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“You alright there?” Dante asks. He glances over from his seat to my right with a smile. “Is the whole being married thing hitting you yet?”

Matt leans forward, resting his elbows on the table as he looks at me. “It took me a little while. Not because I didn’t want to be married. I did. Obviously.” He pauses. His ears turn pink as he adds, “I’d been wanting it for so long, when it finally happened, it hardly seemed real.”

“Same,” Dante agrees. He kisses Sarah on the cheek before adding with a grin, “Plus, I was just so thankful Sarah didn’t change her mind about me and duck out of the wedding.”

“You know I wouldn’t have,” Sarah retorts. She swats Dante’s arm and laughs. “I would have married you sooner. But things kept coming up. And then we wanted our families to be here…”

Trailing off, her expression sobers. In unison, we all look over at the empty table in the corner. At each place setting is aphoto of someone we wish could be here, with a single pink rose laying in front of each one of them.

Tate’s parents. Mine.

And a place for Jeff.

I wish he could be here. I wish he could meet Tate.

He’d be happy for me. I know he would.

Or, as Tate told me a couple of weeks ago, when I was feeling down about it, “He’ll be there at the wedding, Erik. Just like our parents will be. Not physically, but they’ll be there, just the same.”

That’s my Tate. Always making me feel better when something’s bothering me. Even when I don’t tell her, she just knows.

Turning back to Dante, I say, “I was laughing at myself, actually. Looking around, thinking how romantic it all looked. Me. The guy who swore he’d stay single forever. Who had no idea what romance even was.”

“That’s not true,” Sarah interjects. She gives me a warm smile. “I heard about some of the things you did for Tate. The gardening kit? The proposal? The gorgeous pink ring? And what about the pink Kitchen-Aid you bought for her? Those were all romantic things.”

My cheeks warm. “I guess so.”

“The romance is nice,” Matt adds, casting a quick glance over at Isla, who’s sitting in the play area we set up for all the kids in attendance. “But love is more than romantic gestures. It’s being there for the person you love.” He pauses. “For thepeopleyou love.”

Across the barn, Isla stands up with little Dove in her arms. Her belly has a little swell to it, showing off the first hint of the second child they’ve been hoping for.

Another Blade and Arrow baby.

Nowthatis hard to believe.

My friends—my brothers and sisters—all with their own families.

Niall and Jade and Declan.

Isla, Matt, Dove, and their new addition.

Lucy and Xavier and little Alice.

Sarah and Dante. And Rambo, who’s trotting around the barn in a tiny bow tie, with Haystack, Tate and my new kitten, following close behind him.

Rhi and Hawk, along with their new dog, Shadow.

And then there’s the Sleepy Hollow team, who, of course, all came for the wedding.

Leo and Georgia are at the next table over with their little girl, Lily. Lily just turned two, and according to Leo, loves dancing and princesses and anything pink. So the wedding is a big hit for her, obviously.

Zane is sitting with his wife, Elle, on his lap, rubbing her swollen belly and looking happier than I’ve ever seen him.

Rylan and his wife, Charlie, are both over in the kids’ area playing with their new son, Sam. It was a long road for them to get pregnant, including several unsuccessful rounds of IVF before it finally worked, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

Finn and Hanna are still debating whether to have kids or not, but they have two dogs now—Ansel and Porter—and they love taking them on hikes whenever they can.

Two more members of the original Blade and Arrow team—Nora and Jackson—are happy being a small family of two. As Nora explained to me during the rehearsal dinner last night, “If it happens, we’ll be happy. But we’re not worried about it. Jack and I are just happy being together. And besides, B and A is our family. What more could we want?”