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“Not yet.” I kissed her forehead again, letting my mouth brush over her skin. “I don’t know if I need to. I was really the only one who needed to see it, yeah?”
While cleaning out Chris’s desk, Zoe had found the same small container of keys I’d found in one of the drawers. Just down the road at a storage facility, Chris and Amie had a small unit packed with sports memorabilia, some boxes of old Christmas decorations, and three boxes labeled “Chris Important Shit,” written in his horrible penmanship. Why they’d moved the boxes there, we’d never really know. Maybe it was a mistake. Or maybe it was one of those cosmic chess plays, the final move revealed exactly when it made the most sense in all our lives.
Inside one of the boxes were two envelopes: one for me, one for Burke. I’d sent his off as soon as we found it.
In keeping with our friendship, the letter Chris had written to me was short, to the point, and free of bullshit.
Liam,
You’re the best man I know. Don’t fucking fight this, even if you want to. There’s no other man I’d trust to raise her, and eventually, you’ll trust that too. If you’re still pissed at me after you read this, just come shove me a little harder at practice, and you’ll get over it.
Chris
With one hand, I cradled Zoe’s jaw, tracing my thumb over the downy-soft skin of her cheek. “Areyounervous?” I asked.
She sucked in a breath. “A little,” she admitted.
“You’re perfect,” I said in a raspy voice yanked straight from the center of my chest. “She’ll just get to see it now. See why I love you so much.”
Her face was so soft and open and sweet, and she pushed up on the balls of her feet for a lingering kiss. Immediately, I wrapped her in my arms and tilted my head, deepening the kiss as she sighed happily. When she broke away, she exhaled a laugh. “I really need to get that child ready, but now you’re distractingme.”
I was about to distract her more when Mira came running into the room. “Liam, we go get Nanny soon?”
I swept her up in my arms, glancing at the clock. “Bloody hell,” I muttered. “Soon, duck. Zoe needs to fix your hair first.”
She shook her head, the tangled curls whipping around. “It’s so pretty.”
I eyed it skeptically. “Uh-huh.”
She laughed, honking my nose, then wriggled to get down. “Bloody hell, bloody hell,” she yelled as she ran back to her playroom.
Zoe sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It was only a matter of time,” she whispered.
I scratched the back of my neck. “I’ll, uh, work on that. Better warn Dr. Carol about that one.”
At the look on my face, Zoe laughed, the bright, happy sound filling the room. I tugged her into my arms again and sighed.
“You laugh,” I told her, “but me and the swearing child are your problems now.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Yes, you are.”
“You know I’m going to marry you someday, right?” I whispered against the shell of her ear. She tightened her arms, then tilted her head up for a soft, sweet kiss.
I’d started telling her that about a week after our first date. It couldn’t be helped. We’d already planned so many aspects of our life together. She’d booked my mum’s flights the day after our first date.We’d scheduled a time to go visit Burke at the house in Michigan, to see the place Chris and Amie had loved so much.
We had decided to wait until the spring, mark the passage of a year without Chris and Amie with someone else whose life had been changed just as much as ours had.
Making those plans was easy too, because we knew with complete surety what the future held for the two of us.
“You better marry me,” she said against my lips. “How else are you going to prove me right about picking better for husband number two?”
I growled, swatting her ass as she pulled away on a laugh.
With a playful arch to her eyebrow, she went off in search of our girl.
While I waited for her to return, I dug my hand into the pocket of my pants and pulled out the small box I’d taken to carrying, just in case the moment was right.
The diamond solitaire winked underneath the lights of the kitchen, and I snapped the box shut, tucking it back into place before she returned.
