we call life and deciding we’re worth fighting for,” I said. Ginny’s fingers tightened around mine.
Ty and Maleena entered, looking very much the couple who would soon be on a million magazine covers. Him in a tailored black suit and her in a red cocktail dress that screamed success. When Ty saw Ginny and I joined together, his face turned into a huge smile instead of the glower to match Mayson’s that I’d expected.
“You’ve told him you’re going to Europe with him, then?” he burst out.
Ginny huffed. “No! I hadn’t told him yet!”
Ty looked slightly apologetic.
“Wait, what?” Mayson demanded.
“I’m taking an extended vacation to Europe with Ginny. We’ll be gone for a few months.” I stared into two astounded faces. Grace and Mayson were having a hard time keeping up.
“But what about the musical? Our dream?” Grace demanded, her black cocktail dress and thigh-high black boots doing nothing to lessen her intimidation factor.
“It’s not like we live in the prehistoric age. I can do it all remotely.”
More people started arriving, and Ginny turned to Mayson and Grace. “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to tell you in a different way, but I feel like now isn’t the time either. Can we talk later?”
Ty was greeting people at the door, and Ginny squeezed my hand before leaving to join him, dragging Mayson with her and leaving Grace and me alone.
“You didn’t tell me.” She sounded hurt.
“It just sort of happened.”
“I knew something was up yesterday,” she said, referring back to our lunch at the bar. I couldn’t deny it. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“We’re taking it slow,” I said, and she burst into laughter.
“You met her three days ago, and now you’re throwing aside your life to travel the world with her. That is the least definition of slow I can think of.”
I chortled. “I don’t mean that. I mean, we’re friends, and we like each other, but we’re figuring out the relationship at a slower pace.”
She covered her ears with her hands. “Stop. I don’t want to know any more than you want to know about Mayson and me.”
I shuddered. I really didn’t.
Grace and I stayed out of the way the best we could as the room filled with people. Cousins and friends. Watery Reflection band members and their families. People who acted as if they’d all known each other their whole lives. Like Grace and I. They were all part of one huge family, most of whom were hardly related by blood.
The crowd had reached a point where it might have burst from the room by the time Edie walked in with her little baby in her arms and with a flush on her cheeks. I was surprised at how good she looked after just having barely delivered a kid two days before. Women blew me away. They would forever be the stronger gender, no matter what we males wanted to think.
“They’re coming,” she said, and the room turned hushed.
The first to walk in were Mia and Derek, the lean rock star whose dark hair was hardly gray and the quiet woman who seemed to have given Ginny all her looks. Their hands were twined together, smiles on their faces that matched the smiles of almost everyone in the room. Love. Happiness. Behind them, came Lonnie and Wynn, people I’d barely met but knew were Edie and Stephen’s parents. Redheads like their children. Lonnie’s face turned into a huge, goofy smile, and Wynn’s eyes glistened upon seeing the crowd. And finally, Cam and Blake arrived, her dark vivaciousness mingling with his blond charm. Dynamic energy wafted from them that filled the room.
As soon as all three couples were inside, the group waiting yelled, “Surprise!” followed by, “Happy fiftieth!”
They didn’t look fifty in my mind. None of them. Just like Uncle Seth didn’t look fifty, and my dad didn’t look nearly sixty. They looked vibrant and alive like they had another fifty years to give this earth and the people who loved them.
Wynn was crying, and Cam looked stunned, and then their children were piling into them, hugging them, spreading love. I watched as Ginny, her sister, and brother, formed a little unit with Derek and Mia. They belonged together. They looked unaffected by the secrets that had hit them this week, and I hoped, with all my heart, they’d be able to handle one more.
Once the initial wave of greetings was over, the DJ had started the music up, the crowd moved toward the