"I wear these jeans all the time."
He looks at me like I have just said something that requires no further comment, and the look itself is the comment. I don't argue with it because he's right and we both know it.
Levi is putting on his jacket and Magnolia is tucking herself under his arm like she loves to do. Bryan is gathering the bowling shoes with the dedicated helpfulness of a young man trying to make a good impression on everyone in the room simultaneously, and Lucy is watching all of it with the expression of someone who is very satisfied with how the evening has turned out.
We turn in our shoes and say our goodbyes to the woman at the front desk who has learned all of our names over the last four weeks, which is a very Laurel Springs thing to happen, and then we're all out in the parking lot together in the cool evening air that has finally started to feel like spring is actually coming.
Magnolia pulls me into a hug before she and Levi head to her SUV. "Good game," she says into my shoulder.
"Great game," I correct her.
She laughs, squeezing me once before she lets go, and Levi gives me a look over her head that is just his regular face but with slightly more softness in it than he used to let me see. Since Dad got hurt, we’re much nicer to each other. Then they're heading across the parking lot and it's just the four of us.
Dakota takes my hand.
With him, this is easy. We’ve done it enough times that it's a habit now. He does it without looking, fingers closing around mine while he's still talking to Bryan about something I wasn't tracking, and I look down at our hands for just a second before I look back up.
We start walking toward the truck, and Lucy and Bryan are a few steps behind us, and I can hear Lucy saying something to him that involves a lot of description and gesturing, which means she's telling a story, and I don't know which one but I know it's a good one because Bryan is already laughing before she gets to the end of it.
"Molly!" Lucy calls out from behind us.
I turn, and she's got both arms out to her sides and she's grinning with the full confidence of a girl who has been right about something for a long time and is finally getting to say so.
"I told you," she says, nodding at our joined hands with the expression of someone collecting on a debt. "I told you one day it'd be the two of you."
Dakota makes a sound that is somewhere between exasperation and the fondness he can't turn off when it comes to his sister. I look at Lucy, this girl who has known before either of us was willing to say it, who called it in the parking lot of this exact building months ago and has been patient enough not to make it unbearable while she waited to be proven right.
"You told me," I agree.
She looks extremely pleased with herself, and she takes Bryan's arm and steers him toward the truck.
Dakota opens the passenger door for me, and I climb in, but he doesn't shut it right away. He just stands there in the space of the open door and looks at me in the way he has, the one that I spent months trying not to catalog too carefully because I knew what it would mean if I let myself.
"You happy?" he asks.
It's a simple question, and it deserves a simple answer. But nothing about us has ever been simple. I think about the last several months and everything they've held, the good and the hard.
"Happier than I've ever been," I tell him.
He holds my gaze for a beat, and the corner of his mouth quirks up all sexy and shit before he leans in and kisses me. The kiss is comfortable without any heat, but I still love it. Then he shuts the door and comes around to his side and gets in.
The parking lot of the Pine Social moves past us as he pulls out, and Laurel Springs is comfortable at this hour. All quiet and lit up in the peaceful way of a small town that knows exactly who it is.
“Love you,” I whisper to Dakota.
“Love you too,” he says back.
I lean back in the seat and watch Laurel Springs in the window as we drive. This little town is where we were born, where we grew up, where we fell in love.
It is just what it is.
And to us? It’s everything.
Chapter 26
Macie
It's been a hell of a shift. Full moons tend to do that, but tonight was on a whole other level. I wish I would've been lucky enough to go to the weekly bowling date night, but I don't have that kind of relationship yet. I'm glancing down at the ground as I walk out of the building. All I'm trying to do is put one foot in front of the other, and make it to my car. The mental and emotional toll of the job is rough, sometimes it wears me out more than the physical work.