"Every word."
“I definitely need pool noodles now," I sigh.
Jake sets his glass aside and wipes away another grin. “So, now we’ve got me, you, Beau, Adrian, Riley, Noah, Mason, Lucy, Maxwell, Banjo, Layla, Sebastian, and Drew?”
“Yes, plus anyone Mason brings. There’s always someone.”
A second or two pass, and I grab my bottle of water while Jakedoes whatever math I’m not privy to. “Do I get to make a guest list suggestion, too?”
“It’sourparty,” I tease.
“Have you considered inviting Sage?”
I nearly choke. It’s not that it’s a bad idea, but I definitely wasn’t expecting Jake to drop her name, and I wonder how long she’s been on his mind.
“Why Sage?”
“Because she’s a friend of yours,” Jake says. “But there’s a reason you don’t talk about her with the rest of us, even though I’m guessing she knows us pretty well, so if you don’t think we’d all get along—”
“No, no,” I interrupt, waving my hand. “She’d fit in really well, which is why I—no, it’s—yeah.”
“Which is why, no, yeah?” Jake snorts. “For a short sentence, you managed to take that in several directions at once.”
“Yes, I will invite her. And she just turned 21, so I won’t have to act surprised by her familiarity with adult beverages.”
Jake chuckles, but doesn’t quite let me off the hook. “Are you going to finish whatever other thought you abandoned back there? About her fitting in?”
“Nah, it’s barely a thing.” I stop there, but my brain doesn’t quiet, skipping from one thought to another in a way that I’m used to, but is probably unfair to the man sitting in front of me.Sage.My father.Beau.Jake’s watching me like he knows I have more to say, even if I’ve dismissed his question. And because I’ve already stopped myself from one unformed thought, I don’t bitemy tongue in time to keep myself from going on about something else.Sebastian.Riley. Lucy.“Would Michelle have liked me?”
The multicolored lights around the bar are pretty when they strike the tears Jake won’t let fall. And I think I’d take back what I’ve said, but I know he doesn’t want me to. Not when he smiles at me with awe I don’t deserve.
“I was thinking about that the night I wrecked my bike, actually,” he admits, andthat’snot what I was expecting. “I’d been lying in the dirt and missing her like crazy, and I wondered what it would’ve been like if I could’ve somehow brought her here. And yeah, she would’ve loved you.”
I take a deep breath and look from a half-drunk Guinness to the place where a ring should’ve been and then up to eyes that shine with something else now.
And then I nod. “I would’ve loved her, too.”