And I just stood there, hand clenched around a ring that meant nothing and everything all at once, with the crushing weight of a truth I hadn’t asked for.
Daphne was mine.
And now, she and her incredible mother were further away than ever.
33
GAVIN
“Ifucking knew we shouldn’t have said that bullshit about giving her time.”
My words came out quiet, rough, and angry, and somehow not as passionate as I felt they should, despite the blatant emotion in them. There was a time when I would have disdained the idea of showing any amount of feeling, even to Cade and Luca, my closest friends. But Allie Tate had blown that all to shit, and it was better to embrace it than try and fight it. An unstoppable force and an immovable object.
Plus, there was a fair bit of whiskey involved.
The guys and I hadn’t heard a peep from Allie in days, and we hadn’t tried to reach out either. Giving her space like we’d decided—it had felt like a group decision at the time, even if Cade was the one who made it—and we’d even ditched our rental, finally, and headed back to LA. It wasn’t too far if she needed us, but the added physical distance was another layer of hell.
Fucking fuck. It was so dramatic, being in love.
Which was why the three of us had ended up at a shitty dive bar near Hollywood, drowning our collective sorrows.
“We’ve heard your thoughts on the matter a few times now,” Cade told me, slurring a little. “You could’ve spoken up if you didn’t agree with me.”
“It’s all of our mistake,” I allowed, words coming out a little stupid. I thought for a long moment about how I could rephrase, about the grammar, then gave up. “But it was a mistake anyway.”
“Maybe she’ll reach out,” Luca said with a small hiccup.
“Like she reached out five years ago when she was pregnant with my kid?” Cade shot back, and that effectively ended that line of thought.
I nursed what was probably my fourth drink, barely tasting the top-shelf liquor I’d splurged on anymore. The bar lights flickered like they had a grudge against us personally, and the music was just loud enough to be annoying. Some guy was shouting about a girl named Jessica into a karaoke mic two feet to our left. The longer I sat here, the more I regretted all of it—letting her go, not fighting harder, thinking giving her “space” would somehow fix everything.
I was just about to propose a preemptive group hangover breakfast when I caught movement from across the bar. Someone familiar. I squinted and leaned forward, trying to get a better look.
Then I froze.
“Shit,” I muttered, nudging Luca with my elbow, pointing at the blonde woman. “That’s Jordyn.”
Luca’s eyebrows shot up. “No way.”
Cade, to his credit, looked up without much urgency. “Huh?”
I nodded toward the couple in the booth near the bar’s back wall. Hands entwined on the table, a huge diamond glinting on her finger. “Cade. That’s Jordyn. With…I guess her new fiancé? Or husband? She’s got quite a rock on her finger.”
Cade glanced behind him, got quick confirmation that I was right, and turned back to us instantly. He’d threaded the needlewell, looking right at a time when Jordyn was staring with rapt attention into the handsome, dark-skinned man’s eyes, not noticing the group of us at the other end of the dimly lit room. Cade’s expression stayed unreadable for a long beat, and then he made me want to ask who he was and what he’d done with my friend, because he smiled. Not bitter or ironic. A real, actual smile showing through that thick beard of his.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, already scooting my stool back. “No point risking a run-in.”
“Yeah, come on,” Luca added, throwing a few bills down on the table. “We’re not drunk enough to deal with your ex.”
Cade stood slowly, followed us. But he surprised me by asserting, “I’m good, actually.”
By now, we were in the dark of the parking lot. Safely away from Jordyn and her new guy, and Cade looked…relaxed as hell. Not in a drunk way either. I blinked at him, dumbfounded. “Good?”
Cade nodded. “Yeah. I don’t…I don’t feel anything anymore. Not for her. I mean, nothing painful anyway. I’m glad she’s happy, and more than that…” He let out a long breath and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It just solidified how much I want what she has. A life. A real family. With Allie.”
I stared at him. Luca too. It wasn’t that the words were surprising—Cade had always been a romantic, and we all knew how deeply we each cared about Allie even without having to get all sappy, talking about it—but he’d been the one who insisted on giving her space in the first place. And I’d known the guy for years, and he rarely admitted he was wrong.
“You want us to be part of it too?”
