Page 111 of Rags to Royals

“I communicated my feelings though, didn’t I?”

Um, definitely.

I’m still freaked out about the idea that the woman he’s supposed to marry is Astrid Olsen. But the more I think about it, the more that makes sense. If his grandfather is going to set him up to marry someone, it makes sense that it’s someone close to the family. Astrid’s family and Cian’s family are very close. Her grandfather was Diarmuid’s best friend.

I take a deep breath, then turn with Cian to face our little crowd.

“Everyone, this is Scarlett,” he says.

They all just look at us. Everyone gathered around already knows my name.

“Scarlett and I met almost two years ago,” he adds. “I’ve been looking for her.”

His words seemed to take a few seconds to sink in, but once they do, everyone gasps, laughs, and steps forward to further surround us.

I don’t remember all the names except that most of their last names is Landry. But there were two people in the crowd that I recognize easily. Charlotte and Amelia. Princess Abigail’s sisters. I know who they are because of photos on the podcast website from the wedding.

The whole surreal is-this-really–happening feeling hits me again. But now everyone knows that Cian and I are together, so I decide to just go with it.

‘Going with it’ means I end up at the big back table of Ellie’s bar.

Cian is sitting right next to me. I meanrightnext to me. His thigh is pressing against mine. He has his arm draped over the back of my chair and his chest is against my shoulder.

And I love it.

We haven’t been able to be “public” together before and this feels so nice. Normal.

This time the place is packed with family, adopted family, and significant others. Honestly, the bar can barely hold any additional people when the entire Landry clan shows up.

It’s loud, boisterous, and the feeling of being automatically included in a group who wants to feed me, and know everything about me, and are just happy to have me here is nearly overwhelming.

In a good way.

If someone had asked me how I’d feel about a situation like this and I would have imagined it, I probably would have assumed that I’d hate it.

But I don’t. I really don’t.

It’s not like they’re all laid back or that they clearly know boundaries or anything like that. They all talk at once. They give each other shit. And while there are a few quieter members of the group, as a whole they are loud.

And they laugh a lot.

They’re also nosey as hell. But I find myself smiling and laughing and telling them far more than I would have expected.

They want to knowallabout me. And how Cian and I met. And why I haven’t seen him in so long. And how I feel about seeing him again now.

So I tell them about Mariah and Ruby. I tell them about growing up in a small town in Ohio. I tell them my dad is a preacher but that we don’t get along but that my stepdad was amazing and that yes, I get along great with my mom.

I tell them about how Cian and I met when I was pretending to be my sister, stripping in New Orleans. Cian fills in details as well. And they take it all in stride.

I tell them that I missed him and thought about him all the time and that I’m happy he came to find me and that I’ve enjoyed every minute of having him back in my life. And I look at him when I say that because I haven’t toldhimthat in so many words and I realize I should have.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this way.

It’s possible I have never felt this way.

The last time I was included in a big group was at church. My dad’s church. And that group was hardly warm and boisterous. Everybodyseemedto be welcoming, but the reason that we all got together was to hear instructions about how we weresupposed to live our lives, how we were supposed to think, how we were supposed to interact with other people in the world.

At the time, it seemed we were a select, special group. That we were being let in on universal secrets. That somehow we had been specially chosen.

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