Page 57 of Until You

So when that familiar story starts to rise, doing its best to prepare me for being let down one more time… I let it rise, and then I set it down.

I reach out and take Oliver’s hand.

His fingers close around mine immediately. No hesitation.

Mimz laughs at something Pops whispers in her ear, and she lightly smacks his arm. Rebecca is talking to James in a low voice. He nods. She reaches up and fixes his collar, an unconscious gesture so intimate and so automatic that it must have been happening between them for decades.

Kelsie produces a packet of tissues from her purse and is distributing them. Payton is eating one of the pancakes, apparently having decided the crisis has passed and calories should not be wasted.

Addison stands beside her husband, his hand in hers. Thorne drops a sweet kiss on her lips.

I look up at Oliver.

He’s already looking at me. He does that, I’ve noticed. His eyes on me, watchful and protective.

“Okay?” he asks. Low, just for me. “I know they’re a lot.”

“They’re wonderful.” My free hand drops, unconsciously, to my stomach.

I feel it there—the thing I felt in my room, against the door, the night I asked what if I stayed into the dark and didn’t answer myself. The flutter. Light and quick and certain. Like wings. Like the smallest possible yes from the smallest possible person.

Payton reaches over and hands me the paper bag with the rest of the pancakes. “You should really eat those,” he says. “Doctor’s orders.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what the doctor ordered.”

“It’s what I ordered. Which, as your future brother-in-law, carries substantial weight.”

“Oh, we’re not—” I start to argue.

“But we will be,” Oliver says.

I just look up into his impossibly handsome face and know in my bones that I am right where I’m supposed to be. Next to this man, and standing amidst a family built on love and real commitment.

Oliver squeezes my hand once.

I squeeze back.

And for the first time, without immediately correcting myself, without the asterisk, without the fine print—I’m home.