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They’d reached the part of the church where all she had to do was to turn, step through the inner door, and walk down the aisle.

When she did so, and looked up to find Caz staring at her as she was, any doubt she might have had, dissipated in an instant.

“She looks so beautiful,” she whispered to her dad.

“Yes. Not as beautiful as you, mind, but I’m biased.” He chuckled.

Caz sucked in a breath and gasped. “Jesus, she’s stunning.”

From Caz’s viewpoint, she could tell Grace had done something fancy with her hair. The rich chocolate-brown of her hair, standing out beneath the starkly white veil. And there were flowers—lots of flowers—but mostly, it was the smile on Grace’s face that did it for her.

That’s what today was all about: Making her happy.

Dani leaned in, grinning. “Can’t deny, you caught a hottie.”

“Shut it, that’s my wife you’re leering at.”

Just saying the words made it all so much easier to take in. A few more minutes and Gracewouldbe her wife. That was a crazy thought, but a good one, she reminded herself.

When Mr Hart handed Grace off, Caz leaned in and found her eyes behind the veil.

“You look stunning,” she murmured.

“So do you.” Grace grinned.

The vicar coughed gently and got their attention. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Shes, Hes, Theys, and Thems, we are gathered here today—”

Chapter One

January 2024

“I want to have a baby.”

That was the statement that started it all.

Grace sat in a chair in a coffee shop, with a mug of hot chocolate in her hand, and uttered those words aloud to her best friend, Caz.

“Right. Well, you’d better get on those dating apps then,” Caz replied, a little glint in her eye as she sipped a matcha latte opposite her and picked grease from under her fingernail. There was always a stubborn bit that wouldn’t wash out.

Grace stared at her for a moment, before her head tilted a little and she followed up her original statement with, “I want to have a baby…with you.”

Had Caz not been blowing on her drink to cool it, she’d have spat it right out, spraying the entire table. Because, never in the almost twenty years they’d been friends, had Grace ever said anything like that.

“What?” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, anyway, putting the mug down and buying herself some time to let the shock of it wear off to the point where she assumed Grace would laugh and say,”Just kidding.”She didn’t.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed I do not have the body parts for that, and equally, I’m gay, you’re not, and we’re best friends.” Caz pointed out what should have been bleeding obvious. Picking up her mug to hide behind, she took a sip, burnt her lip, and promptly began blowing again.

Grace shrugged. “I’m thirty-seven, and you’re thirty-nine, and neither of us have ever had a better relationship than the one we have with each other.”

“Which is because we don’t have sex with each other and aren’t attracted to one another,” Caz said wisely.

She put her cup down once more and pulled the hair tie from her hair, gathering it all up and retying it in an act she knew bore out of nervousness more than the need to look tidy.

“I know,” Grace concurred, “but that doesn’t detract from the fact that, actually…I am at my happiest when I’m with you. And I can’t think of another human being I’d want to help me raise a child. You’d be a great dad.”

Caz wrinkled her nose. “I might work on cars for a living, and wear trousers and shirts—often a suit, I’ll grant you, but I am not a man—”

“I don’t mean you’re a man. I mean, you’d be the one who took them to the park and ran around with them. You’d be the one they could talk with about football, or girls, and fix cars.” She smiled. “You’d be the yin to my yang.”