Page 81 of Wedding Bet

“Well, you’re doing great, too,” he murmured behind my ear. “I know introducing a new boyfriend can be nerve-wracking.”

A fizzle of energy shot through me.

Boyfriend.

“Landry,” I said quietly. “Do me a favor and say that last sentence again?”

“What?” he said. “Introducing a new boyfriend can be nerve—oh, shit.”

He released me from his arms and I turned to face him. “Yeah. That one.”

A momentary look of panic passed over his face. “Did—did I say that too soon? Is this another dating convention I’m behind the times on? I’m sorry if you weren’t ready for that kind of label.”

“Boyfriend,” I said, letting a slow smile pass over my lips. “I thought I was the one who was going to have to fight to call you that. I thought it was going to slip out one day, and you were going to be upset, and we’d have to take it super slow.”

He puffed out a quick laugh, his gaze dancing from my eyes to my lips. “It just seemed like a natural thing to say.”

“And I absolutely,” I said, pausing to press a small kiss to his lips, “loveit, boyfriend.”

He hummed, pulling me close. “Thank God for that,” he murmured. “Because if I couldn’t be your boyfriend, I think I’d just call it quits on dating forever, thank you very much.”

“Let’s go inside and help Mom and Chase before I steal you away and ride into the sunset forever, okay?” I said, giving him one last squeeze on the hip.

I walked back inside with Landry—myboyfriend, not just a guy I was seeing. It turned out that he was equally as helpful in the kitchen as he was with a paintbrush. Mom quickly regaled us with a story she’d heard from a woman at the post office thatmorning, all about a Boston Terrier that had somehow learned to sing.

By the time we all sat down around the old dining table to eat, it felt like Landry belonged there. Somehow, it was the most surreal of all of the things I’d experienced with him.

The snowglobe had been ours.

The wedding had been emotional.

And a few weeks ago, at the beach, I’d felt like I was in a dream.

But this was something altogether different: just Landry, a part of my everyday life, sitting at the table with the two most important people in my life, and nothing felt one bit out of place. As Chase joked with him about yoga classes they’d both taken with Emmett back in Colorado, I got choked up for a moment, realizing what my life had started to become.

This wasmylife. And it wasn’t anywhere near perfect, but that didn’t mean Landry thought I was any less worthy of a relationship. Right here, and right now—not when I “finally had everything figured out.”

And that meant more than even the most perfect snowglobe moment, frozen in time.

My everyday world was something beautiful.

22

LANDRY

“I think I did okay,” I told Jamie later that night, as my Mercedes hummed below us on the freeway. “Other than the moment where I said I didn’t like blueberries. I think she wanted to kill me for that one.”

“Oh, she’s going to try to convince you for a long time,” Jamie said, reaching over to rest a hand on my thigh as I drove. “You’re going to have to try bites of blueberry muffins, pies, and cakes, but eventually she’ll accept that they’re just not for you.”

“I can accept that. Your mom seems like a wonderful person,” I told him, sincerity in my voice.

“I love her so much.”

The low lights on the freeway soared past the car windows. We were on our way back up to LA for the night, and I got to have Jamie all to myself for the whole day tomorrow on his day off.

“When we get back I’m going to show you my secret spot,” I told Jamie.

“Secret spot, huh?” he said, and when I glanced over at him he was lifting an eyebrow. “Do I evenwantto know what you mean by that?”

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