“I bet this is foreplay for you two,” Grant snarks, probably aiming it at Ella and Leo.
“Not this time,”Leo affirms.
“I will claw your eyes out if you ever try to get me to wear one of these again, Zimmerman,” Ella threatens her husband.
“We have the same surname, darling,” Leo reminds her. “You don’t quite scare me anymore.”
“Keep one eye open tonight while you’re sleeping,” she tells him.
“Now that we’re all here, can we take these off?” I ask Grant as he moves around me.
“One moment, girls,” he says, and I hear a lock click, a door slowly opening before he grabs my hand, leading me inside. “Okay, now you can take them off.”
I undo mine, and tears spring to my eyes almost immediately as I recognize where we are.
Grand Mountain College—the same classroom where we started book club in all those years ago.
“What are we doing here?” I ask as I turn to meet Grant. “Are we even allowed in here?”
“Celebrating,” Leo says as he grabs a bottle of champagne from next to a bunch of snacks and our book club choice for this month.
“Celebrating what?” Paige asks, her eyes also full of tears.
“You guys,” Oliver tells us. “Because without your book club, none of our lives would be where they are today.”
“And that’s the truth,” Henry reminds us. “You four are responsible for the lives we’re all living.”
“What’s that?” Ella asks as she points to a small plaque on the wall. The four of us walk over to it, reading the small inscription.
For The Grand Mountain Book Club: Hads, Paige, Ella, and Amelia. Four started as strangers, four ended as family.
Plaque donated by Grant, Oliver, Leo, and Henry.
“You guys did this for us?” Amelia asks, tears falling down her cheeks.
“It was the least we could do,” Grant tells us.
“You four are special,” Leo states. “And though we let you know every day how thankful we are for you, this plaque is there to remind you.”
“Books brought you together, but the impression you made on one another will last lifetimes,” Henry reminds us. “Lifetimes in the form of our kids.”
“You guys…” Paige sniffles.
“I can’t believe this,” I say through my own tears. I used to hate crying. Now, I find myself doing it constantly at the littlest things. Rosalie, my daughter, latched onto my finger the other day, and I started bawling.
“Do you guys remember the first time we all sat in here?” Amelia asks us.
“Of course we do,” I answer. “It was the day everything changed.”
“Can you believe where we are now?” Amelia asks, and we all stand silently, really taking in the moment.
“And it’s all thanks to books.” Paige smiles before she wraps us all in a group hug. “I love you guys so much.”
“Books are magical,” Ella says, squeezing us all a little tighter.
“You four are the real magic,” Grant reminds us.
And as the eight of us reminisce on the good old days, I find myself thanking the college version of myself for walking into this room on campus. I never would have guessed this is where it would have led me—sitting here years later with the same girls I started this journey with.