Page 36

Eden

E aston calls us into the kitchen for dinner, which is two lasagnas—one spinach and pesto, and one meat lover’s. I take a spoonful of each.

“Why choose?” I say, lifting a shoulder as Sonya comes up on my left.

“Indeed,” she says, laughing, and does the same. “Woman after my own heart.”

We sit together on the couch.

“So,” a voice says, and I look up to find Shane, eyes amused, watching me. “You and Rhys, huh?”

“Shane,” Ivy warns from the doorway behind us. She comes in and edges up to her fiancé. “Behave.”

“Don’t I always?” he asks innocently.

“Almost never,” she says, sighing, but she smiles up at him fondly, and it’s clear she adores him.

“This is amazing.” I indicate my plate full of lasagnas, salad, and hot, tender garlic bread. “I want a lifetime invite to family dinner.”

The whole room goes silent.

“Shit! No! I didn’t mean it like that!”

They’re all staring at me.

“I swear I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant, you know, for the food.”

“Uh-huh,” Shane says. He’s smirking.

I sigh.

“I can’t believe Rhys left you alone with this crew,” Sonya whispers. “He must have a lot of faith in your ability to hold your own.”

“I told him to go. Maybe Tucker will talk to him.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m worried about him.”

“No secrets,” Natalie says. “It gives me seventh-grade flashbacks.”

“We were just saying we hope Rhys can get something out of Tucker,” Sonya says.

“Amen to that,” Natalie says.

It gets quiet for a second while we all privately agree.

Gus sniffs his way up to my knee, then paws it for attention.

“Hey, dude,” I say, leaning down and giving him a nose kiss. He jumps up on the couch, turns once, and plops down, snuggled up against my thigh.

“Look at him!” Sonya says. “He doesn’t usually do that with anyone except me.”

I scritch Gus’s goofy little tuft. “I’d almost forgotten how nice it feels. It’s been almost four months since Milo went to New York?—”

“Milo?” Ivy asks.

“My dog. My ex has joint custody.”

Sonya makes a sympathetic face. “That sucks.”

“It kinda does,” I agree, as Gus sighs and settles his face on my thigh, politely not interfering with my plate so I can go on eating my lasagna.

“Hey,” Natalie says. “I don’t know if you saw, but the Rush Creek firefighters are doing a benefit for the shelter, and there are some ovary-blasting photos of hot firefighters and cute dogs.” She pulls out her phone and passes it around.

When it gets to me, I set my fork down and flip through the photos, not seriously shopping, but…my fingers stop on one. The guy’s not half as hot as Rhys, but the dog is flipping adorable, a cocker spaniel–beagle mix with mismatched floppy ears going in opposite directions.

So. Tempting. But there’s still the problem of Milo being around half the time and not the other half. Reluctantly, I pass the phone back to Natalie.

Ivy is the first to break the silence. “Sonya and I went to your show at Five Rivers. It was incredible!”

“Aw, thank you.”

“It was mobbed, too. The woman who runs Five Rivers says they’ve never gotten this many people at a show before.”

I smile. I’ve been hearing good things from all corners—including from the quilters, who’ve been getting commissions and curated show invitations by the bucketload. It makes me really happy.

“So you run a quilt store?” Ivy asks. “That’s pretty freaking cool. What got you into that?”

“My grandmother was a quilter,” I say. “She taught me.”

“Was?” Sonya asks.

“She passed when I was in college.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. She was a…difficult woman.”

She tilts her head. “Difficult how?”

Every face in the room is soft with attentive curiosity, and I find myself, strangely, wanting to tell them more.

“Cold. Withholding. Her only love language was teaching me to sew. And I was a lonely kid. No siblings, father died when I was little, and my mom was—absent. I figured out pretty quickly that being good at sewing would get me the attention and the affection I wanted.”

“Poor kid,” Sonya says. I like the way she says it, acknowledging what I went through but also making it clear that we both know it was childhood pain, so I don’t feel like she’s pitying me. “I’m surprised you ended up liking it so much.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Even once I realized how messed up our dynamic was, it didn’t kill my love of quilting. If anything, it made me want to hold on to it more. Because she did let me down—but also, it was all she knew how to give.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Ivy says.

“Took a lot of therapy,” I say, laughing.

“Therapy for the win,” Shane says. I flash him a quick look, thinking he’s messing with me, but he gives me a nod and a warm smile, and I realize: He means it.

For all his irreverence, there’s a core of kindness in him. Maybe in all the Hotts.

“I don’t know a ton about quilting,” Sonya says. “Do you make, like, the big ones? Like to go on beds? Or small ones that are artsier? Or…?”

“My grandmother’s style was very traditional.

Lots of perfectly formed squares with exactly quarter-inch seams, but the older I got, the more I experimented.

She didn’t approve, of course. She called them messy quilts.

But by then I realized she wasn’t the last word on quilting—or on life in general—and I started sneaking into other quilting classes and soaking up everything I could learn.

And as soon as I could get the loans to do it, I started my own shop. ”

“That’s amazing,” Natalie says. “I love how you made something beautiful out of a hard childhood.”

And damn, now I like her, too. I like them all, and that’s—awesome, and it also sucks, because I’m not getting a family dinner invitation for life, just for tonight, and when Rhys goes back to New York there won’t be any reason for me to hang out with this crew.

And if Weggers decides not to cut the Hotts slack on the will, my wedding will be the reason why Hanna lost everything, and no one will want that reminder at family gatherings.

It makes me sad.

“No!” Eloise says suddenly, and we all turn to look at the toddler, who is standing over Frank, the other dog. “No!”

“Oh, shit,” I say. “That’s my sneaker.”

Frank has pilfered my shoe from where I left it by the door. Now he’s got it wedged between his paws and is snuffling into it curiously.

“Frank!” Sonya scolds, reaching for the shoe, but Frank growls and doubles down over his prize.

“I have no idea what’s gotten into him,” Sonya says. “He never does this!”

Mari’s words echo in my head. There was this family lore that if Gabe’s dog, Buck, chewed up a girlfriend’s possessions, she was The One. I thought it was total bullshit…until Buck ate one of my shoes.

No. I don’t believe in fate, signs, or—anymore—happily-ever-afters. And I definitely don’t believe in prophesies delivered by dogs.

But when I look up, I discover Hanna and Easton staring at me. And they both look like they’re trying really, really hard not to laugh.