“Terrified.”
She slides her arm around my waist and presses her face against my shoulder. “What if I mess up my vows?”
“You won’t.”
“What if I cry?”
“Then you cry. I’ll probably cry too.”
“Don’t! Or it’ll set me off and ruin my makeup.”
I kiss the top of her head. “No promises.”
After breakfast, Harper’s friends arrive—Ximena, Anna, Kira, Moira. They sweep her upstairs in a chaos of laughter and champagne and makeup bags.
Ximena pauses at the bottom of the stairs and looks me dead in the eye. “If you fuck this up, Graham, remember, I know where you sleep.”
“Noted.”
“I’m serious. She’s been through enough. You fuck with her in any way, and we’re gonna have problems. I have brothers. And cousins.”
“Understood.”
She stares at me for another beat, then her face softens slightly. “Good.”
She starts up the stairs, then calls back without turning, “Also, you clean up nice. But don’t let it go to your head.”
I almost smile. From what I understand, it took Harper and Ximena a long time to fix what Z destroyed between them. But they did it. And now Ximena’s got Harper’s back fiercer than anyone—which means she’s got mine by extension, even if she’d never admit it.
Harper looks back at me from halfway up the stairs. “Don’t see me again before the ceremony,” she says. “It’s bad luck.”
“Since when do you care about bad luck?”
“Since today.” She grins. “Humor me.”
“Always.”
Then she’s gone, and it’s just me and Bruiser in the sudden quiet.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
“Get ready?”
“It’s nine in the morning,” I laugh. “The wedding’s not until three.”
I look at him. Nine years old, sticky syrup on his chin, looking at me like I should have answers.
Which I guess I should, as the adult here.
“TV?” I offer.
“Yeah!”
We camp out on the couch and watch some screaming cartoons I can barely understand, but Bruiser loves. I’m not really watching. I’m thinking about vows and standing in front of people and saying out loud what Harper means to me.
How do you put that into words? Silas would know.
The Lonestar Kings have gone underground, and Senior is off-grid. Because of how public the spectacle at the bar ended up going—the footage went viral in a way that’s never healthy, with clear video proof of Senior’s confession to murdering Harper’s aunt and kidnapping Silas—so far they’re staying that way.