Page 49

GRACE

The kitchen smells like cinnamon and bacon. Someone’s humming near the stove.

I pad in barefoot, wearing the oversized T-shirt I accidentally stole from McCartney’s laundry pile. No one looks twice. The chaos that first overwhelmed me now feels... comforting. Familiar. Like slipping into a warm pool in the summer sunshine.

Corbin hands me coffee before I ask. Nash lifts a wiggling toddler off the table like it’s normal for there to be toddlers on tables.

“You okay?” Cody asks, towel over his shoulder, eyes soft but still sharp enough to undress me on the spot.

The memory of him inside me, of them all inside me, floods through me, filling me in a way I never thought possible.

All my adult life, sex has been something that emptied me of hope, self-worth, and a belief in love.

But what happened last night showed me it can be the opposite, too.

These men filled me with their bodies and their releases, but with their hearts and dreams and a glimpse at a future I could never have believed would include me.

“Yeah.” I smile softly, my eyes a little glazed at the memories, and he touches my cheek tenderly and with understanding.

I sit down at the big, worn table. There’s a groove under my palm I didn’t notice before, like a scar in the wood.

I look around at the chipped paint and the place where a picture has fallen from the wall, at the yellowing curtains hung by another woman a long time ago, and at the ancient stone floor, and realize something.

This place is scarred, too.

And somehow, that makes me love it more.

Yesterday felt like a dream: birthday candles in a cake they baked because it’s my favorite, cowboy hats swapped out for dancing shoes, off-key singing that made me laugh harder than I have for some time.

They didn’t make a big speech or get anything Pinterest perfect, but everything they did was for me.

For me . They turned up, and they showed me what it means to be good men.

Thoughtful men.

And that painting, featuring this beautiful ranch and this beautiful family and me—little old me —at the center. It nearly broke my heart.

Afterwards, they claimed me the way only they could: slowly, reverently, and with a surety that I’ve never experienced before.

There are eleven of them, but at times, they felt as one.

A mouth at my throat, a hand at my breast, another hand guiding me, eyes on me, and hearts wrapped around me.

They held me in ways I didn’t know I needed, talked to me like I’m precious, and took me apart until there was nothing but truth between us.

I believed I was wanted, and that I belonged.

I switched off my phone last night and haven’t turned it back on since. There’s no one I want to be contacted by except the people in this house. The outside world can wait.

Right now, the world is here in the sunlight, slanting through dusty windows, bacon sizzling in a cast-iron pan, and the scent of cinnamon clinging to the air. Someone’s humming again. I think it’s McCartney. He sings like he talks, all gravel and whiskey.

The shirt I’m wearing still smells like his cologne, even though it’s been through the wash. I run my fingers down the hem, feeling surrounded. Inside this moment and this wild, unexpected home I didn’t even know I was looking for, I feel free.

I don’t want it to change.

I want to stay right here, in this messy, noisy, perfect now.