“Yeah, I can picture her rolling on the floor kicking and screaming, but this isn’t about her. It’s about us building our life together.”
“I love you.” Stretching on tiptoes, I entwined my fingers in his hair, kissing him long and hard. “I want more of this, but my socks are now icicles.”
“Can’t have that.” Jake scooped me up and lugged me across the patio, fumbling one handed with the door before stepping inside the cozy house. He set me on my feet and rubbed my arms.
Across the room, the low conversation between our friends faded, and Dean looked up from dicing potatoes, pausing with the knife poised above the cutting board. He smirked and opened his mouth, but Dara shook her head at her husband. The man tucked his chin down, the blade picking up its steady tap-tap-tap against the cutting board.
Dara slid from her stool and headed my way with a pair of socks. “You must be frozen.”
“My toes are.” I folded the throw and hung it over the back of the sofa, accepting the soft wool socks and peeling off my soggy ones.
“Marisol’s hiding upstairs, worried she created issues,” she said in a low voice. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I’ll check on her.” He strode to the stairs and loped up them two at a time.
I spotted a large box beside the sofa with Jake’s distinctive scrawl across the top. “I’ll make myself useful.” I opened the flaps, setting each gift underneath the tree in turn. The colourful gift for Sari I tucked out of sight, deep underneath three other elaborately wrapped parcels.
Dara sidled up beside me. “I recognize that gift, but why are you hiding it?”
“If Jake sees, he’ll make me take it back.”
She kneeled beside me, pretending to adjust the tree lights. “What is it? I won’t tell him.”
“Not sure it matters.” I fiddled with the ornaments. “He opened it, then taped it up, maybe thinking I wouldn’t notice, so he knows exactly what it is.”
“Weird.” She sat back, staring up at the twinkling lights. “Though things have changed since then. You’ll be Sari’s stepmother, so maybe he won’t mind.”
“I hope he doesn’t.” I glanced at Dean, who still seemed immersed in dinner prep. “It’s a tablet with a gift card, so we can buy games for Sari.”
“You will be the best mommy ever.” Dara straightened my ring. “That’s two carats of fabulous, that is.”
I held up my hand, admiring the prism of colour as I turned my hand. “I almost fainted. He’s worried it’s not enough, when I’m thinking he spent way too much. It’s gorgeous and perfect, like it came straight out of that display case. Remember the day we tried on rings? This one is so similar to the one I loved, it’s eerie.”
My friend scrunched her nose, nibbling at her lip as she sneaked a look at me.
“What? You don’t remember?”
“I remember,” she said softly. “You know, that’s the exact ring you tried that day, right?”
“Impossible!” I giggled. “That was seven years ago. Anyway, that ring was phenomenally expensive, way more than a university student could …” My eyes widened. My friend wasn’t smiling. In fact, she didn’t look the least bit amused. “No. He didn’t. Did he?”
“Jake saw the brochure and bought the ring on layaway.”
I closed my eyes, remembering how I’d looped a big red heart around the picture, tucking the incriminating evidence inside one a bridal magazine and cramming the works into the back of my desk drawer.
“The tips from the extra shifts he worked at the restaurant and the fees from those weekend kayak tours paid for that lovely diamond on your finger.”
I cupped my hands over my face, so many questions crowding in. “Jake kept it all this time?”
“He hoped you’d be back, like all the other times you two blew up at each other, but you dropped off the map. Then he heard you’d married some rich dude in Vancouver. That wasn’t pretty.”
“It sure wasn’t,” I muttered, though I knew Dara was referring to the fallout Jake endured because of me. Now I’d come full circle, drawn back into the fold, finally realizing that while I’d been gone, everything had changed. “And Alysa?”
“Alysa was cute and fun, and I liked her most of the time, but I often questioned why she stayed. I think she knew his heart was never hers, but they got in too deep, and then Sari happened. Jake refused to abandon them, to his own detriment, even though he never stopped loving you.”
“I’m trying to deserve him,” I said in a low voice. “Dar? I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you. Were things rough during the wedding planning?”
“Nah, it wasn’t so bad.”
I raised my brows.
My friend shook her head and looked away.
“Please? Talk to me.”
“I’m not sure you want to hear it,” she muttered, before she glanced over her shoulder at Dean, who was still busy in the kitchen.
“Okay, Bunny?” he asked.
“Just wondering where Jake and Marisol were.”
“Upstairs. Need something?”
“No, it’s all good.” She turned to me and lowered her voice. “Okay, here’s the real deal. It sucked. You should have been my maid of honour, you should have been by my side picking flowers, tasting cake, and trying on wedding gowns. Viv was amazing, and I love her, but she’s not you. I’m still hurt and angry, but I’m doing my best to forgive you, because I love you, you big jerk.” She grabbed a throw pillow and, holding it in both hands, bopped me on the head, sucked in a long breath, then bopped me again. “That’s for Luci. The poor girl cried for a solid week. You left a swath of destruction a thousand miles wide.”
I sat there, stunned and barely able to draw air. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, finally. “You’re right, I’m a big, stupid jerk, and I’m sorry.”
“Why?” She sniffled. “How could you just walk away from everything? From us?
