CHAPTER 39

WREN

Ellis gives my ass an appreciative squeeze.

"Don't get distracted," I warn him under my breath.

"Too late. Shouldn't have worn these jeans," he murmurs.

"Ellis Orion Byrd. We have to stay focused here. They're coming any second now."

"Coulda been you, too, but you turned me down," he complains.

I try to give him a stern look, but it stutters when I see his heated smile in the moonlight. "I seem to recall saying a lot of yeses when I closed the bakery for lunch this afternoon." Lunch is in air quotes. "We're gonna get caught again." I let a groan slip free when I remember the exasperated look on my mother's face when she came in the back door and found Ellis and me scrambling to right ourselves one afternoon two weeks ago. "We pushed my mother into an early retirement."

"She was looking for an excuse."

He's not wrong. When we came back from our trip (a little over a month ago now), I found out that Mom had just straight up left the bakery closed for two of the days I'd been gone. She closed early on the others. Rather than let us throw her a party to celebrate her officially passing the whisk on to me, she and David jetted off to Hawaii on a whim.

Still. "Tonight isn't about you or me or my mom, Ellis. Keep your eyes on the water."

He rustles around in the sand next to me, rolling from his stomach onto his side and propping his head in his hand. "You look beautiful, Byrd. The moon makes your hair look silver." He reaches over and plays with a stray coil.

I melt a little, even as I shake my head at him. He's sharpened and honed his skills with compliments as of late. Sometimes he catches me so off guard that I don't know how to reply, which is when he gets the smuggest. "Speechless again, I see," he'd said yesterday morning when he met me at work and told me that watching me bake was like watching a conductor in an orchestra. "All passion and concentration for something with a bunch of moving parts that all need just the right amount of attention. All for something for everyone else to enjoy." I stood there a little dumbly, flour on my face and a half-empty piping bag in hand.

Later, he told me he'd figured out that the secret to compliments is just saying them the minute they're in his head, without trying to arrange them perfectly. It felt like he'd cracked an egg inside my chest, knowing that he's been trying to speak from his so purely.

I wriggle closer to him, heedless of the sand scraping along my torso.

"I can't wait to see her face," he says.

"Me, either," I say. Which is when a light catches my eye from down the small beach we're currently hiding on. Two little phone flashlights, I see, upon closer inspection.

"It's Micah and Silas," Ellis says, and I can just make out their faces now from where they're hiding behind another log, just like Ellis and me.

It's a perfect late July evening. One of those rare warm(ish) summer nights we get in Spunes. The moon is full and bright in a cloudless, starry sky.

"Hopefully, Indy gets here in time," I say.

"She will. She had to be at the house when they left so Sage wouldn't suspect anything."

Micah starts a crouched run over to us, kicking up tufts of sand and tripping over his own feet.

"What are you doing?! Get back to your hiding spot!" Ellis yell-whispers at him.

"Relax! I just need to ask Wren something real quick," Micah replies. I hear a car door shut in the distance and see Indy making her way down to the beach a moment later.

"Wren," Micah starts. "You know that little arched window above your kitchen sink? Do you happen to know where I could find a replacement?"

" Micah ," I groan. "No, I don't. You are officially the worst tenant on the planet!" I've moved all my essentials back home with Ellis, as Micah has been making himself at home in my old place. It would be the ideal situation for all, if Micah didn't happen to accidentally put a hole in a wall while moving furniture, break the refrigerator, and now break what sounds like a second window all in the span of a few weeks.

"Hey!" Indy says, excitedly jogging over to us. "You have the camera ready?"

Ellis lays a quick kiss to my hairline, still chuckling warmly over Micah's cursed clumsiness.

"Yeah, I've got it here," I say.

Micah tries to plop his body between Ellis and me, which makes Ellis bodily remove him and shove him back toward where he came from.

"Fine, damn," he whispers. "Indy, come with me. The view is better, anyway."

When they've settled back into their hiding spots, I meet Ellis's stare. "How's the tattoo? Lying like this doesn't feel good."

He pats the spot high on his thigh, where, under his jeans, he's got a bandage covering a tattoo, twin to the one I've got on mine. We haven't planned when exactly we'll do a ceremony yet, but we wrote our own vows to one another in the meantime. His is in my handwriting, mine is in his.

"I kinda like the little bit of pain. Reminds me they're there," he says. But just past his head, I can make out a bright neon light on the water.

