“It’s an all-girl’s dorm,” I pout, my hands sliding over his arms and entwining in his.
“Then I’ll dress in drag.”
I giggle, turning back to press my lips to his. My eyes flutter open halfway through the kiss, flitting over his serene, happy face as he kisses me, and drinking in this perfect moment.
“I just want this to be forever,” I say quietly, pulling away.
“It is forever, Ivy-girl,” he murmurs, those eyes of his darting across my face, that roguish grin stretching across his face.
I sink back into his arms as we both look up at the stars again.
“What if it really WAS forever,” he says after a moment.
I rake my teeth across my lip as the grin pulls at the corners of my mouth. “What do you mean?”
He chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest. “You know what I mean. What if it really was forever? What would you do if I asked?”
I can feel this feeling of pure euphoria exploding through me, my eyes shining at the corners and the glowing feeling of his embrace buzzing through every nerve in my body.
“Well, you’d have to get me a ring first,” I say primly, surpassing the giggle that comes to my lips.
“What if I already had my eye on one?”
I smile hugely as I turn back over my shoulder to look up into his face. “Does it come with a receipt?”
He winks. “You really want to know?”
I shake my head side-to-side.
“So, if I got you a ring, and I asked-”
“I’d probably have to say yes,” I manage to spill out before I turn in his arms, wrap mine around him, and kiss him with everything I have.
Two weeks later, we’re saying I do in the rectory of a church two towns away before Sunday mass.
Three days after, my whole life changes.
When it all blew up, I finally caved and told my older sister, because keeping it inside after all that may have killed me.
Him leaving like that almost did.
Suffice it to say, that little piece of trivia has never made it past Stella.
We pull around the corner, and suddenly I’m right back in my old neighborhood - right back where we grew up.
It’s strange being here - so familiar, with everything exactly how it was.
Hell, even Silas is back.
“Your to-do list?” Stella spits out as we pull into my parents’ driveway. The huge old farmhouse-style with the wrap-around porch brings a smile to my face despite the run down memory lane.
“Uh, maybe bump that to the top of your list, Ivy.” Stella frowns. “You don’t have to tell Blaine about him, but if things between you get more serious, it’s going to come up. I mean, legally-speaking.”
I groan. “Yeah, well, I’d have had to have seen him at some point in the last eight years in order to get a div-”
My sisters waves her hands as she’s nods at the backseat.
“He’s on a big repeating phase,” she says with roll of her eyes. “So…”
“Thanks,” I say with a grin. Stella shuts the car off and opens her door.
“Look, I’ve been pretty flipping busy, you know.”
She wags her brows at me over the top of the car as she opens the back door to get at Carter. “I know, I know, big fancy New York busy-body and all.”
I stick my tongue out at her as she grins.
“I’d just have thought that you’d-”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t okay? We’re still….” I sigh, pushing my hands through my hair as I open mine. “We’re still that.”
Stella gives me a very certain look but doesn’t say anything.
“Look, can we change the subject before we go inside.”
She snorts. “Definitely.”
“How was LA and seeing Kyle and Austin?”
She laughs. “See how long we go without talking? That was like three months ago.”
I make a face and sticks her tongue out at me like we’re teasing kids again.
“It was interesting, and a very long story. He bought a boat.”
I raise a brow. “Our brother or his NFL pal?”
Our youngest brother Kyle is the de facto computer genius of the Hammond family, and has been out in Los Angeles for the past few years paling around with his college roommate-turned-pro-quarterback Austin Taylor. The fact that he’s a newly minted millionaire and never has to work again after selling this computer program he wrote to the U.S. Government seems to be lost on our brother, since he also just took a job with the FBI.