I rolled my eyes at Georgia with all the love in the world. “I do.”
As if a bell had sounded, Grady and Colton sauntered in.
Colton wasn’t the star QB, but he was the hottest guy in school. I hopped up. “Hey.”
He encased me in his muscular arms. “Everything good?”
“Everything is perfect.”
Maybe Ashley and I would get to know each other, or maybe we wouldn’t. Either way, I would be okay. Colton was my family now, and my future was with him. That much I was certain of, and I couldn’t be happier.
Epilogue
My senior year passed in the blink of an eye. I couldn’t believe I was no longer in high school. A lot happened after Dad died and I met my birth mom.
Ashley and I had developed a friendship. I still couldn’t bring myself to call her Mom. That title was and would always be reserved for Candace Lawson, my adoptive mother, who had poured her heart and soul into raising me. I wasn’t saying Ashley didn’t deserve the title. What had happened hadn’t been her fault. Maybe one day “Mom” would drop from my lips when I referred to her. She didn’t care if I called her Ashley. She gave me the impression that “Mom” would make her day, but baby steps.
“Skyler Lawson, where are you?” Georgia shouted over the music and chatter of people packed into Grady’s house. “We need to sing Happy Birthday.”
I hid behind Colton. “Shh.”
He chuckled as he spun around and pinned me against the counter near the stove. “I’m with Georgia on this. It’s your eighteenth birthday and we need to celebrate.”
I ran my hands up his chest, not caring if anyone was watching us. “Traitor.”
He leaned down and nibbled on my ear. “I have the best birthday present for you later.”
I giggled like a crazy schoolgirl. “I can feel it.”
Colton and I had been inseparable since we started dating, with the exception of the week after graduation, when he moved his mom to South Carolina. We’d thought his house would sell when they put it on the market back in the fall, but with the new construction of homes throughout the beach town, older homes were harder to sell.
Georgia huffed. “There you are. All I have to do is find Colton and I know I’ll find you.” She tried to pry Colton and me apart. “It’s time to sing.”
“Do we have to?” I protested. I was all for a birthday party, but I didn’t like to be the center of attention.
“You know it.” Then she whistled, and the people who were scattered about the kitchen stopped talking. “It’s time to sing Happy Birthday. Gather around.” She waved her hands.
Colton moved to my side, giving me a full view of the long island where my four-tiered cake acted as the centerpiece amid a variety of finger foods and goodies.
“Nan, if you’ll light the candles,” Georgia said.
Guests were coming in and finding spots where they could.
Once Nan lit the candles numbered one and eight, she held out her hand. “Come here.”
I slid over to her with Colton nudging me forward.
“Don’t look so pained,” Ashley said from the other side of the island.
Mr. Dyson, who had his arm around his sweetheart, laughed. “I don’t like the attention either,” he said to me.
Mia emerged through the crowd, her cheeks flushed, her dark hair messy. Behind her, Grady came in looking like he’d been doing something he shouldn’t.
Whether his dad noticed or not, he didn’t say a word.
I rolled my eyes at Mia.
She shrugged as she stood beside Ashley.
I couldn’t blame her for sneaking away with her boyfriend. I desperately wanted to do just that with my hunk of a man.
I eyed Georgia. “Anytime.”
Colton wrapped me in his arms from behind while the guests launched into singing Happy Birthday.
As I listened to the out-of-tune melody, I took a minute to think of Dad. Once he was diagnosed with ALS, eighteen became the magic number. But things hardly happen the way one wants them to. I looked back on the last two years—because it had been close to two years since Dad and I had cried in his bedroom at three in the morning when he told me he had ALS, and I realized in that moment, among family and friends, that each step in our journey had been necessary to get me to where I was.
I was with a guy who loved me so hard it hurt, but in a fantastic way. I had friends who would die for me. I even liked Grady more than I had when he’d stuck his tongue in my mouth in elementary school, and we were on track to be stepsiblings. His dad and Ashley were tying the knot in October.
When the guests finished singing, I made a wish that one day, Colton and I would get hitched. He was my forever, and I wanted to build a future with him. Then I blew out the candles.
Claps resounded, then trailed off as the guests resumed talking or refreshing their drinks. Nan and Ashley began to cut the cake.
“What did you wish for?” Colton bit lightly on my ear. I’d learned quickly that Colton was an ear man. He loved doing things to my ear that made me want to jump his bones. I guessed that was why he did.
“I can’t tell you until it comes true.”
“I can tickle it out of you,” he said.
“You can try,” I volleyed back.
“Mmm. I will later, then.”
He could do whatever he wanted to me.
Two days had passed since my birthday party, and I stood on the porch, hugging Nan and not wanting to let go. She and I had been crying for the last twenty-four hours, which was crazy—Colton and I weren’t going to be gone that long. But I felt like I was losing a part of my life that I’d come to love with Nan. She’d been the best guardian ever.
“Skyler, let’s go.” Colton’s sexy and impatient voice sent shivers over