"Shhh, they're here. Duck down!"

We go as still as we can manage, lowering down behind the log until we can't see Fisher and Sage in their little glass-bottom kayak anymore, relying on sound to know when they've made it onto the shore.

"That was kind of a short ride," we hear Sage observe curiously. "What are your plans with me?" she asks, an implication in her voice like she hopes they're not innocent. We hear the unmistakable sounds of kissing. Ellis's mouth quirks down at the corners. I smother a laugh.

"I have so many plans, Sage," says Fisher. That devious man knows all three of her brothers are within earshot. I respect him for it. "But mostly, I just want the everyday stuff. I want to know what your hair looks like when you wake up in the morning when we're sixty. I want to see what robe you wear next week."

I can feel Sage's laugh in my solar plexus, like her happiness is my own. My eyes start to fill when I notice Ellis's already have.

"I meant here, as in, onshore," says Sage. "Did you pack a blanket or something this time? You know after last time, it took like a week to get all the sand out of your—"

"I know what you meant," he quickly says. "I'm talking about making plans for something else, sweetheart."

"Oh! Oh, okay," she says. "We can make plans for whatever you want."

"I was sorta hoping you'd say that," says Fisher.

We hear Sage gasp, and I imagine Fisher's gone down to one knee.

"Sage," Fisher starts, emotion roughening his words. "I didn't know what I was doing when Indy came to me. I didn't know what I was doing when I showed up here. You helped me see that it was okay not to know. You helped me take care of my moments, and time took over from there. I don't know what the future will look like with me. I don't know if I'll end up with my own place, and I don't know if I'll struggle for money. I don't know if I'll make a good husband." His swallow is audible. "I don't know if I'll make a good dad. But I sure as hell know I'll try. I just want—I want to keep trying life with you . I will do everything in my power to make every minute I get with you count. But. But would you please plan on forever with me? Would you be my wife and spend your life with me?"

Ellis leans over and kisses me, his smile glowing in the moonlight. His happy tears pelt the sand beneath us.

" Yes ," Sage manages to say, and we all jump up from our spots. Neither Fisher or Sage even flinch in surprise. They're too busy reaching for one another and crying and laughing into each other's mouths. I start snapping photos just as Indy gets Sam on FaceTime, and the Byrd brothers all cheer, jogging over and huddling around into one great hug. Fisher's head manages to stick out above the blob, and he looks over to me and mouths, Thank you. I keep on taking pictures.

"Don't thank me yet!" I call over, just in time for Micah, Silas, and Ellis to each grab a part of Fisher, peel him away from Sage, and haul him into the frigid Pacific. Fisher bursts up from the water, sputtering and gasping and cursing up a storm, while Indy and all the Byrds laugh their asses off.

"It's like an initiation!" I yell to him, then screech when Ellis tosses me over his shoulder and starts to carry me up the beach back to our car.

"I love you, Sagey! Congrats!" I say.

"I love you, too! Thank you!" she calls back, gathering a shivering, wet Fisher into her arms.

Ellis and I race up the stairs when we get home, tossing our sandy-damp clothes in a heap when we practically skid into our room. I press him down onto our bed and kiss the still-healing vows on his thigh before I take him into my mouth and love him that way as long as he'll let me. It's just him and me here, and we're as loud as we want to be. We laugh when we get tangled in our sheets and topple onto the floor, where he puts me on my knees and elbows and makes love to me from behind, holding my hand on my shoulder the whole way through, like one extra piece of connection.

When we lie in bed together after, he holds one of my hands to his chest while we talk about mundane things. He goes back to work tomorrow after having a few days off. It'll be Silas's first week back to work after being off for eleven months, too. Two days ago, I got to meet Lennon Kirby on a FaceTime call. She's adorable and playfully harasses Ellis, and I love it. If she lived closer, I would be scheming to set her up with Micah.

We talk about what I'm planning to make this week at the bakery. I want to try a few things with pistachios, and he lets out a little whine and asks me to make sure I can make a few of them when he comes back, too. I'm not sure at what point he drifts off, but when his hand loosens over mine, I bring it down to trace over the words in his skin, just before I feel myself slipping away, too.

If you're lost, I'll find you.

I'll give you my body, my heart, and my soul.

I'll cherish every bit of yours in return.

I'll fight with you. I'll fight for you.

I'll love you for everything left of forever, in every lifetime we get.