Mackenzie picked up her champagne again and put it to her lips, tilting the glass so that the rest of the contents poured into her mouth. As she did, one of her fingers was wiggling around, catching my attention. And there it was, right on her ring finger. A big, fat diamond.
“Holy shit! Mackenzie! You’re engaged?”
Her eyes practically sparkled. “Yes! Eric proposed on Thanksgiving in front of my whole family. It was so romantic.” She clasped her hands together at her chest, practically swooning.
I reached out to touch her arm, briefly squeezing my hand around her. “I am so,sohappy for you, Mack. I can’t think of two people more deserving of a fairytale wedding.”
“Thank you, Millie. You’re my best friend in the entire world, and you’ve been there with us since the beginning.” She paused for a moment, and I noticed a tear slip down her face. “Would you please be my maid of honor?”
I felt myself gasp as tears of happiness burned in the corners of my eyes. “Oh my god, Mackenzie,yes!Of course I will!” I stood up from the table and moved around it to where she was rising from her own chair and pulled her in for a hug.
As we held on to each other, rocking back and forth with tears of joy streaming down our faces, I couldn’t help the fantasy of this exact moment at some point in my future, when I could ask Mackenzie to bemymaid of honor, and knew that the only man I wanted to reach that moment with was Logan.
I walkedinto Adam’s apartment later that evening and caught something delicious wafting from the kitchen. I shrugged my coat off and hung it on the hook by the door and then shimmied out of my cute winter boots. When I rounded the corner to see what could possibly smell so good, I found Rachel at the stove frying what looked like some sort of balled meat. She turned to look at me as I came into the kitchen and smiled brightly. “Hey, Amelia!”
“Hey,” I said right back. “I feel like I keep finding you in the kitchen when something smells amazing. What is it?” I asked, nodding toward the frying pan.
Rachel bounced up on to her toes before she answered, “Chicken croquettes! They’re like, fried balls of pulled chicken—so good.”
“Huh, that sounds delicious. Can I help?”
“Actually,” Rachel answered, eyes bright blue, “do you want to throw together the salad?”
“Sure,” I said, stepping over to the counter.
Rachel instructed me on everything needed for the salad before jumping back to the stove to flip around the croquettes. We were working side by side in a comfortable silence when I remembered Adam’s nudge from yesterday.
“Hey Rachel, I meant to ask Adam for your number but now that you’re here, let’s swap info. I’d love to get lunch with you one day soon if you’re up for it?” I turned over my shoulder to look at her.
“Oh my gosh, yeah! That would be great!”
“Cool,” I said, focusing back on the carrots I was chopping.
The front door opened, followed by the sounds of boots shuffling off, and then Adam was bounding his way into the kitchen with two bottles of wine in hand. “It smells like heaven in here, Rach,” he said, holding out the two bottles. “I got two reds, hope that’s okay?”
Rachel beamed up at him. “Perfect.”
Adam set them both on the counter before turning my way. “What’s up, sister?”
“Hey, no work tonight?” He’d worked the last two nights since we got home from Breckenridge.
“Not tonight, but I’ll work most of this coming week.” I made a quick mental note of this. “What have you been up to today?”
I added the sliced carrots to the wooden salad bowl next to me on the counter. “I had brunch with Mackenzie, and then did a little apartment hunting around the city.”
“Oh nice, find anything worth pursuing?”
I shrugged. “Everything I like costs a fortune. And everything in my price range is a dump. When did it get so expensive to lease an apartment?”
Adam chuckled. “Denver is a gorgeous city, and people have been transplanting here from all over the country for years. Everything is expensive.”
I frowned at the tomatoes.
“How’s Mackenzie?” Adam asked. “I haven’t seen her since . . . damn, I actually don’t think I’ve seen her since Mexico.”
“She’s great—her and Eric just got engaged, and she asked me to be her maid of honor.”
Adam’s face lit up at the news. “Wow, he finally did it, huh?”
