if she wasn’t on the other side of me, I wouldn’t have heard her.
That escalated quickly.
“Just you,” he said with a curt nod, but his knuckles whitened where he gripped his bottle.
Jagger shot me the that’s-none-of-my-business look and passed a beer to Grayson while Ember sent a glass of wine to Morgan.
“Shall we toast?” Jagger asked, a grin damn-near consuming his face as he looked at Paisley.
“Wait, Paisley needs a glass,” Ember said, pouring into the second glass.
“Oh, no, I have water.” Paisley shook her head with a smile.
“Well, I guess one of us should be sober.” Ember laughed, keeping the glass for herself. I pulled her onto my lap, gently squeezing the sweet curves of her hips.
“Behave,” she whispered into my ear, but ran her tongue along the edge.
My fingers flexed, teasing under the edges of the black skirt that had slid higher on her thighs as she sat. I couldn’t help it—her skin was a magnet for my hands. “You like it better when I don’t,” I answered.
She locked those blue eyes on mine, and for that second, I wanted everyone to go the fuck away so I could get my remarkable girlfriend out of her clothes. Not a girlfriend for long. Not if I found the perfect moment for that little velvet box hidden upstairs.
Mrs. Walker. December-fucking-Walker. Sounded perfect to me.
“Earth to Josh and Ember,” Jagger called, waving his hand like he’d been at it a while.
“Yeah, yeah, a toast,” Ember said, wiggling against my now-hard lap. I locked her down with my hands, and she threw me a smug grin, well aware of what she’d done.
Jagger raised his beer. “To friends. Hell, that doesn’t even cut it. You guys, all of you…I wouldn’t be here”—he looked over to Paisley—“or even the man I am, without you. So more than friends…to family.”
We glanced around the fire at the family we’d made, and I felt it—one of those moments you can’t forget, the kind that stay with you when it’s long past, so you try to memorize everything. It was a deep peace, a contentment laced with the silent knowledge that we wouldn’t be together again for far too long.
“To family,” we all said in scattered rhythm, and I kissed the underside of Ember’s jaw.
“Old and new,” Jagger said, the firelight reflecting on something on his— No fucking way. How had I missed that? How long?