Page 56 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

But today, I see something I haven’t let myself look at too closely before. Miles would be an incredible dad.

The thought comes with an image so immediate that I almost resent my brain for creating it. Miles with a little girl perched on his shoulders, his hands wrapped securely around her ankles. Miles reading bedtime stories with different voices. Miles teaching his little girl to ride a bike, running beside her even after she no longer needs him to hold on.

Then my gaze lands on Mackenzie. She really does look bigger every time I see her. One hand rests on the swell of her stomach as she laughs at something Charlie says. Jace comes up behind her and presses a kiss to her temple before stealing a piece of fruit from the tray she’s holding, and the ache deepens.

Miles deserves to be a dad and have children who climb all over him. A family of his own. Someone who can give him all of it without turning every dream into a complicated conversation about what might never happen.

He catches me looking at him and raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a very intense nothing.”

“I was admiring your crown.”

He reaches up and touches the crooked paper points. “It commands respect.”

“It commands something.”

Evelyn sweeps into the room carrying a tray of champagne flutes and sparkling cider. She looks as composed as always, but there is something oddly vigilant in the way she keeps tracking every conversation happening around her. We’re all here because she invited us for dessert and said there would probably be something exciting to celebrate. Most of us appear to have figured out what that something is.

Some of us know more. Charlie, Mackenzie, Owen, Jace, Evelyn, and I know Zoe plans to propose. Blake, Miles, and Heidi keep exchanging meaningful looks involving Ledger, although I can’t figure out what. Everyone else seems content knowing an engagement is probably imminent.

I turn toward Mackenzie. “Did Zoe show you the carabiner box she had made for⁠—”

“Reese,” Evelyn says, suddenly appearing at my elbow. “Did you see whether the lemon bars have been cut?”

“I think they have.”

“Could you make absolutely certain?”

“Absolutely.”

I walk toward the kitchen, glancing back over my shoulder. Evelyn is watching both Miles and me as if we’re unattended toddlers approaching opposite sides of the same electrical outlet. Maybe she’s nervous about tonight. Ledger is her son, and Zoe is about to ask him to marry her. That has to be emotional.

As I pass Blake, I overhear, “He’s been planning this for weeks.”

Charlie says, “I know. She showed me the ring.”

Blake’s brows draw together. “Did you say ‘h⁠—”

A serving spoon clatters loudly on the floor. “Oops,” Evelyn says. “Charlie, will you take that to the kitchen and wash it for me?” She is definitely acting strange.

The lemon bars have already been cut. They are also arranged in perfect diagonal rows, because Charlie is running this celebration, and Charlie has never met a dessert she couldn’t organize into visual perfection.

There’s also a cake, and I’m just picking it up to take it to the dining room table when Miles walks in and takes the heavier side of the tray without asking. Our fingers brush near the edge, and the smallest touch sends awareness skating up my arm.

Oh. This is new.

Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’ve just spent years refusing to notice it.

We set everything on the table together. I straighten one stack of napkins, then notice the wind outside has begun moving the tree branches harder than it was a few minutes ago.

“Did anyone know there was supposed to be a storm?”

Miles looks out the window. “The forecast said it was supposed to be clear when Ledger checked.”

“Zoe checked, too.”