Page 126 of Roommate's Guide to Love

“Thank you,” she says, wiping the tear away. “Porter, I promise I never thought Bonnie would come here. I?—”

“Absolutely not. Don’t blame yourself one minute because our mother is crazy,” I say. “And now we know she’s in our pasts forever.”

We stand there for a few more minutes, just looking at the pictures of Grace.

“Do you want to see her?”

Missy shakes her head, another tear sprinting free. “I already said my goodbyes. It’s going to be best if I get going.”

“I understand,” I say, bringing my sister in for a hug. “She’ll always know about you. About how you sacrificed to make sure she had the best life she could.”

She nods against my shoulder as we continue the embrace. “Thank you.”

We pull away, but not before I grab a piece of paper and pen from the bar. “Here’s my phone number. Please keep it. If you need anything, ever. And…if you’re ever ready. If you ever want to...”

Missy holds up a piece of paper. “I’ll know how to call you.”

With one more hug, Missy says her goodbyes and is out the back door to a car ready to take her back to the airport, where his plane is standing by to take her back to Wyoming.

“Hey,” Quinn says, wrapping her arms around my waist. “You okay?”

“Yeah…I’m good.”

I bring Quinn around to my front, needing to feel the comfort only she can bring me now, knowing this saga is over. That our lives can start now.

Our lives together. As a family.

We slowly pull apart, but I keep her hand in mine as we walk back toward the table. Which is when I notice that we have a new member to the party.

“Come here, Miss Grace!” Simon pushes away everyone as he makes his way to Wes, who I knew at some point was bringing her back tonight. “I have a good feeling about you today!”

The crowd backs off as Wes hands her over, but everyone is watching intently to see if this will finally be the moment that Simon breaks the stalemate my niece has with him.

“Hey, Miss Grace,” he says, trying to bounce her to get her to smile. She’s not. “Oh, come on. Don’t you know what I did for you today? I knew a guy, and he made documents, and now you get to stay with us forever!”

She looks at him, then looks at everyone else, before seeing me in the crowd. Her arms shoot out, clearly ready to be away from weird Uncle Simon.

“Sorry, man,” I say as I take her from him. “Plus, I haven’t seen this girl in way too long.”

Grace immediately starts smiling for me as I kiss her rosy cheeks and walk with her back to a table. “Hey, baby girl. I missed you.”

Wes and Betsy have been angels this week, keeping Grace more than normal as we tried to figure this all out. I’ve seen her every day, but sometimes only at night when she’s asleep. It feels like it’s been days since I’ve just held her like this, not worried if this was the last time I was going to do so.

“I’m never letting you go,” I say, hugging her tight. But unfortunately, the second I let loose she starts pushing me away, ready to go run into her play area. “Or not.”

Quinn laughs as she loops her arm through mine, the two of us watching as Grace toddles—to massive applause, because most of the people here haven’t seen her walk yet—to her corner.

“It’s over,” she says, her head falling against my arm. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

“It almost doesn’t feel real,” I say. “This whole day—hell, this whole week—felt like one bad dream.”

“I know. But you can wake up now.”

I bring Quinn around, holding her tight to me. “I don’t know how I could’ve done this without you.”

“You need to be thanking Stella. And money bags Logan. And everyone else. I was just the chaos coordinator.”

I shake my head in laughter as I kiss her forehead. “I’m not just talking about today. But everything. You…I know this wasn’t your plan. I know how you ended up here was not how you wanted your life to go. But part of me believes that in some weird way, all of this was meant to happen now. Because you were here.”

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