Calling it a wedding was generous. Still, sunflower bouquets had arrived at the door, and the cake was iced with “Happy birthday, Sasquatch,” ringed in edible flowers. Livia and Dane both looked at me. I lifted my hands. “Most places get nervous when you ask them to make wedding things.”
“Who decided that phrase belonged on a cake?” Livia asked.
Dane looked delighted. “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”
He wore a dark suit that suggested a secret agent on vacation. Livia had chosen a crisp, sailor-inspired outfit; the rest of us wore our Cape Lark Crab Week clothes, rumpled from a week of use and a lot of good meals.
At half past three, the photographer arrived. We spent most of the time by the pool in our nicer clothes, inventing more and more ridiculous names for Bianca and Jules’s baby while the photographer tried to capture us looking natural.
When they first told Dane and Rhys, Dane had gone silent, as if the words had stopped working. Rhys had jumped up laughing, looking from one of us to another like he expected someone to reveal it was a joke.
“Really?” Dane had asked. “There’s a baby in there right now?”
Bianca laughed. “That is generally how it works.”
Rhys had thrown his hands up. “You’re having a baby!”
“Someone catch him,” Jules had said. “Rhys is about to faint.”
He’d made his way around the kitchen to hug Bianca and Jules, then turned to me. He was thrilled, but before joining in he checked my face to see whether I was happy too. I was.
Now champagne and sparkling cider passed around the sunny patio. We tried to persuade the parents-to-be to name their child something like Bianca Jules Reyes-Moreno the Third while the photographer kept clicking.
The officiant arrived at four. An hour later, Livia and Dane stood at the end of the dock, sunlight catching in their hair. Their voices shook as they promised to choose each other, again and again. Bianca and I held each other, our sunflower bouquets between us, and did our best not to cry.
At half past five, we threw ourselves from the dock into the cold water, yelling and laughing, and failed spectacularly at the game of staying quiet. Then we scrambled out and ran for the warmth of the pool.
We ordered pizza. Nobody wanted to leave, and Cape Lark wasn’t a place where delivery drivers were easy to find. We ate with champagne and avoided talking about tomorrow: the goodbyes, the house, the end of a week we wished we could keep repeating.
For now, we were still together.
As evening settled, we wrapped ourselves in blankets and went down to the rocks. A fire warmed our hands while we toasted marshmallows. Livia burned hers black. Dane took his time until his turned an even gold.
When Rhys noticed me shiver, he pulled off his old workshop sweatshirt and eased it over my head. He tied the sleeves beneath my chin, grinning. It smelled of smoke, salt air, and him. I wanted to keep wearing it.
Dane found sparklers in the garage. We lit them and wrote our names in the dark. The letters lasted only a moment, but that made us watch them more closely.
I used to think love would end as soon as something went wrong. I no longer believed that. People could hurt each other and still choose to stay.
We talked about the stars, our old dorm, the purple flowers along the road to Alderbrook, and the icicles that used to hang from the broken gutter outside our Seattle apartment. We traded the memories we wanted to keep and the things we knew we’d miss.
“We’ll come back,” Jules said. “This kid needs to know about Crab Week.”
“Maybe,” Livia said. “Or maybe next year we go somewhere none of us has been.”
Rhys’s hand closed more firmly around mine. Even talking about next year seemed to remind him that this week was ending.
I was sad that the week was ending, and grateful for the time we had shared.
We stayed up until Bianca nodded off against Jules and Livia could barely keep her eyes open. We said good night as if it were an ordinary evening, as if we’d wake up and get another week.
Behind our closed bedroom door, Rhys and I held each other in the dark. My hands rested at the back of his neck; he leaned against my shoulder. We breathed together without speaking.
I had wanted him long before I understood my feelings. That had not changed.
I remembered the shape of him by touch: his shoulders and waist, the softness at his hips, the strong lines of his back. Every part I’d missed, imagined, and wanted.
“Your hands are freezing,” he whispered, pressing my fingers to his mouth.
“Then keep them there,” I murmured. “You’re warm.”
We undressed slowly and held each other. Tomorrow would come, but we stayed focused on that night.
Under the blankets, we held each other close. “I love you,” he said against my mouth. I wanted to remember exactly how he said it.
My throat tightened. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Those words aren’t mine anymore.”
“They were yours before I ever met you,” he said. “They’re yours in every life we could have had, Mara.”
I closed my eyes and repeated his words to myself.
Before Rhys, I believed I could be happy without him. Now I knew I would miss him wherever I went.
Once I understood how much I wanted him, it was hard not to think about the life we might have had together.
He laced his fingers with mine and told me he loved me without needing more words.
I was almost asleep with my cheek against his chest when I heard him whisper it once more.
“I love you.”
Half dreaming, I answered, “You.”