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“I can’t believe I’ve never brought you here before,” Will said as we hung up our coats.

“I can’t believe I’ve neverbeenhere before.” Somehow, even with Will’s and my appreciation for good food, not to mention my own sister working here, I’d never stepped foot through the restaurant’s doors.

Now, I was mad at myself for missing out. The place was gorgeous.

Gastronomique had been converted from a giant old country manor perched at the top of a hill, with views to Amethyst Lake. If my own cottage were closer to the water, I might even have been able to see it from my window. From the foyer waiting area, I could see the tables were split into three rooms—each with only peekaboo views into the others. With the soft music, low lights, the soft clink of cutlery and murmur of conversation divided into smaller rooms, it felt cozy, even though Reese told me it seated around a hundred and fifty people.

As we hung up our coats on the row of hooks in the entryway, my chest bloomed with happiness at being here. Not just because the food was definitely going to be incredible, or that I’d get to see Reese, but because Will and I’d both had a busy February. Mine was a purposefully relaxed kind of busy, with seeing a career coach and taking care of all the things I’d never found time to do while running Bella Eats, like volunteering on a bunch of activities with the girls at their school.

Will’s was much more packed. He’d been helping his dad with his rehab since he’d been discharged from his extended stay at the hospital.

He’d spent the whole day at the hospital the day they took his father off the ventilator. “I needed to be there when he woke up,” Will told me later that night. “To tell him I was sorry.”

“Why were you sorry?” I’d asked him.

“For holding onto my anger for so long. For my last words to him being so cruel. He fucked up, but he also wanted the best for me, just like Mom used to try to tell me. Me being angry was trying to keep myself safe. But it was only hurting me, and everyone around me.”

My heart had squeezed for him, this man I loved, at finally seeing past his anger and hurt. Just like how I’d seen past my stubborn need to hang onto the blog, conflating it with loyalty to Joe. But while I thought losing the blog would hurt the way losing Joe had, it had been cathartic. Will had helped me see that.

Will and his dad hadn’t officially talked things out as far as I knew. Maybe his father would never figure out how to apologize for how things had gone when Will was a boy, but Will showing up for every appointment—and being with his Dad without anger—that might be reconciliation enough for now.

Besides spending time with his dad and being a dad himself, Will was also running Town Hall without a mayor at the helm, now that Fred had stepped down. He’d come home late every night this week, exhausted but happy. I knew that even if this was how our life would be forever, we’d make it work.

Though I suspected it wouldn’t be. One of the reasons we’d managed to get out on a date was because we’d both discovered we had news to share. I suspected his was likely to do with his job.

I knew Will was skipping a Council meeting to be here tonight, and I rose up on my tiptoes to kiss him. “Thank you,” I said. I was talking about the restaurant date, but I meant everything else too.

“Thankyou,” Will said, pulling me into his arms.

Reese appeared just as the kiss was getting a little not-restaurant-appropriate. “Ew!” she said.

We jumped apart sheepishly. “Sorry,” Will said.

“I’m not,” I said.

Reese elbowed me. “Come on, I can’t wait to show you your seat.”

She was smiling, clearly happy to see us, but maybe as only sisters can, I could see the strain on her face.

“You okay?” I asked as she led us through the doorway to one of the smaller rooms.

She glanced around, then leaned in. “No, actually. I’m at the end of my fucking rope. We’ve had three of our best servers quit in the past week, and now, our owner is here tonight, micromanaging everything. I swear to god, I’m this close to taking off myself, backup plan be damned. In fact, if you guys hadn’t made a reservation, I probably would have.”

“I’m sorry!” I said. “Guess I shouldn’t have waited so long to make one.”

Reese gave a wry laugh. “It’s my own fault for waiting until it got this bad. Anyway, how's this?”

The table she’d led us to was right next to a gorgeous lead-paned window. Outside, stars twinkled over an expansive view of the lake, reflecting like diamonds on the water below.

“It’s the best seat in the house,” Will said.

“Damn right it is,” came a voice from behind me. I turned to see a handsome silver-haired man in his fifties, wearing a suit that rivaled only Will’s. He was sitting with a petite woman of about his age, maybe a little younger but who looked like someone I’d see in a New York lifestyle magazine, with her razor-sharp gray bob, Wednesday Addams-style high collared dress and wine-colored lipstick.

“Charles,” Will said, shaking his hand.

It was the man I’d seen up in the window that day with Will, a lifetime ago.

“This is Michelle Franco, the love of my life.”